September Update

Oh my goodness...where do I start?! 

The home study process is officially coming to an end. The social worker reports, home inspection, medical reports, your reference forms, etc are now in "my file" and are being sent off to Bethany's corporate office in Michigan along with my social worker's official recommendation (She assures me I passed). 

We now move onto the inter-country dossier and immigration process.  I have to get approval from both the Chinese and US governments to take a child out of one country & bring it into the other.  I can do all this without yet having a child match, which is good.  I was told yesterday that I have to declare either Hong Kong or China before moving forward.  I have yet to figure out the geo-political divisions that somehow makes Hong Kong and their orphaned children different than China, but apparently the paperwork...and the cost...are wildly different. I had just figured out how to finance on my own the MUCH cheaper process through Hong Kong when I was presented with this option yesterday.  I promised my social worker that I would pray & honestly, I thought Hong Kong was going to be the clear answer.  But then, all day yesterday & this morning, I've kept hearing "if you are going to trust Me to provide, you've got to let Me provide all the way."  That's a tough one to argue with...so Little One is coming from China and we/I/me are believe God to provide for the additional $10,000 to bring him/her home. 

I smile to think of the 'birth' story I'll have to share with this child--God's hand so intimately apart of every detail; the miraculous threads that have sown our family together.  What an absolute honor to be chosen to be a part of God's story for him/her.   Praise you Lord.

The Dreaded Home Inspection

Lesson number one when having an adoption home inspection: DO NOT cook pad Thai the night before. Eggs, peanut & chicken is not a good "trust me" kind of a smell. Lesson number two: DEFINITELY don't try to cover the pad Thai smell with a hydrangea candle! Good gravy, that did NOT work.

The interview and home walk through was a two hour process (no real inspecting really, but I KNOW she looked through the cabinets when she conveniently needed to use the bathroom before she left. How did I know, you may ask. I child proofed the dumb things and I heard her trying to open them in the next room. HA! Two points for the adoptive mom!). A lot of questioning about my upbringing making sure I'm not damaged for life. I was honest. I figured the FBIs got my DNA already, hiding anything now is pointless. I think she appreciated that. We laughed a lot and the social worker gave me a healthy wink & a smile at the end. (Is it wrong that I joked about prescribing narcotics for her?!) My final interview is in two weeks then she can submit my home study to the national office to be reviewed by the international specialist and I should be cleared to 'pass go' before Halloween.

GOOD NEWS---my fingerprints came back from the FBI on August 30th! I didn't know this until today. What was supposed to take 3 solid months, took less than 6 weeks! That is truly a miracle.

Next steps---Once the home study is approved (end of Oct), I can start applying for adoption grants (hallelujah!), until then I'm working on all the paperwork needed for my Hong Kong dossier. I didn't realize that you could move forward with this without a child match---turns out the dossier is country-specific not child-specific. This is great news as we can keep moving forward as we are waiting for a child match. As much as I hate not having a tangible child to focus on, I truly am thankful for God's hand of protection & timing on this. I would be going absolutely BONKERS if I knew MY child was out there & I couldn't get to him/her for another 6months. I am reminded of Corrie ten Boom's account of her father carrying her luggage to the train station and she fighting to be able to carry it by herself as a young child. (I'm paraphrasing here...). Her father told her "I'll carry your burden until it's time for you to carry it yourself".