Slow and steady wins the race, right? That's the saying. If that's true, then we are poised to win this adoption race. Since my last post, we've made slow but steady progress towards the day we get to bring our girls home. Slow and steady is the norm when it comes to adoptions, but I have to admit that it is not my style at all. Just one of the ways the Lord is teaching me throughout this process.
Just before Halloween, we received our biometrics appointment from US Immigration. Biometrics sounds like something crazy like retinal scans and DNA testing, but it really just means that we had to have digital fingerprints taken at a regional Immigration office. Our appointment was scheduled for 11/7, but we had been encouraged by our adoption agency that it would be fine to go in early once we had an appointment. We are all about decreasing the amount of time we're away from our girls, so we headed down to Ft. Smith to have our fingerprints done on 11/1.
I should pause to say that I am a passionate rule-follower. I never realized this until recent years, but it's my personality to a T. It's why I never really got in much trouble as a child, why I enjoyed accounting classes, and why I like to bake so much...I like a list of rules and directions to follow. So, as excited as I was to shave a week off of our timeline, you should know that I felt like Bonnie and Clyde walking through the door for our appointment a week early. I was petrified. The security guards laughed at us for coming early, but said it would ultimately be up to the officials if we could be seen. We weren't received warmly, and I babbled nervously trying to plead our case, but eventually a supervisor gave us the approval to be fingerprinted early...whew. Sometimes being a rebel pays off! (Don't expect me to make it a habit, though.)
Now that our prints are in the system, we are just awaiting a caseworker to approve our adoption. Typically, this whole process takes around 60 days (although they are allowed to take up to 90), and we are at day 30 today. We recently heard of a family who got their approval in 32 days, so we were hopeful for speedy timing like that, however when I called to check-up on our status yesterday, I was told that we still haven't been assigned to a caseworker. Bummer. With Thanksgiving coming up, I'm afraid this will probably drag on even longer...and our hopes for having the girls home for Christmas are quickly fading. I still believe the Lord can work any miracle he wants, but I'm also trying to be realistic so that my heart isn't broken. Still, it's amazing to realize that we are within a couple of months of getting our girls back and those months will fly by with the busyness of the holiday season!
As for the fundraising front, we've made encouraging progress! After our first garage sale, we still had so many great items left. We took all of the kids clothes and toys to a huge consignment here in town and had great success there. And then we STILL had incredible stuff left, so we had a second garage sale....and had another successful day! We've truly been blessed with the money we've been able to make off of the donated items we received from our family and friends! I can't say that enough.
We still continue to talk to the girls as much as we can. The computer at their home is broken, so we aren't able to talk as often as before, but we can still talk to them on their foster mom's cell phone occasionally. We also sent a care package of goodies to them this week that they will hopefully get soon.
Thanks for checking in on us. We appreciate your support and prayers so much!
