Prayers for I-171H, Referral and Travel

I am going to start praying diligently tonight for our form I-171H to come in the mail this week. It was six weeks this past Friday and we were told eight weeks. However it is the last document needed in our dossier (which is already at the agency). Should we get our referral soon, this one piece of paper is required before our dossier can go to court.

I am also thinking that this just might be the week. I could be SO wrong, but I'm going to think it anyway. We have "friends" (online friends, anyway) who are with our agency who are leaving this week to go meet their babies for the first time. I am SO excited as I'm going to pick their brains to pieces when they get home!!! I've already probably worn myself out with them asking tons of questions already. It helps so much to have someone to tell you what to expect, so to A. and M., THANK YOU very much for being patient and answering questions!!! I hope you guys have a wonderful trip!!

Ironically, I'm not at all as anxious as I thought I might be. If you could see our calendars, you might understand why. Two nights this week there are ballgames and one on Saturday. Kevin has to be at a conference for three days. Joshua has a school musical on Thursday night (assuming the ballgame gets cancelled due to so many kids being in the musical). There is church Wednesday night. We work the concession stands for our baseball team on Monday night. Our friend is having cancer surgery tomorrow so I'm going to run to the hospital for a while to sit with his wife, my friend. I need to work in the field at least two days this week and catch up some 125 QA review jobs the rest of the week. Ahh... who has time to be anxious??? Once I see her face, though, all bets are off!

We have looked at our calendars and we have a perfect two week window to travel that would not interfere with too much so we are going to begin praying for a referral this week and subsequent travel during that two week window.

And, for those of you who've read this far, one last cute story for you to end the night. I've been reading another adoptive family's blog, Hoping to Adopt with God Holding our Hands. They just recently returned with their daughter from Kyrgyzstan. While they were there, they recounted a story of seeing a goat slaughtered, skinned and cooked over a fire -- right outside their hotel window. On the way home from Wal-mart on Saturday evening, Josh and I were talking about what he might expect on his trip. I was telling him the story about the goat. He said, "Don't they have food over there??" I said that it was not as plentiful as it was here and that they ate what they had to. He said, "Don't the churches help them out?" I said, "Well, this country doesn't have nearly as many Christian churches as we do." He thought and said, "What about the missionaries?" I told him there were only a few and they couldn't feed everyone. He thought some more and then said, "Well! I'm just going to have to talk to Brother David about this!" Brother David is our preacher!! I shared the story with Brother David this morning at church and he and I had a great laugh over it. I love that my son is concerned about this and in his heart wants to do something about it. I hope he always has a passion for helping those in need. Granted, I'm sure the goat folks didn't think a thing of it -- this is routine for them.