Dropped a ball...

OK, well Erick has not heard back from his company yet regarding writing the letter, so keep praying about that...

on another note, just realized I dropped the ball on something and now we will have to wait longer. I thought we had everything (besides employment letter) done and ready to go. All my references were turning in their letters this week and we were just waiting for the SW to finish up the report. Once we had the letter and the report we could turn everything in to USCIS and get this show moving. We were hoping to do this no later than April 1. I am excited to say that my Social Worker just said she should have her first draft of our HS avail Wed!!! However, this ball dropping will now cause a delay.

The dropped ball involves state background check. Back in mid Feb when we got all our HS stuff, I did not get right on all the things in there. There was so much that was going on with the adoption and life in general that somehow some things got overlooked. Then at the end of Feb I realized I had not done much paperwork stuff in a while and that I needed to make sure to get whatever done that will take a while to process so that we dont end up waiting on something later. Well, at this time I realized we still needed to send in background check stuff and local fingerprint stuff. So I did that March 7th. I faxed in the form and placed it in the done pile. Later that week we had all our physical appts, fingerprints, and notary paperwork stuff going on. Life was so crazy that week that I never gave another thought to if the fax went through.

Well the other day I realized I never got a confirmation when I sent the fax. So I called yesterday to see if they ever got the forms. They did not!!! I refaxed right away but they still did not get them. For some reason our fax was not being picked up there. So today I mailed off the forms.

When I talked to my SW she says it will take like 2 WEEKS for that to come back!!!! ARGH!!! If I would have checked on it that wk I sent it, we would have it back and could turn everything in to USCIS either end of this wk or sometime next wk (as long as we get employment letter).

This now adds 2 wks to our timeline! We were thinking at normal rate we might get to submit dossier to country in mid June, but now it might be more like July. With the possibility of closure, this is not a good thing!

Please pray over this with us. Pray we get the letter we need and pray the background check gets processed quickly. Also pray that no other glitches come up. I know God knows what he is doing, and all timing will come together for his plan to come to pass. We are not freaking out, but are trusting in God. We are learning to let go and just do what we can when we can and leave it in God's hands.

Get Wrapped up in Him not It!

Okay, so honestly I have been lacking in my quiet time. I am definitely praying and talking with God constantly, but I have not set aside special time to just be with him lately. I miss it in more ways then one. Today I picked up a devotional book I have that I have not been in for a while and I noticed the day I left off on happened to be Peyton's birthday. I sat and read it, and it was great! I remember the day I read it last and how I used it to teach my children. It is so useful to us all... I wanted to share it:

This is from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

(read this as though God was talking to you)

"Let me prepare you for the day that stretches out before you. I know exactly what this day will contain, whereas you have only vague ideas about it. You would like to see a map, showing all the twists and turns of your journey. You'd feel more prepared if you could somehow visualize what is on the road ahead. However, there is a better way to be prepared for whatever you will encounter today: Spend quality time with Me."

"I will not show you what is on the road ahead, but I will thoroughly equip you for the journey. My living Presence is your Companion each step of the way. Stay in continual communication with Me, whispering My Name whenever you need to redirect your thoughts. Thus, you can walk through this day with your focus on Me. My abiding Presence is the best road map available."


Young, S. (2004). Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson.

Rays of Hope!

Okay we have some hope and a plan!

After researching the employee handbook, Erick found out that the ppl like the CEO of the company and such can overwrite policies. He can take the request for the needed information to them and see if they will approve giving us what we need. However, everyone involved in these positions are currently on Spring Break this week. So, we are going to pray up from now till Monday when Erick will bring the request for the letter to them and see what happens. So that is one ray of hope! Pray for this and for God to move in the hearts of those he needs to for his will to be done! Pray for favor for Erick at his job and for the enemy's schemes to be defeated.

Also, after talking with my country team helper for a bit, he says that we can always just submit whatever info we can get and see what happens. So we can just submit everything when it is time and pray, pray, pray! They might not care and overlook it completely. Another ray of hope!

Thirdly, after posting to the adoption community, I have heard from another family who has adopted twice from this country and they could not get the needed info either, but they were still able to adopt each time! So just like mentioned above, the country may overlook it; it may not even be an issue. A great ray of hope!

So, as of now we still plan to move fwd on our mission to rescue our son Peyton. We are not convinced he is not ours. We still believe God has called us to redeem him! Please keep praying for us and him. The enemy is trying many things to thwart our plans.

