A letter to Jadyn Grace

So, in one week I will hold you for the first time.  I can not even begin to tell you how that makes me feel.  I am excited, scared, anxious, sad, overflowing with love, and so much more!  I have been told many times to be prepared for you to be upset, to be sad, to be nervous.  I am okay with these emotions.  You will not know me, will not trust me, will not want me, will not love me.  I am okay!  I know that in time all these things will come.  I know that one day we will share stories about your reactions and feelings and marvel at how far we have come.
What I want you to know, I love you.  I will not leave you, I will hold you and cry with you and laugh with you.  I will wait for you to know me and trust me.  I will wait!
I will pray with you for the parents that made that first hard choice.  That knew you and loved you enough to give you life.  I will mourn with you for them every time you ask why or how.  I will do my best to explain and help you understand.
I will, most importantly, do all I can to show you Christ.  He and only He can fill the holes and emptiness that I'm sure you will experience.  His love is everything, it is all you need.  Without Him we are and have nothing.  He will love you, He will mourn with/for you, He will pursue you, He will wait for you; and He'll do these things SO much better than I will!
Jadyn Grace, I can not wait until next week when I will see your precious face and hold your precious hands!

He cares about every detail!

So, we have friends that are adopting for the second time from our baby girls country.  They started out a little faster in the process this time than us because they have been here before.  They were matched a little over a month before us.  For awhile we've been talking about how crazy it would be if we ended up traveling together.
Now, let me just interject here a little...  This is a couple that we've known for YEARS!  Like, since high school.  We've been married about the same amount of time, we spent years at the same church; it's just a family we are extremely comfortable with.
Also, and I'm sure I've said this before, John HATES to fly!  When he just completely trusted God last year and went to a first meeting to go on a mission trip, without me, as the people were coming in behind him he noticed that his best friends, his sister-in-law, his best friend's dad, etc, were among the group preparing to go.  I kept telling him "God is giving you a gift!  He knows you are completely out of your comfort zone but you trusted Him anyway and now He's sending some of those closest to you as comfort!"  It was truly an answer to prayer.
So, when we started talking about how crazy it would be to travel with friends to bring home our girls it was but a dream.  I mean, there were SO many variables!  Like 6 months worth of variables that would all have to work out in perfect timing for us to all travel across an ocean to the perfect children God had prepared for us.
Well, as the last few weeks have progressed it was looking more and more like we WOULD be traveling together.
It started out that we would be going and coming home the same dates, then that we would be spending our tour day together, and then that not only will we be on the exact same flights to and from, but literally on 2 of the 4 we will be sitting behind each other!
I mean REALLY?!?!?!?!
All I can say is BUT GOD!

Dear Father God,
You are so good to us.  We fail you everyday, but in our failures You bring Your will to fruition and cover us with Your grace and mercy.  I am in awe of You and Your goodness.  I pray Lord God that in all I do Your name is lifted high and Glory and Honor are all Yours.
I am filled with thankfulness and humbleness in Your presence.  Thank You for all things!
Amen!

The countdown begins....

When I posted last night I had no idea I'd get confirmation of our travel today.  Our travel approval email came which means we have an official countdown!!!!  Praise Jesus, He is so good to us!
We have prayed for so long for this day.  There were days that seemed like years and then there were weeks that seemed like seconds.  God is so good and has taught me so much in the last almost 2 years.  His love never fails and never ends, and His grace is unfathomable to me.

We will be arriving in country on Dec 5.  I CAN NOT wait to do some exploring of our princesses heritage.  We will "tour" a day and then fly to her city on Sunday.
After what I pray will be a decent nights sleep, WE'LL GET OUR GIRL!!!!  The official day will be Dec 8.  I can not begin to imagine what that moment will be like.  I can't even think about it without tearing up.  I just, WOW...!
We will be in her city for about a week and then on to another city where she will have a final physical and we will get her visa.  Our earliest fly home day will be Dec 18.  We have not actually bought tickets yet, but in less than 6 WEEKS we'll be holding our precious girl.  It takes my breath away...

I know I keep saying it but I seriously can't express enough God's provisions and blessings in this process.  He is SO faithful, and my love for Him, I just can't even...!  His love and grace are more than enough.

