Registration

We talked to our adoption agency this week and they let us know that we are a good 6 months away from being able to travel to Africa to go pick up our baby. Six months is on the good side of the spectrum, there are any number of delays that could occur and prolong our adoption process. However, while we recognize that these delays are possible, we pray against them and we pray for a smooth and speedy adoption process.

Because we are six months out from being able to travel to Africa, our agency advised me to go ahead and register for a full load this semester. If you don't know already, I am a student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I am pursuing a masters degree and I'm am trying to get in as many hours as possible before we get the baby. So, I registered for classes tonight and now we owe the seminary a bunch of money. Ugh! I'm trying not to freak out about the amount of money that we owe and the number of hours that I am taking, but I know that God has called me to take classes at the seminary and to pursue the adoption.

Being in grad school and pursuing an adoption are two major events in life by themselves, let alone doing them at the same time. However, I know that I am doing what the Lord has led me to do right now. Praise the Lord that I don't face these things alone. God has given me a wonderful husband who helps and encourages me every step of the way. There are some days that I know that I wouldn't have been able to make it through the day without Matt. I also have awesome family and friends who support and encourage us. Our families have encouraged us through every step of the adoption and they are so excited to see the ways that God is working in our lives.

We are so excited that Thanksgiving is this week and we have a lot to be thankful for this year. I am so thankful for my husband and our family and friends who are so encouraging to us. I'm still a little shocked that Thanksgiving is this week, but I'm so grateful for some time off and getting to spend that time with Matt and our families.

Now what?

So, in the last couple posts I've explained all the background story for all the decisions that we have made regarding the adoption and how the Lord has led us to this decision. So now, I want to get you updated on all the steps that we gone through up until this point. We have been accepted to an adoption agency, and finished our home study. We meet several times with our social worker while we were doing our home study. I was really anxious about the home study process, but once we met our social worker, she put me at ease almost immediately. I really didn't have anything to worry about with regards to the home study. Looking back now I wonder what all my fretting was about. Now that our home study is competed we are waiting to get approval from immigration.

When adopting a child international you have to get approval to bring a child back into the United States. That is where we are now. We can't do anything else without this approval, so we are in a waiting stage right now. We have heard that this process could take up to 3 months. It's been a month already and we haven't heard anything, so we are continuing our wait.

Please continue to pray for us as we are waiting to hear back from immigration. Please pray that we would be patient as we wait. Please pray that as we wait we continue to rest in the Lord and continue to grow in our relationships with the Lord.

Please pray for our baby or babies that God would protect them and provide for them while we are separated. Please pray that the Lord would provide someone to hold our babies, until we can hold them. Please pray that the Lord would provide food for our babies, until we are able to feed them. These are some of the things that Matt and I pray for everyday and we will continue to pray for these things until we can be with our baby or babies.