Thanks for the prayers and support and kind encouraging words we have been getting.

Chrissy

PRAYER NEEDED!!!!

Erick went to get his employment verification form for our dossier filled out yesterday at work and they informed him that their policy is to not sign off on the kind of information needed in the letter. WE HAVE TO HAVE THIS INFORMATION IN THE LETTER FROM THEM TO ADOPT!!! So, this is a major snag in the process... if Erick can not get someone there at work to write what is needed, then we can not continue this journey, we don't think there is a way around this. We will have to end the adoption process for Peyton and pray someone steps in to be his family quickly. We need to pray on whether to push this with his job so we can get it done or not. If they will not budge on this, we need to know ASAP because if there will be no way to get around this then the faster we back out of pursuing Peyton, the sooner he can be found by another family.

PLEASE PLEASE PRAY WITH US, we need to know what to do and when to do it

Chrissy

Process updates & Prayer requests

We need some prayer for the adoption process. We found out this week that Peyton's country is thinking about changing up their adoption procedures and if they decide to do that it means closing down adoptions until everything gets fixed into the new system. This could be months or YEARS of kids not being able to go home!!! We need to get the dossier submitted before anything happens and then we can still be on this journey to get him. There is speculation this might happen this summer. Looking at a timeline I have thrown together for how our journey looks, we should be submitting in June and traveling within July-Sept. I am not sure if that is too late. We are being told to get things done ASAP so that we make sure to get submitted.

Tomorrow is our home visit for the home study. So pray for that as well. Our Social Worker thinks she should have our report finalized by the end of the month. So we should be able to turn in our home study and USCIS papers by April 1 hopefully. Then we have to wait on them to approve us to adopt. This usually takes at least 6 wks (so I have heard). They are allowing expediting of people adoption from this country right now due to all this speculation which is good, but I am not sure what that means for how much faster we can expect that approval to move along. Once we get approval we can mail in our dossier to the country but it has to be translated before submitted. I think this takes a couple weeks. Then they can submit it.

The changes the country wants to make are supposed to be good and better for everyone in the long run, but it just messes things up for the kids that are in certain stages of life for the time of the change. Pray that we are able to be submitted before they make any decisions. I can't imagine Peyton having to be there another few years!!! Pray that everything we need to do moves along quickly and smoothly.

Today was kind of hectic... we had a day of running errands and signing papers (all with 3 kids in tow). We had our local fingerprints done which went perfect but then we had county paper signing which the lady did wrong and we will have to go back another day. We also had some notaries done on some docs but a couple were done wrong so we will have to redo those as well. Right now it is okay for that to happen. But later it can mean time delays we can not afford. Pray we don't run into more problems as we continue. We had our physicals this week and should be picking those forms up early next week. The kids have to get some tests done as well, so they will go for those next wk. By the end of next week we should have everything we need done for this stage of the adoption.

Pray also for the fundraising efforts. We will be doing much more in the coming months so be looking for info on those. If our process gets expedited as needed, that is great but it also means raising funds quicker.

Thanks for your prayers and support

Chrissy

We have a WINNER!

Well the week is over and we have drawn a winner.... the lovely tutu outfit goes to...

JOLIE HARRIS!!!! Congratulations! Please contact me with your info and I will pass it to to my friend Allison at Cutie Pie Crafts and you guys can discuss the details.

For those of you who liked the outfit and still want to get one or want to see many of the other awesome things Allison makes, head over to her website... http://cutiepiecraft.weebly.com or friend Cutie Pie Crafts on Facebook.

Thank you so much to all who donated and participated in the give away. We raised close to $100!!!

Check back soon for another give away!

Chrissy

Tutu outfit Give Away!

Hello everyone. We have another fundraiser opportunity. A friend of mine has donated a cute cupcake shirt, tutu, and bow to the lucky winner of a give away we are setting up. The items all together would normally cost $25. She will make you whatever shirt size and tutu color you desire.

It will work like this. For every $3 you donate, you will get your name put in the drawing for this cupcake outfit. This give away will last a week and we will then put all the names together and draw for a winner. You will either donate straight to us if you know us and want to do that or you can donate into the link on the side of the page. There the $ goes through Paypal to Reece's Rainbow as a tax deductible donation and they put it into our adoption grant fund. I can see the total $ go up but I can not see who donates. So make sure if you donate, you contact me to let me know so your name can be put in the drawing. We will pick a winner March 8th.

Please pass this around to whoever you think might be interested! Thanks!

Chrissy