Speeding Ahead!

I planned on checking back in mid-july and letting you know that we had been approved by immigration BUT GUESS WHAT??? We were approved TODAY!!! A full 21 days before I thought we would get approved. Like everything else in this process for us, approval came with a good story....

I called immigration multiple times.... you know, just to check in, say hello, make sure they remember that we are out here waiting :) So, a little less than 2 weeks ago, I call and they tell me that I'm still in line, which was when I last posted on here. The next week, I call and they said I had been matched with a case officer and should get approval pretty quickly. A day later they call my social worker to let her know they have lost my homestudy.... like literally lost a massive stack of papers (i.e. birth certificates, marriage certificate, fingerprint results, paper after paper after paper.) And if you are wondering, it does slightly concern me that a government agency can let things get so sloppy!!!! So yesterday I call, and they tell me they still have not received my new copy which my social worker fed-exed to them.....but Karla (who is the BEST!!!) has already tracked it and knows it has been delivered, so I'm not too worried..... and then today the word is that we are approved and our letter is in the mail! Yippeeeeeee!!!!! Oh, and my faith in government agencies is restored ever so slightly.

Looks like we may get "logged in" sooner than I thought but I'm sure it comes as no surprise to God! And if there are a few more bumps between here and there, it is totally fine by me. We will have a great story to tell our little girl of how God orchestrated all these details to get us to her. I really feel like a kid at christmas right now.... thinking that in a month or 2 we may be able to FINALLY see her face.... oh how I long for that day!!!

And now a request for anyone who wants to help out....Derek and I are trying to accumulate enough delta skymiles in the next several months to use to purchase our tickets over there. It uses a TON because you generally have 10 days notice before you travel. If any of you have any to spare and want to donate them, we'd gladly take them :) It saves several thousands of dollars and would be a huge help! Seriously no pressure! If you are saving up for a fun vacation, keep saving!! Just if you have some to spare or that will expire then let me know! We won't travel until next winter but thought I'd go ahead and put a plug in now.

God has already been faithful to provide in amazing ways, so we know He will continue to! One more cool way that He has..... we have had a lakehouse on the market for over 2 years and 4 weeks ago, it finally went under contract! We closed friday and moved out over the weekend. We basically sold it for what we paid for it because the market had dropped so much BUT the amount of money we will save each month from all the lake bills over the next 6 months makes a big ole drop in the bucket toward our adoption bills! PTL for His timing!