Sunday Feb 27th as we were leaving church I got an email from Betty at Sonrise, with our second referral. Steven's "baby" brother will be (God willing) baby Mark. This was still pending his orphan investigation, which might be a little more difficult because his village is several hours from Sonrise. We were so excited to find this out...still a little in shock that we are adopting two, but praising the Lord that he is giving us TWO boys!
All of our paperwork here (home study, immigration approval, etc.) was prepared for the adoption of two children, so we were okay there. But there's a lot of work to be done overseas. However, prayerfully, that shouldn't delay things, and by God's grace, we would be looking to travel in May. The girls are extremely thrilled at the prospect of having another brother and can't wait to get to have them home!
So with this in mind we had to get started on a bit more funding. We have a couple of more months to raise approximately $5000-$6000 for the second adoption, but considering what God has already done, we were not going to worry about that. We started by having a yard sale which many of you gave tons and tons of your things to help me out.
Now on the last day I held the yard sale I have to say we got some of the best news ever! I'd been waiting on these words for a long time. Our I-600A form (petition to adopt an international orphan) and home study have been at USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) for a little over a month now. Josh called every week to see if our case had been assigned to an officer, and every week they tell him "no, sorry, still waiting". I told Josh to stop calling because it was upsetting me a bit. Well, he decided this morning he would call anyway. Long story short.....we were APPROVED the day before!!!! She said we should be getting our approval letter in the mail in the next week or so!!!!
So while I'm at the beach what comes in the mail, you guessed it....the approval letter! Our social worker also let's us know that our affidavit's are ready to be signed. Woohoo! This is a good week! So why are we so excited??? This is the final piece of the dossier that we need! The dossier is the package of all the stuff they send to our Ugandan attorney. Once he gets that and goes through everything, he will begin TRYING TO GET US A COURT DATE IN UGANDA!!!!! This can technically take up to two or three months, however, our social worker said that they are moving extremely fast, and recently she has seen people travel within 30-45 days of getting immigration approval!!! If that was the case, that would put us in country with our sons in APRIL!!!! That's obviously not guaranteed, but that is what we are praying for. We want them home by Mother's Day!!!!
OK, back to the good stuff. Josh brought everything with him to the beach on Wed and we signed all the copies. We sent them overnight via UPS. We got an email confirmation from our wonderful Social Worker Claire that said "Good news! I received the affidavits and your entire dossiers are currently in transit to Uganda! Have a great weekend! Ya’ll stay in touch with thoughts and questions and I will let you know when Isaac tells me he has received everything!" So this is it...everything is done on our side. All we do is wait on our court date. I can't believe this...these two precious boys will be in our arms in less than two months.
Josh had sent out an email to many of our friends asking them if you get nothing else out of this email, please get this, all I can say is that God is so much bigger than the box we put Him in!!!!! He has proven Himself more than faithful time and time and time again. We've been literally left speechless everyday for about the last three weeks. Through this adoption process, we have seen God's Hand in ways that we never would've imagined. He is so much better to our family than we deserve. We get the joy, He gets the glory!!!!! To put it as plainly as I can, we are overwhelmed by Him right now, and that is exactly the place where we want to stay. All of this is true and so much more. Sometimes I don't even have words to describe the way God is putting our family together. His ways are greater than I could ever imagined.
Please pray for an expedited court date!!! I can't say this enough... your prayers, donations, and whatever else is appreciated more than you will ever know on this side of eternity!!! I can't wait for the day my family and you get to meet them!!!! :)
P.S Just had to send a special thank you to two brothers and a sweet girl (Paxton & Jacob Dutton and Hailey Taylor)that had a lemonade stand to "Help Bring the Boys Home". They raised around $135 for Steven and Mark to make it that much closer to coming home. That just blesses my heart to pieces!