A week or so ago, when I (Rebecca) made the long pilgrimage from school to home for fall break, I had among my books and clothing a lone used cell phone and a full change jar. What turned out to be a very full change jar - it was an all time high for amounts in a change jar. This was due to an incredibly generous friend, Holly, who saved all her change over the summer, a mysterious $20 bill that showed up on my desk belonging to neither my roommate nor myself, laundry no longer consuming my few quarters, and guests at the inn I work at actually leaving me tips. The normal yield of my jar is, oh, maybe $5 at the most, so this was an exciting event. Mom just emailed me today, however, and informed me that a friend of hers has broken my change jar record. This is one record I am happy to have broken!
Before fall break, I had been feeling incredibly impatient about this whole adoption business. I wanted a little brother and sister, drat it! My impatience has slowly become less, due to a number of things. One is a freshman named Lauren. Her family has adopted two children already, and are in the middle of adopting a third. We met the day she saw me wearing my adoption t-shirt, with ‘big sister’ in Chinese characters on the front. “What’s your shirt say?” she asked. “Big sister,” I said, and one thing led to another. It’s funny how quickly it becomes obvious that others adopting understand the emotions and concerns so much better than others. Now we commiserate about paperwork problems, feeling out of the loop because we are away at college, and laugh about what the recent swarm of lady bugs might mean for our families... Other than that, life at college remains the same, adoption-wise: I save my change, pray for The Call, and hope for generous tips at work.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Agency Changes
A couple of weeks ago our Faithful Adoption agency worker emailed to say she was stepping down from coordinating our program due to some health issues. I felt bad, both for her and for us. I liked her a lot. She is a home school mom of 4 and one is a little girl they adopted at age 4. So I felt that we had much in common.
Our new agency worker, Olga, got in touch with us and had some unexpected news. Cathwell, the orphanage we thought it most likely to get our referral from, did not have ANY paperwork on us! Only our photo album, which they were not doing anything with! So we have filled out their application and our home study agency has graciously sent yet another notarized copy of our home study to Faithful. So hopefully some time this week all that will get to Cathwell in Taiwan! The good news is that they told Olga they would take into consideration the fact that we have had our album there since March. Who knows, maybe we will hear from them soon! We all feel even this seeming “error” is part of God’s plan and his timing to get “our” children to us. Keep the faith!
Our new agency worker, Olga, got in touch with us and had some unexpected news. Cathwell, the orphanage we thought it most likely to get our referral from, did not have ANY paperwork on us! Only our photo album, which they were not doing anything with! So we have filled out their application and our home study agency has graciously sent yet another notarized copy of our home study to Faithful. So hopefully some time this week all that will get to Cathwell in Taiwan! The good news is that they told Olga they would take into consideration the fact that we have had our album there since March. Who knows, maybe we will hear from them soon! We all feel even this seeming “error” is part of God’s plan and his timing to get “our” children to us. Keep the faith!
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Count it all joy!
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need
to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive
what he has promised.”
- Hebrews 10:35-36
I really felt encouraged by this verse the other day. We’ve had 3 minor “paperwork” snafus this week. My first set of fingerprints got rejected and when I went to have them retaken they said it looked like the 2nd set would be rejected as well. (apparently I have grainy fingers or something!). If they are rejected again I will have to take a trip to meet with the Immigrations Officer in person with certified letters from the localities where I have lived stating that I have no criminal record! Dana needs to get a bunch more paperwork certified. We need all this stuff so we can get our I171-H, which allows us to adopt an orphan from another country. And to top it off our agency changed their mailing address and some different letters etc. may not have gotten to them! Oh well, Annie and I thought the initial paperwork was a little too easy!!
Now if we get a referral, there will be all kinds of paperwork to do. But of course I’d love to get a referral anyway!
We keep praying and each day I am encouraged by the Lord that everything is in His plan and I just need to wait on Him.
. . . as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress. . .psalm 123:2
to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive
what he has promised.”
- Hebrews 10:35-36
I really felt encouraged by this verse the other day. We’ve had 3 minor “paperwork” snafus this week. My first set of fingerprints got rejected and when I went to have them retaken they said it looked like the 2nd set would be rejected as well. (apparently I have grainy fingers or something!). If they are rejected again I will have to take a trip to meet with the Immigrations Officer in person with certified letters from the localities where I have lived stating that I have no criminal record! Dana needs to get a bunch more paperwork certified. We need all this stuff so we can get our I171-H, which allows us to adopt an orphan from another country. And to top it off our agency changed their mailing address and some different letters etc. may not have gotten to them! Oh well, Annie and I thought the initial paperwork was a little too easy!!
Now if we get a referral, there will be all kinds of paperwork to do. But of course I’d love to get a referral anyway!
We keep praying and each day I am encouraged by the Lord that everything is in His plan and I just need to wait on Him.
. . . as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress. . .psalm 123:2
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