Christmas Hope

Christmas is a week away, which is hard to believe. With Christmas fast approaching I have had to come to terms with the fact that we will not have Hadassah in our arms Christmas morning. It has been a frustrating couple of months. Lots of waiting with no answers and no timeframe. I have run the gamete of emotions but right now the pervading feeling is one of apathy. I'm just tired...of waiting...of hoping. I'm exhausted just wanting so deeply to hold our daughter.

We still do not have Haddie's passport (been waiting since October) nor do we have Jon's visa (waiting since August) and there has been no time frame given for when movement will happen. We know our pre-adoption journey is coming to a close but the wait is excruciating. I hate knowing that my daughter will spend one more Christmas in an orphanage...without her family. I had prayed and hoped that she would be celebrating Jesus in our arms but now have to surrender my own plans and desires to the Lord.

As I have wrestled with the frustration and disappointment of missing my daughter the Lord has been so gracious to remind me of a beautiful truth we celebrate this season. We do not worship some distant God, far removed and unconcerned with our lives. We worship and serve a God who chose to become man. Emmanuel, God with us.

The perfect God chose to take on flesh and dwell among us. Jesus met us in our selfishness and hopelessness. He took the form of a servant. Jesus speaks into our brokenness with forgiveness of sin and a promise that one day all things will be made new. He breathes peace into our pain and sorrow with the reminder that He is near. It's because of God's great love that I have comfort and peace this season even though my sweet daughter is spending this Christmas away from her family. My God, Emmanuel is with her. He is her comfort when my arms ache to comfort her. Pray with me in our wait that He would whisper hope into our sweet daughter's soul. As we wait and anticipate our daughter's homecoming I am reminded that so many others are waiting too. There are people all around me who need to hear the hope of Christmas. They need to hear that there is a God who has come near to save us from our sin. He came into our muck and mire to lift us out of it and to breath into us new life, new hope and a new purpose. I am choosing to celebrate the hope of Christmas in our wait and am in my own brokenness seeking to share the hope that I have found. Hope has come and today I am clinging to that!

She is Ours!

It's still so hard to believe...Hadassah has been legally declared our daughter by the high court in India. It has been a long time coming.

Haddie was around 18 months in this picture.

She is officially ours and we cannot wait until we finally get her home. There is one step standing between us and traveling to pick her up. Now that the orphanage has the written orders from the judge they will then apply for her passport. We were told that the orphanage will apply for her passport next week however we have not been given any time-frame for how long it will take for her passport to be issued. Our agency thinks we could travel in December but there is a chance that we won't travel until next year depending on how quickly her paperwork gets filed and how long the passport office takes.

Guys, we are so close! Please continue to pray for us and her during this last wait. There is much that needs to be done before we travel and of course things will get crazy hectic when we get the travel phone call. Pray that our joy and hope would be set on the Lord in this wait. Some days the wait hangs over my head distracting me from the truth.God has provided and our sweet girl IS coming home. It's just a matter of time. Praise God for ALL that He has done.

Here are a few more pictures, they are quite a bit older though. These were the first glimpses of our daughter that we received back in January. I cannot wait to get my hands on this cutie!

Prayer Requests:
- Jon's visa has still not been issued. We have been waiting over three months now. Pray that his visa will come in time for travel.
- We deeply desire to travel before Christmas. Pray that everything falls into place so that we can spend Christmas together as a family of 4!

Court News

Well friends I have seriously slacked on blogging lately. There just hasn't been much to report and honestly this had been the hardest period of waiting for us since the journey began. I don't know if things hurt more because we are so close or because news is few and far between but we continue to pray and believe that one day soon we will be able to hold our daughter.

Back in August not long after receiving NOC we were able to compile a photo book to send to the orphanage.

We had a custom board book made just for her. A few weeks ago we got verification that the orphanage did indeed get the book and we assume that she has seen our pictures. My mind wonders to our daughter and I am curious if she even grasps the enormity of what is taking place. Did she smile when she saw our pictures? Did she giggle at her brother's ridiculous faces? It's hard when we have seen other adopting families receive updated pictures of their children with smiling faces holding their photo books. The most recent picture we have seen was after waiting 3 months to receive her referral in April and we assume that picture was taken back in January or February. What does she look like now? What is her personality like? Oh this mama's heart is often times overwhelmed with questions and an ache that becomes more intense every passing day.

