Happiness While Paying Bills

I know.  You think I've lost my mind by the title of this post!  Well, you're not too far off!  But it's Monday and I was handling the weekly task of paying bills this morning and 2 things made me literally cheer out loud.

1. We got our Federal and State tax returns.  The amount will cover almost half of our next adoption payment when our dossier goes to China.
2. I saw that my check to USCIS, which I mailed in December, then was lost by the government in March, has not only been found, but it has been cashed. 

So, I can only take this to mean that the final fingerprint appointment for our basement renter will arrive in the mail in the coming days.  Time is of the essence here as he's moving out in mid-May. 

Allow Me To Explain

My apologies for the blog hiatus.  I’ve truly missed all your adoption updates and have taken a random glance every now and then at your amazing stories.

You know how a new year contains so much hope and wishes for prosperity?  That’s what we planned after giving 2010 a swift kick in its big ol’ behind and closing the door on its sorry face.  But this year has been worse, perhaps, than all of 2010 had been.

I’m not going into the details here because they aren’t important.  Those of you family and friends know it all already.  The good news is that my husband has gone through a job change and we are now expecting a move to Northern California.  We are trying to sell our house and we’re going to try and sell it ourselves with hopes that the money we save by selling by owner can go towards our adoption.

I’ve spoken with our social worker as well as our agency this morning and of course, this delays our adoption process.  It IS POSSIBLE to move while adopting. [YAY!]  It just means more delays and more money. [BOO!]   Right now we are waiting on our final forms from USCIS and still need to get our college basement renter fingerprinted (yes, he still needs to be included even though he won’t be moving to CA with us).  We will have to update our home study in our new locale.  With that come new police clearances, new forms, more money and more time.

I still do not hear God telling us to stop the adoption even though at this point, I'm exhausted.  But I still feel the call to live out Psalms 82:3 in a very tangible, personal way.  I will not give up.

The biggest concern we have right now is getting our dossier to China BEFORE we move out west!  If the 3 of us adults can get finger printed and if we can receive that final form from USCIS before we sell the house, then our dossier can go overseas and we can just submit a home study update once we arrive in California. This is a HUGE prayer request!  Please pray that we get this last form within the month of April and that our dossier can be submitted to China!!!

Additional prayer requests on the tab above.