The I-797c is here!

It came! It came! That paper from USCIS (Immigration) that we've been waiting on since September came yesterday. God is good and allowed it to come on a Wednesday (Eric's day off), so Eric could run it all over creation to get it notarized, county certified, state certified and UPS'd to the Chinese Consulate in Houston to be authenticated. After that it will go to our agency, Holt International, in Oregon and join up with the rest of our dossier. Finally, our dossier will head over to China. We'll get a Log in Date (LID). China will process it in 3-5 months. After that, we'll get an LOA (Letter of Acceptance) and TA (Travel Approval). All these acronyms!!! We're a little later than we had hoped to be, so we might not get to China until late summer. We trust that God has the timing all worked out and He is taking care of Hannah.

What God is Teaching Me
This whole process of adoption is definitely a faith-building experience. God knew that I needed more patience and more trust in Him, so He called me to adopt. I'm sure this waiting is just the beginning of learning to trust Him more and more. I am humbled by how easily I fall back into trusting in myself and my abilities. For example, we had a little scare last week. We got a call from our agency that China needed our dossier in China by February 7. On that same day we got a letter from USCIS that they couldn't process our paperwork because they were missing some approval letter. All at once we were struck with the fear that we might lose Hannah. If we couldn't get this paperwork snafu worked out, would China give her to someone else? Oh, the feelings of fear and despair that so quickly entered my heart! I bowed on my knees asking God to work this all out, but I desperately wanted to work it out myself. Couldn't I prod and push someone along so that we could be assured to meet the deadline? Why couldn't the system work more quickly so we wouldn't be put in this pressured place in the first place? Then, I realized it again. I was not trusting God to do this for us; I was trusting in myself. Only anxiety and fear came from that self-driven effort. I prayed some more. You know what? God brought me this overwhelming sense of peace. Somehow, I knew it would all be OK. God called us to this and He was going to provide the way. He reminded me of Proverbs 21:1 - The king's heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes. God will move the paperwork, the process, and all those people reviewing our documents as He wishes. The international bureaucracy doesn't control God; He controls it. He will accomplish His purposes. Thank the Lord for His continual grace and mercy to me, a slow learner in the trusting department! Lord, help me remember this as we wait through this next phase.