The next weeks will be maybe random posting, obviously got a lot to do in the next 6 weeks.
Thank you so much for the prayers and love and support from ALL of you!  WE LOVE YOU!!!!!

What's next...

So, after our NVC letter came in, the next thing to wait for was our Article 5.  ( Just so you all know, if you don't know what all of these paper's titles mean, neither do I!  So it's ok!  Just know they're important! )
The estimated time of wait from NVC letter to Article 5 is 3-4 weeks.  Our NVC came on Sept 29, our Article 5 came today, Oct 21.  Basically this paper means we start travel planning.  We've sent (well our agency has sent) our preferred travel dates so that we can get our travel approval.  After travel approval comes we can book flights!!!!!
It's really happening.  We are about to start a real countdown to bringing home our precious girl!
When our travel approval gets here I will let you all know our official countdown begins, but in the meantime THANK YOU!!!
My prayer through this entire process has been and continues to be that God would be glorified.  His faithfulness has been proven over and over again and I am amazed over and over again.  To God Be The Glory!!!!!

AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So, our I-800 came in on Fri the 26th and I filed for our NVC letter.  The timeline for that letter is 1-2 wks, BUT GOD!  Our letter came at 7:00 Mon morning, the 29th!
Now to file for our next piece of paper!
I'll keep you all posted!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow :)!

More papers...

So, the first paper we had to file for, after the all important LOA, was what's called an I-800.  It's an immigration paper.  Remember the paperwork we had to have updated because JJ had turned 18 and because our originals didn't include her "condition"?  Well, we had to have that updated to file this paper.  JJ had to have biometric fingerprints done, which take about 3 weeks to file for and then another week or so to process.
After what was supposed to take 2-4 weeks we finally got that paper in the mail Friday Sept 26., 5 1/2 weeks later!  It's so funny how God's timing works.  Things that are supposed to take months take days and things that are supposed to take days take months.  It's ALL ok though because He knows when we'll travel and it'll be perfect!
We are seriously hoping to finalize travel dates ASAP, but still waiting on more paperwork to be filed.  Every paper takes a couple of weeks, generally speaking.  They say 9-10 weeks from receipt of I-800 to travel; so we are still on track for being home by (or on) Christmas!
To God be the glory!


Til next time....

ANOTHER MIRACLE!!!!!

August 20, 2014...  remember that all important piece of paper, the LOA?  That piece of paper that at the very least is supposed to take 2 months to receive?  BUT GOD!!!!  That's right, 16 days after our LOI was uploaded our LOA landed on our contact's desk!!!!!!!!!  I mean REALLY?!?!?!?!
My phone rang about 4:00 that afternoon.  It was the agency's phone number so of course I answered, having no idea why in the world they would be calling.  Our contact at the other end said, "Hi Joy, I have some very surprising but very good news for you!" (I couldn't even fathom what it might be.  My initial thought was that she had more video to send me?!)  She proceeded to tell me, "I have your LOA on my desk right now."  I didn't even know what to say.  I just cried.  I just kept saying, "I can't talk.  I don't know what to say."  She was as surprised as I was and just kept saying it's fine, just breathe!  She overnighted our paperwork, 2 pieces, that we had to sign and make copies of, and return back to her quickly.
Now, this is the deal.  We were planning to travel about Feb or March of 2015, based on the estimated timeline of how long things are taking right now.  Well, this piece of paper, being the all important one that it is, moves our travel dates up by months!!!!!  She informed me that basically, if we don't travel by Christmas it is because we are choosing to wait.  DID YOU READ THAT RIGHT?!?!?!  She will most likely be in our arms by Christmas, possibly even HOME!!!!!
Oh my goodness y'all, I just can't even put into words.
GOD IS GOOD!!!!!  That's all I got!

Now, we are still waiting to receive our updated home study.  We can not get our next piece of paper until John John's fingerprints are done.  If anything is going to hold us up that will be it.
So, we are waiting again.  Hoping to get our update SOON and praying that his fingerprints process QUICKLY!!!!!

Thanks again you guys, seriously, for praying!  God is still working, miraculously, making things happen to bring Him glory!  This is seriously all a BUT GOD story, and we are honored and overjoyed to be able to share it!!!