The final documents for our Shaohannah's Hope grant applicaton went out today. Please pray along with us as these documents are processed. Trey prayed over them for us before they went to the post office. I should have video taped it.

Trying to get in touch with Diana. She's been out of the country, but should be back in the States now. I can't seem to locate her. I still have my I-171H at my house. I was hoping it would have already found it's way to Acres of Hope.

It's been a really good day, and it just got even better. I have had an amazing day with my family. Eric and I took the boys to the Franklin Park Conservatory and it was so relaxing and fun. Then we came home and colored our Easter eggs. Then the mail came, and guess what was inside my mailbox? MY I-171H APPROVAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was supposed to take at least 3 weeks, and I have heard of it taking up to 6 months. The Columbus office is on top of things! It's only been 10 days! If you can't tell, I'm extremely excited. This is the very last document needed to make us referral ready with Acres of Hope. Only a tiny bit of that excitement left when I called Diana to share the news and find out where to fax this to, and I received a voicemail that she was out of the country until the 27th. Oh well--at least I have the paper in my hands.

Other adoption news. We have completed the on-line portion of our grant application for Shaohannah's Hope. I have to get busy quickly on the rest of the documents they need mailed to them this week.

Finally, keep your calendars clear for April 26th. Our amazing friends are planning a benefit for the adoption. More details to come.

And it's March Madness time, a day really doesn't get much better than this.

Added later*************Okay, it can get a little better. Cowboy won $150 in the lottery today. That's a lot of money for an old homeless man. He was so excited!

Eric and I have now been officially fingerprinted by the Department of Homeland Security. So weird.

Please pray that our fingerprints are processed quickly. It is supposed to take 3 to 6 weeks for us to get our approval. I have no idea why it would take that long. It was all done on this extremely high tech computer. It seems to me that it shouldn't take long for the computer to tell them if we are criminals or terrorists. Anyway, we are really at a stand still until we hear back from them.

Due to the Blizzard of 2008, our fingerprinting will now be on Wednesday at 8:00am.

I talked with Diana from Lighthouse on the phone this weekend. She has not mailed our dossier to Acres yet, and may not be able to until our I-171H approval. We talked about finances as well. We owe a fee right now, again, it is the EXACT amount that we have in our adoption savings account. We will not owe any more money until we receive the referral of our children. At that time we will owe a tremendous amount of money. I told Eric yesterday that I believe that when the time comes for us to pay for the completion of this adoption, the money will be there again.

I continue to prepare myself for a long referral wait. Who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. But, it seems very likely to me that this will be another time to learn more about waiting on God's timing.

That's all the adoption news I have for now...

Fingerprinting this Saturday at 11:00am. The Columbus CIS office seems to be extremely quick and efficient based on our interaction with them over the last two weeks. That isn't always the case from what I've heard. So, I'm hopeful that we will finish all this up soon and have our I-171H approval quickly. We'll see. I don't know why I'm so anxious to finish up immigration, then we'll have nothing to do but wait some more!

It's 8:00 and I'm going to bed. I've decided I need the sleep.

Let's try this again...sent the I600-A BACK to immigrations today. Hopefully I won't hear from then again until they contact us about fingerprinting. I'm not writing all of this out for your reading pleasure, I'm aware that this is not the most exciting kind of information to read. I'm writing each step of this out so it is documented here for us to look back at and for our girls to read some day. I wrote often, either on this blog or in my journal, about each step of my pregnancies with the boys. In a completely different way, I'm pregnant again and I want to record each step of this "pregnancy" as well.

A few weeks ago we attended a service at the big Vineyard church with my in laws. During the praise and worship time the band started playing a song that has become very familiar to me over the last five years. I completely lost it. These are the words...

If You say go, we will go
If You say wait, we will wait
If You say step out on the water
And they say it can't be done
We'll fix our eyes on You and we will come

Your ways are higher than our ways
And the plans that You have laid
Are good and true
If You call us to the fire
You will not withdraw Your hand
We'll gaze into the flames and look for You

We first heard this song while we were planning our move to Columbus from Bowling Green. We had no idea what God had in store for us, all we knew was that He had said to leave EVERYTHING that was familiar and secure and to trust Him for all we needed. At times this song was all I had to cling to. I would listen to it repeatedly, sobbing while I was packing up our house. When we decided to move to Franklinton this song was again extremely important to me. God used it to remind me that it was my job to simply obey Him. And now, this adoption. It's crazy, I know that. I know a lot of people think it's crazy. We know it's what God has called us to. It's as simple as that. So, hearing this song again at Vineyard was extremely emotional for me. Tonight I had dinner with my in-laws and while Pop Pop had the boys in the bathroom my mother-in-law told me that she really believed that God used that song that night as another confirmation that we were doing the right thing. I really needed to hear that tonight.

One step forward, two steps back. That's how it feels right now. The Columbus immigration office seems to think that I did not mail in enough money with my I600-A, even though I followed all the directions given to me very carefully. Lighthouse actually verified that I had done everything correctly and filed the paperwork for me. So frustrating to receive it all back in the mail today. So, there is nothing I can do about it until Monday. As if the wait for all this immigration stuff isn't long enough...we get to add a few weeks to our wait time now.

And yet, here's the most important thing I'm learning...God's timing is perfect. And, it's not always important for me to understand.

Tonight it was a joy to watch my little boys play together and I couldn't help but think what this house will look like with two more little people running around giggling.

Thank you so much to those of you who continue to give to help make this dream a reality. We have received such generous gifts, sometimes from people we don't know well at all. Thank you so much.