171H and our Dossier

Well - as most of you already know - we received our 171H in the mail on July 12th! Yeah! I did a little dance! Now we were just waiting on our dossier documents to return from the Secretary of the Commonwealth. It had been 8 days (only 6 working days) so I expected them any time. I waited till the 14th (friday) to call the Sec. of the C. to check on them (as my Express mail ticket said it hadn't been sent yet). When I did . . . . they could find no record of them anywhere. ????? How could they lose all 17 documents that I painstakingly took 2 months to gather?! I prayed and prayed over those documents during this whole process. The funny thing is - I had a strange (Godly) peace about the situation. They had the whole office looking for our documents on friday from 3pm till close and possibly on Saturday. I had all my friends and family praying. Worst case senario - we would have to redo them all. It's doable, but just a pain.

Well . . . at 9:55 am today I got a call from Tabitha at the Sec. of the C.'s office saying they had found our documents!!! Yeah! They would process them and get them in the mail today! PTL! Thank you for all your prayers guys! God is good!

God had shown me a picture last week when praying about whether we should switch to KAS and pursue Nancy.

Jeremy and I were coming off the cliffs that we had been rapelling (working with AHH) and were removing our gear. We then turned and started down a narrow dirt path through some tall (up past my knees) grass that was blowing in the wind. It would occasionally obscure the view of the path, but God said to keep walking - that the path was still there and to trust that there were not any rocks or anything to cause us to trip and stumble. The path was smooth. We walked a short way and came to a river where a canoe was waiting. We were to get in without paddles. The river would take us where we needed to go. It started out as a babblin slow brook (we were to enjoy the scenery then), but quickly turned into a fast-moving river. The river narrowed into a shallow gorge between 2 large flat-topped rocks. The canoe just fit in between the rocks! As we went through, we realized that we were heading down a steep waterfall! It was a bit scary, but exciting! We landed in a calm pool of water, floated to the shore and got out.

I felt like the problems with the Sec of the C. were just part of the grass blowing over the path (along with some other things I'll tell ya in a minute). There was nothing to fear - the path was still there. It was also our of our control, so no need to get upset or panic. We can't control the wind or the grass blowing in it. As for the other issues that are "obscuring the path" . . .

Since I last wrote - Jeremy and I decided to tell KAS that we wanted to move forward with Nancy and switch to KAS if that is what AHH would let us do. That took a few days to get an answer, but AHH is willing to let us go! Amazing! That is rare in today's adoption world!!! God is in control!! Again - this goes back to the pictures God's given me. We would have never found KAS (the river) had we not gone with AHH (down the cliff) as I didn't know about KAS when I originally did my agency research. See? God knows what he's doing! Anyways - when we told Lucy (the director of KAS) that we wanted Nancy - she said that the other family that had called about her a couple weeks before us (and had called when I was on the phone with Lucy the first time) has decided to put in an application to KAS just when we decided! I don't know if that meant they were wanting Nancy, or just wanting to work with KAS. We're still waiting to find out. Originally Lucy had said that if 2 families wanted this little girl that she would have to pray about where she should go. That was really encouraging (and rare in today's world - especially in adoption). Most agencies say that whoever is the "most paperwork ready" or who sends us the money first will get to accept the referral. I really liked Lucy and her values and willingness to see God's will be done above business and everything else. That can be challenging in toay's society! Anyways . . .
Last week was a strange week! We finally decided, then there's another couple wanting the same child. We wanted to switch to KAS, but wasn't hearing from AHH for most of the week regarding it. Lucy changed her mind and said that whoever got the money first to her could accept Nancy. This caused a little panic as their fees are broken into 2 main payments (unlike AHH's 4 payments) - so that meant we needed $11,000 right now and we only have $3000 in savings. I was going to use our 0% interest credit card through AHH, but KAS doesn't have the same online payment system and would charge a little more to use paypal (so they don't have to eat the paypal fees. I can understand. It adds up after awhile!). Anyways - Lucy changed her mind again and went back to praying about the situtaion. I had peace again. I want Nancy to be in the home she is meant to be in . . . whether that is ours or not. If she is not meant to be ours, then our daughter is still out there and I trust God to lead us to her. I also trust God to provide for the finances for this adoption. I don't know HOW He will do it, but I trust that He WILL do it! Thank you to those of you that have already helped out! You are a blessing!

So - as we stand right now - our application is in at KAS, AHH is working on sending our paperwork to KAS (and getting a release form for us to sign), we are researching into funding/financing options (I haven't even been able to apply for grants yet because we haven't known what agency we are officially going to be working with), and we are waiting to hear from Lucy in regards to Nancy. Thanks for all your prayers this weekend and throughout this whole process. God is in control!! We continue to covet your prayers and support!
Well - it's off to swim at a friend's today and then run around to doctor's appointments and grocery shopping, so I better go. Plus I'm sure I've worn your eyes out with my long posts! I need to write more frequently so make the posts shorter. . . . . like that would really happen! :) I tend to be wordy!
Have a great day!
Lori :)