So where are we now? Well we were told that our paperwork was submitted to the court system. Some detective work had been done by another adopting mama who introduced me to a website with court information. After checking the site for weeks on end one random morning I finally discovered our names and found out that we were due to have a second court hearing. That second hearing took place Saturday August 23rd. There has been no update since then which is not unusual at all. From what we have gathered it will most likely take 5-6 hearings before we receive approval from the judge. We may not hear any more news until we pass court which is not expected until the end of September so yet again we are waiting. This wait although hard continues to solidify the truth we have felt in our hearts since we first saw a picture of our dark eyed, crazy haired beautiful little girl...

Moving Right Along

Well...

We now have NOC!!

We were granted NOC June 30th and got a call from our agency today to tell us the terrific news. The timeline we were initially told continues to be blown out of the water and I am so thrilled. The next step in our process is court and after the judge approves our adoption we will wait for our daughter's passport to be issued. Once the orphanage has her passport in hand we will book our flights!! As of right now it looks very plausible that we will travel before the end of the year if not sooner.

The biggest advantage about getting NOC is that we can now send a photo book to our daughter. I'm not sure if she has been told about us yet but now she will actually get to see pictures of her family. I was not expecting to receive NOC this quick so I need to get her photo book finished and sent to our agency.

This is what the remainder of our process looks like:
Court: 2 months
Written Approval from the judge: Days or weeks
Passport: 2-4 weeks
Travel: 2 weeks from physical passport being sent to the orphanage

Once again this timeline is not concrete. There is a good chance we could have to wait longer at any one of these steps. I am longing to have our daughter home before Christmas so please pray for a quick review of our case. We will continue to let our friends and family know of any progress. I can't wait to finally show you our daughter's picture.

Big Step!

We have ARC!!!
 

Yes, I can hardly believe it myself. Our official paperwork was sent to India in early April and we just heard today that we received state approval. From everything we had been told this step would take the longest just because there was no information as to how often the state committees met. Once we were told this news our agency said that this is one of the quickest turnarounds they have seen for state approvals. Woohoo!! Praise the Lord. I'm still in shock.

 

Back in the beginning of June we learned that we were given article 5 so now we are officially waiting on NOC, which is basically federal approval for our family to adopt the specific child we have been matched with. The wait time for NOC could be as short as a couple of weeks or it could be months. There really is no telling. After NOC we wait for court, then the orphanage will apply for our child's passport and once that happens we will finally travel. Right now I am just rejoicing at this great provision and answer to prayer. We are one HUGE step closer to bringing our daughter home. Thank you for the prayers. Keep them coming!!

 

(I may or may not have looked like this after I got off the phone with our agency. I have been on cloud nine all day!)

What Happens Next?

Most people I talk to are very surprised when they hear that we still have a year or more of waiting before our daughter comes home. For those of you new to the international adoption world let me fill you in on what happens next.

Jonathan and I have submitted paperwork to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) for approval to adopt little girl "A." Once we get that approval we will fill out more paperwork which will allow us to obtain Article 5 from India. That is a crucial piece of paperwork that will come into play further along in the adoption process.That is what is left of the paperwork we need to complete...at least I think that's all.

Everything else is a matter of waiting on India and their timeline. Here are the key pieces of the process over in India and they will hopefully give you a glimpse into the rest of our journey.

ARC: State Approval. Currently we are waiting to receive ARC. There is an unknown wait for the state approval. It all depends on how often the committee in our daughter's state meets and what requirements they have for families adopting out of their particular state. We have been told it will most likely take months, possibly even up to 9 months or longer. We will obviously be praying for a quick review of our case.

NOC (Non-Objection Certification): Federal Approval. Once a family receives ARC their case is passed on to the federal committee. This committee meets regularly so this approval should happen somewhat quickly once we have passed state approval. Sadly, we have heard of families being turned down at this point. We have also heard of families receiving ARC and NOC within days of each other. Once again...there are no guarantees. Families must have Article 5 to receive NOC approval. At this point in time we will be allowed to send a photo book to our daughter, up until this point she probably will have no idea that she has a family pursuing her.

