Update

I know that it has been awhile since my last post. Life has been very chaotic the past several weeks. Right after we recieved notification that we had several documents that needed to be changed, we had Kids Camp at our church. I had to get through camp then I could refocus on the paperchase. I have found myself very exhausted with this adoption process and very discouraged lately. Thus one of the biggest reasons that I have not posted because I do not ever want to sound negative, and I don't want to complain. But this has been one of the most difficult couple of months that I have ever endured. We have had a very difficult time with a few documents (which we should finally have everything in the next couple of weeks to resend to our agency). In the middle of being at a very low point in this process, the transmission went out in my car. We are still dealing with that and hopefully we will have the car situation taken care of soon, as it is about to drive me insane in not having a car. I have stated several times lately that I know that God doesn't give you anymore than you can handle, but I am beginning to believe that he seriously overestimates me. HA! Then this past weekend, my mom had to have a little stay in the hospital for what we though was a heart issue (praise God it turned out to not be a heart issue). So for now, we are trying to deal with one issue at a time. I am in the words of my dear friend Ashley (and no she did not direct this comment at me, HA!) putting on my big girl panties and dealing with it.

Argh!

So we still are not ready to submit our dossier to Russia. There were a couple of documents that were not worded as they wanted (ie: they were missing my middle name), and a couple that had wrong dates, and our police clearances were not what they wanted. The police clearances have given us a fit. Russia wants clearances on state letterhead and we can't seem to find anyone that can do that for us. The GBI and the FBI both say they do not do police clearances. Our local police department did do them but they can only put it on county letterhead...not state. So until we figure out what to do from here we are stuck for the moment. I have concluded that until the day that you recieve a referral, it is best to leave your emotions at the door, otherwise the process can completely wear you out. I have decided that until my phone rings to tell me that there is a precious little one waiting for me, I will not get excited nor will I get angry or upset or sad. I will continue to keep my eyes focused on what I feel like God wants us to do, and no matter what obstacle the devil throws in our way, we will keep pushing forward!

The best secret sister ever!

In our church, the ladies all have secret sisters. I have no idea who my secret sister is, but she is one heck of a wonderful secret sister. I don't know if she reads this blog or not. But I just want to say thank you for all the encouragement, prayers and all the little gifts for our "little one". Every time that my secret sister sends me a gift, there is always a little gift in there for our child-to-be. Each time it gives me such a boost and just makes my day. There was one gift in particular that has just meant so much to me. For the 4th of July, she gave me a book by Twila Paris "Bedtime Stories: Prayers and Lullabyes". That is on the best books ever. It is a book for a child but it is filled with some of the sweetest things. I read a prayer or a lullaby almost every night. So, to anyone one out that that has little ones, check this book out, you will not be dissappointed. It has touched me and lifted my spirits when I needed it the most. So thank you so much to my secret sister, I love you!

Dossier Mailed!

Finally! Benji just called to tell me that he has just dropped our dossier paperwork off at Fed-Ex. The adoption agency should have it by Thursday, maybe Friday. Pending everything in it is correctly prepared, it will be on it's way to Russia for translation. I am so excited, yet a little reserved. It seems like everything we have done thus far has been met with some opposition, some hurdle to cross. So I'm not going to get overexcited until Kristen calls and says it looks good and it's on it's way to Russia. I am going to be a little more prepared for things to not be a smooth as we hope. We know that we can over come any hurdle with God on our side, so we will deal with them as they come up. We certainly wouldn't have made it this far if we didn't have the Lord on our side. He has been what has gotten us here and we know that he is going to see us through this.

Motivational Boost

We are getting close to sending in our paperwork. We had actually hoped to have sent it in by now, but there are a few things that just ahven't quite fallen into place as we had hoped. However, we know that the Lord will provide...he always does.
I feel like the devil is attacking from every angle that he can. There are very few apsects of my life that he is not attacking at this moment. Which is wearing me out, but if I weren't doing something right then the devil wouldn't be trying so hard to bring me down, right? I woke up yesterday morning with some time to spare (as those who know me, know this NEVER happens. HA!) With a few minutes to spare, I decided to start my day off with a little bible reading. The Lord knows my frustrations and I went to prayer before I began to read. I just asked God to give me something that I needed to hear, something to let me know that things were going to be alright and that things were going to fall into place. I just opened my Bible and began to read wherever it opened. I began with Matthew 6:25, which was entitled "Do not worry". HA! As I read further, I came upon Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." My sister and I used to sing this verse when we were little girls. Can we say God knows exactly what we need when we need it? I honestly think that he wanted me to see those exact verses yesterday, and it was exactly what I needed, and I have truly felt so much better since reading that. I did get some news today of another change coming sooner than I had hoped. But it will all be okay. The Lord always provides and he has seen me through every struggle in my life thus far. I can rest assured that he is still with me making plans for me as we speak. Thank you Lord, for being the awesome God that you are.

God Bless America

My how we take things for granted! Benji and I were blessed to have company this past weekend. A client of Benji's and his wife (whom we consider friends) came down to stay with us from Michigan. They are originally from Romania and have been Americans for many years now. We had a wonderful visit with them. During our visit, they told us stories from Romania before they came here to America. At the time they lived there, it was a Communist country. In talking with them and hearing their life story, I realized just how good we Americans have it. We are so blessed to have the freedoms that we have. As we are approaching Independence Day at the end of the week, I want to say how grateful that I personally am for our country and to all the the men and women in our armed forces who put their lives on the line everyday to protect our country and who fight for our freedom. God bless you all, you are in our hearts and in our prayers. And we thank you God for the child/children that we will hopefully be bringing to this country very soon!

Also, just a side note. I have been blessed to meet some families that have already adopted from Russia through our agency's online forum. I just want to take a minute tell Heather how special that she has become to me. She is such a great source of support for us and her information is always such great help and inspiration to us. Thank you Heather for everything! And thank you a million for the books. I recieved them today. I was so excited to start looking through them. You gave me such a boost when I have been a little frustrated lately. Your support and encouragement means so much to us. Thank you for everything!

We are apostilled!

Yay! I was able to make a quick trip to Atlanta today to pick up the documents that we left and have them apostille a few more. So we are ready to send in our dossier! It has taken us what feels like eternity to get to this point but praise God we are moving forward. I feel a huge weight lifted off of me having all of this done and ready to be sent. Thank you Lord for getting us to this point and keeping me sane (most of the time anyways. HA!). We are looking forward to what is to come and praying the be "paper pregnant" or "expecting" real soon.