Smooth sailing

How's this for a co-incidence?  As I was waiting for James to meet me to drive up to Hartford for our fingerprint appointments, Ryan, our family coordinator from AWAA called to ask how the process was going and make sure we'd been assigned an appointment for fingerprinting.  He gave us a few bits of new news that translate directly into prayer requests.

• Since the CIS is still getting used to processing the new I-800 forms, about half of all adopting families in the US are being asked to have their social worker update parts of their homestudy.  We're praying that we find favor with those who review our case so that we receive approval smoothly and swiftly.
• We've learned that the translation of our dossier will take place in the US, not Brazil as we had assumed.  The woman who will translate all of our documents (wholelifeonpaper) has been working with Limiar for a long time, and we're told she's "very fast."  In fact, there's a possibility that, depending on her schedule, she may be able to get started on our documents before we're 100% done gathering them.  If that works out, she would be able to start in on what we have already and then finish up quickly once we have our USCIS approval ready to send her.  We're praying that will work out smoothly too.

The fingerprinting experience couldn't have been more smooth today.  We arrived 20 minutes early for our 2pm and 3pm appointments and found the waiting room completely empty.  We filled out some forms and were processed immediately.  As we started the car to go back home and looked at the clock--1:59 and we were on our way!  

We've said it to everyone we know and we've prayed the same words 100 times--the desire of our hearts is to have our children home with us soon.  We long to embrace our children and our new life as a family.  We want for them to be safe and sound at home with their mom and dad.  Knowing God is in control makes me feel safe praying for miracles like kids at Christmas realizing that only He can take care of such a request.  It's safe because it's honest and it's from my heart and I trust that whether the answer is "yes" or "no" for my Christmas miracle request, our family is safe in His hands.