Court: Once families receive ARC and NOC approval their case goes before a judge. This is another step in the process which has an unknown time-frame. The court process can happen in one sitting or the judge may take numerous appointments before approving a family. Often times families are given verbal approval and then wait weeks to receive the actual paperwork.

Passport: Once the orphanage has the court approval in hand they will apply for the child's passport.This process could take weeks or months. Are you seeing a pattern here?!? There is just a lot of uncertainty with timeframes. I believe during this time we will work with our agency to arrange travel plans and obtain entry visas for India. This is the last step before travel!!!

Anyone confused yet?!? To sum up, currently we are waiting on ARC (state approval) and the timeline we have been given from acceptance of referral to travel is 12-14 months. So obviously we don't expect to hear any news soon but you will certainly hear from me when we have something new to report. Please continue to pray for our daughter as she waits for us and please lift us up as we prepare to become a family of 4.

Our God Hears

We have been MIA for the past 2 + months not out of neglect but as we have been overwhelmed by the goodness and graciousness of our God. Let me start out by telling you about His first, sweet provision. Our adoption is now completely and totally funded. Every single penny has been supplied on our daughter's behalf and that is an absolute miracle. Our mighty God provided everything we needed in a little over a year. Talk about awe inspiring!!

Now for the even bigger news...Jon and I have wanted to shout this story from the mountain tops for months now and it has been killing us to have to keep this news secret! Get ready for a God story.

Remember how we felt lead to pray big prayers? 

Remember how God lead us to ask for a quick referral and for the first referral to be our sweet daughter?

Well...

only TWO days after my last post,only TWO days after we felt led to pray in big ways, my husband and I received a very unexpected phone call from our agency. We were told of a sweet little girl, only 18 months old who needed a family. Our coordinator asked us if we would like more information. Our answer...

YES!!

Within minutes my inbox contained an email with the name, face and medical information of our daughter. As we stared at not one but FIVE pictures of our child we were just overwhelmed with so many emotions. After all of those years knowing that we had a daughter in India, the tears, the waiting, the wondering...it was all worth it just to finally see her face. Currently we are not at liberty to share her picture online but oh how I wish we could show you how completely beautiful she is. She is just gorgeous and has utterly stolen our hearts. Just staring at her picture makes this momma's heart so full! She is a beautiful petite little thing with gorgeous dark eyes and a crazy head full of black hair. From what we we have been told, she is in a place where she is being well taken care of and that small bit of information makes this wait a tad more bearable. Oh, how we long to have her in our arms!

You are probably wondering why it has taken us so long to finally post this news. The weeks and months of waiting have been due to talking with some doctors, waiting on specific paperwork and spending countless hours in prayer. There are numerous God stories to share that took place over the past couple of months, but I'll save those for later. God deserves all of the glory and praise and there simply isn't time and space to adequately share all that He has done but our hearts are overflowing with praise!

Anyways, we have received her official paperwork from the orphanage. It has been signed by us and is now on the way back to India. In a later post I will detail what comes next. We still have a long wait ahead of us, but I wanted to pause and take this moment to rejoice at all the Father has done. He graciously granted our request. God is all powerful. He answers the prayers of his children. Yes, His Father heart beats for the fatherless and he longs to see them in families. Even in the midst of this less than perfect situation He is making all things new and bringing about redemption and wholeness. Praise God that there is one less orphan and that this family has finally gained our daughter! Now we just have to get her home!!

I will close this out with some verses the Lord gave me when I was fearful and doubting. These verses happened to be the next passage in my reading plan and after a difficult day of wrestling with the wait God granted me this beautiful passage to cling to. Dear friends, our God fulfills His promises. 

"Do not be afraid, for I am with you;

I will bring your children from the east

and gather you from the west...

Bring my sons from afar 

and my daughters from the end of the earth!"

- Isaiah 43:5-6

Praise be to our glorious God!!