Indeed

The events on July 22nd in fact occurred.  It was my dear friend Jenn's birthday, and CONGRATULATIONS to my newest friend Paige, she was officially matched with her daughter in Peru and they have begun the acceptance and immigration paper work to be united with her!

What I didn't "plan" for on July 22nd, were the overwhelming emotions I experienced.  After hitting the refresh button on the MIMDES page, for the 22nd time, to see that it was official.  How does one feel such JOY and PAIN all at the same time? I am not sure, these were emotions that I have never experienced before.  My friend had been matched, another orphan had a forever family, and the pain of the reality that OUR girls are still waiting became a new reality! I burst into tears and I sobbed, why, why do our girls have to wait, they have been waiting and waiting, we have had lots of detours. It felt good to release the pent up emotions of the journey of unknowns, regroup and to know even more confidently that looking back and knowing the journey and the sliver of heartache I experienced, I would do this all over again!

Psalms 139: 13-16
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out

before a single day had passed.

I am reminded that as my girls were in their birth mothers womb God knew Ben & I would be their mommy and daddy!  That it IS recorded in HIS book the day they will be matched with us and we will be a FOREVER FAMILY! 

Longing to hold "My Girls"

Tomorrow is July 22nd, my dear friend Jenn's birthday and the day I expect to hear from my newest friend that she has been officially matched with her daughter.  

How I long to be with my girls, to hold them, love on them, listen to their hopes, dreams, hurts, fears, and questions.  To watch as they learn and discover life outside of the orphanage and life with their forever family!

I just want to go to Peru and wait. wait for the referral. wait for the visas. wait for the rest of the "dates" and return to the USA as a family of 4.

YIPPEE!

I am excited to share that 7 weeks ago today we requested an updated criminal background check from our homestudy agency here in MA.  We were told this should take 2-3 weeks and then it would be on its way to Peru for our dossier to finally be APPROVED!  Much to our dismay, wonder, and SHOCK, this proces was stagnant after 3-4 weeks.  After multiple calls, research on my own, proding, emails, more research, being told by the agency we could go elsewhere we had paid all of our money to them, (YES, the social worker did put this in writing to me!) my detective skills paid off and I discovered that the agency had been covering up for their lack of compliance and our paperwork was sitting on a desk, waiting for their compliance issue to be resolved before our paperwork could be processed.  Yes, instead of honesty, we were given misleading and questionable responses that did not keep my radar on low alert by any means.  Thankfully, I was able to track down a contact (which I was told was a backline number) and the kind lady explained the above information and agreed to expedite our forms, contrary to what we had been told. 

Tonight-THE FORMS ARE IN THE AIR..... FED EX to LIFELINE our adoption agency in Alabama!!!!  So they will be sent off tomorrow to be authenticated and apostilled and then sent to Peru.  Once they reach PERU, Peru has up to 15 days to officially approve our dossier.

Whats next?  REFERRAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Our SW from Lifeline is in communication regarding our referral and we hope to receiving one SOOOON.  We covet your prayers!

Update!

Do you know how much longer?

Do you know when you are bringing them home?

Do you have pictures?

So do you get to Skype with them?

NO, NO,NO, and you guessed it, NO!  This is our journey of adoption that we have invited you to join us on. 

A journey of unknowns, waiting, hoping, wondering, holding on for today or maybe tomorrow and then breathing through the weekend knowing that nothing can happen on the weekend, therefore making the most of weekends.  Journeying with others who are adopting, celebrating milestones in various journeys a family travels from one country to the next, until forever family reunions.

Our next milestone will be when our dossier is officially accepted.  Just waiting on our CORI’s (updated) and then Peru has up to 15 days to officially accept it and then on to our referral. 

I thought it might be helpful to do a review of some of the vocabulary.

MIMDES- Ministry of Woman & Children for Social Services, oversee the adoption process

SNA- Secretary National Adoption, handle the day to details of the dossier process and accepting it.

Dossier- application to the country of Peru

I800A- Application to host aliens- yes this is the language they use in 2010!

I800- Application for the Visas for our girls, before we can leave to go to Peru, this can take 4-6 weeks.

A Family Defined

Another perspective of our family as we anticipate the referral of our daughters.

Those confusing, yet powerfully LOADED words,what may seem to some as semantics.  Real, biological, natural, adopted, own, you get the picture.

Natural Child: Any child who is not artificial.

Real Parent: Any parent who is not imaginary.

Your Own Child: Any child who is not someone else's child.

...Adopted Child: A natural child, with a real parent, who is all my own.

Rita Laws, PhD

http://www.perumissions.com/childrenshome.php

Please be praying for these beautiful children, caretakers, and the missionaries who oversee this home. 

ENCOURAGED

As of our last post, I was asking you to PRAY PRAY PRAY!!!  I woke up Wednesday morning and went about my day.  At one point I noted, it feels like I have a spring in my step.  This feels like JOY! 

I had such a peace that I was joyful. 

Indeed the Executive Directive of Lifeline did have the opportunity to meet for well over three (3) hours with the Secretary General of the SNA and advocate personally for our family.  In summary, great strides were made, great opportunities presented, great relationships and contacts made and an ACTION plan is in MOTION.  I have an overwhelming sense of peace that our referral is around the corner.

It is actually the MA gov. that is holding us up at this point.  We are having trouble getting our CORI’s (Criminal Background checks) updated.  Our expired and Peru needs updated ones to approve our dossier in order to give us our referral. 

Hopeful, peaceful and TRUSTING that GOD is bigger than government, people, agendas, and that he can move mountains, change hearts, and perform modern day miracles and that HE loves my girls even MORE than we do and that HE WILL BRING them home.