At last, we have received our "Notice of Favorable Determination" (i.e. I600A approval to proceed) from USCIS!! The great mound of paperwork from the last two months has led us to this point, and never did I expect it to come so quickly.
When we first started the home study, we were all (even the social worker) working feverishly hard to get the home study completed by a certain date, so that we could apply to USCIS by a certain date, and then hopefully get our approval back in time for our anticipated travel date. By our timeline, we were cutting it close (too close for my comfort). And that was if the application went through without any questions or delays. Our travel plans, and the rest of our process, hinged on this one piece of paper. So we prayed that their would be no delays in our application process, and that an approval would come quickly...and that we would not be anxious as we waited! Praise the Lord we were on His timeline, and not ours!
Ironically, our scheduled appointment time for fingerprinting was slated for tomorrow. Through the adoption community grapevine, we heard you could go to the USCIS office early. So we decided to try, hoping and praying that they would let us in the door. We went to Atlanta this past Friday, and they saw us early and did our fingerprinting without any problems. Let me just say that this process was thankfully nothing like what I expected! I had expected a very ominous building, with very stern workers eyeing us with suspicion. Instead, it was a very modest building, filled with very friendly workers, and the whole process was extremely efficient.
Except for one thing...while we were there, we were told my husband's birthday was wrong in the system. And my first thought, was "oh no, this will probably delay our application" (after all, we had heard the horror stories of this bureaucratic process).
So, as soon as we got back on the road to head home, I called the phone number they gave us, and was given another number directly to the adoption processing department. A very nice man said their system was down (again, I'm thinking "oh no!"), and he would take the correct information and call me back when it was done. An hour later, he did call back and told me that he recognized our names because he was the one working our case. He proceeded to tell me he already had our fingerprints back, and saw no reason not to approve us, that we should receive a letter of approval within a week! My jaw dropped to the floor! I was stunned. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to know anything that soon (and how nice of him to actually tell me, which he didn't have to do)...much less the SAME DAY on our way back home from the USCIS office!!
Again, though excited, a part of me was still thinking "I'll believe it when I see it." Lo and behold, not even a week later, our USCIS approval arrived in the mailbox TODAY! Woohoo!!!! Let the official countdown begin! :)
So why am I telling you all of this? Because I had little faith in this process; despite God showing me over and over that His hands are at work in this process. Because God is way more efficient than I will ever be. And because it still AMAZES me that God, the Almighty One, the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in it, heard little me and my little plea for help and actually did something about it. Just weeks after beginning this journey, I was inspired and challenged by a sermon from our pastor to look for God's fingerprints in the mud (see the post What's In the Mud?). Well, apparently our fingerprints weren't the only ones at USCIS (pun intended)!!
The take away here is this: our problems or requests are never too great or too small to take to the Lord in prayer! I don't know about you, but sometimes I need to be reminded of that. All too often, I fall into self-sufficiency mode in my efforts to "get it done" or "be more efficient" (unfortunately, the get-it-done part of this process hasn't helped my inclination, I might add).
Yet, throughout this journey, the Lord has been bringing me back over and over to 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24, a passage that my husband and I "just happened" to be memorizing (in preparation for a new bible study on the book) right before this journey began. There are so many truths in this one passage that have spoken directly into our situation and my frame of mind; truths that have continually encouraged and challenged me (which I have underlined) throughout the last few months. I greatly encourage you to memorize this passage, too, because His Word never returns void!
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
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