Grace

Grace means "the love and mercy given to us by God because God desires us to have it, not because of anything we have done to earn it."

KEEP GOD FIRST!!

Our I800A was approved on 6/18 (my Dad's birthday!) but now just waiting on the actual letters in the snail mail. Jeremy received his yesterday so fingers crossed mine will be today. Next step is that our Dossier will be sent to China. (DTC) The process has been taking 2-3 weeks lately. After this we will be getting logged in to China's system. That might take another 2-3 weeks. Then finally we will be at the point of this process to receive a referral of a precious child.

I'm already finding times of weakness when I long for my child and anxiety when things don't happen on my timeline.

Lord, I need You
Oh I need You
Every hour I need You
(Chris Tomlin)

I really need to get it together and quit time lining again! I said I wasn't going to do it this adoption. And I fell right back into it. I need to get on God's timeline and trust that there are reasons for every day and minute when we haven't received a document or an email.

Much love!
Sarah

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Be Still

"The Lord will FIGHT for you; you need only be still." Exodus 14:14

I have a ton to talk to you about!

First I will briefly mention a subject that was too painful to blog a couple weeks ago.  Haley moved home with her mom.  Which is what we always wanted to work towards!  I don't want that statement to be taken wrong.  We just wanted it to be the appropriate time.  We knew it was coming so we were somewhat prepared.  She was more than ready.  Her mother had mentioned this to her for the past month and a half so Haley began shutting us out of her life.  Things in our household became quite difficult because she distanced her relationships with us.  It was sad and painful.  Because Jeremy and I have had training and extensive reading relating to this type of situation through the adoptions we were familiar as to why she was showing us this behavior.  Never enough to prepare your feelings though!  All I can say is please love on every foster parent you know!  They are truly amazing people.  We had her for 6 months and she was our child. The day she left hurt me but to her it was an exciting day as she was able to reunite with her mom.

(right before she left)

We had our yard sale this past weekend!!  It was a HUGE success.  We can't say thank you enough to all of you for your fabulous donations!  My generous aunt and uncle let us use their yard for the sale and their garage to help store the abundance of items for weeks.  We spent the past couple weeks pricing in our garage and their garage.  My parents, cousins, aunts/uncles, brother & sis-in-law, nieces, friends helped us for days until late at night to make this sale happen.  The multiple nights of rain (mass amounts of down pour!) did not stop us.

NG testing the items out!

  

The night before came and so did the rain. It didn't stop until 8:00 or so.  I felt so discouraged!  I thought to myself...we have an entire garage full, an enclosed trailer full and we have to be completely set up by 7:00 a.m. tomorrow.  HOW????  Oh and rain expected all weekend so we have to set the yard sale up to be rain ready.  Our crew came together and got everything moved around for us.  We sent everyone home by 10 and Jeremy, Drake, Mikayla and I worked through the night.  We were able to complete a lot but not finish. The trailer had not been emptied and still had boxes and boxes packed away.  Family started to arrive Friday morning to help us and so did the buyers!  We worked and unpacked ALL day!  There was not one minute on Friday that we were without a customer.  I could not believe it.  And no rain either.

So many customers!  See all the boxes of DISorganization??!!  Drives me CrAzY!

 Around 4:30 p.m. we tarped our merchandise and Drake and Mikayla spent another night outside protecting our items.  Saturday morning came early for us to have another successful day. We were prepared by Saturday though.  We had rearranged the setup, all items were out on tables, everything was organized! Rain held off and we even had "buck a bag" from noon until about 2:30.  That helped move the final merchandise.  At the end of the day we were only left with less than a truck load of items!  We donated those items to CCC and done for the day at about 4:45.  Then the rain came.  God fought for us!

We made $2515.21!!!!!


THEN we received this in the mail...

This means we are scheduled for our Biometrics Fingerprinting!  Another step in our Dossier process.  We are going Friday to Birmingham for our appointment.  So excited!  This was the only thing we were waiting on other than the I-800a in the Dossier process.  When we had this process for Natalee's adoption it wasn't so easy.  My fingerprints are hard to read.  They unfortunately do not show up.  The first did not take so I had to return.  They told me to use Corn Husker's or some lotion like that to help moisten my fingertips.  I have been using "Working Hands" every day for months in preparation for this appointment.  Let's hope this has helped!

Please pray with us for some specific requests:
1.  Haley in her transition in her new home life
2.  Our adoption agency and all agencies involved during this paper process
3.  God's perfect timing and our hearts as we understand His timing
4.  Referral as we near that in the next few months
5.  friends traveling to meet their child in China next week!
6.  unspoken for my bff <3

Much love,
Sarah