BIG news (but not quite THE big news)

There are big things happening with our paperwork today and thinking about what it means for our family is causing a serious flow of adrenaline to rush through my system right now. 

 

We got two bits of news today.

 

(The Brazilian court is ready to approve us NOW but needs one more piece of paper from USCIS)  +  (Our USCIS caseworker called to say she finished processing our paper TODAY and is emailed it to us right away)  =   We could be applying for travel visas in just 3 or 4 weeks!

 

As my dear friend Michelle said earlier today, "There lies the finish line... I can see it."

A+ for the translator

Ines is our Brazilian translator based in Oregon.  USPS got our express-mail package to her (containing our homestudy addendum) on Tuesday before noon.  I'm told Ines got it translated in record time and express-mailed it to Brazil TODAY!  It should be in Brazil in less than a week!

In Luciana's words:  "All is looking good."  Her goal is for us to travel in mid-June or early July.  

So soon!!  

My mind is already trying to figure out details like car seats (in CT the law is 6 years and 60 pounds), bedtime routines (I've got a plan), household jobs (thank you Supernanny!), plane fare (Delta's right at $500 right now and James may have enough miles to upgrade our seats for the way home!!!), getting from place to place (we have a couple options), clothes (saw some sweet deals at H&M today!), quilts (thank you grandmas!), bedroom furniture (found the sweetest little set of twin beds at English Market on Chapel St.; for the rest, IKEA here we come!) and what I will say to my children the first time I look into their eyes (I still have no idea.  I'll probably be sobbing or giggling or something else that is very unprofessional-looking like that).

Here is the cute bed we found.  We may indulge in 99% 

bliss and go buy it this weekend while James' parents 

are visiting!

99%

We got an email from Luciana today.  I talked with her for while too.  Seems CEJA (Brazil's State Judiciary Commission on Adoption) looked at our paperwork on Friday and requested the translated homestudy addendum.  Luciana seems to think that this request means that CEJA wants to place the kids with us and just needs to make it all official.  She said they wouldn't have asked for it if they weren't serious.  (WAHOO!)  I expressed the legalized addendum (which arrived at our home on Saturday morning) to the translator in Oregon.  We figure she can translate it in a couple days and express it to Brazil before the end of the week.  Hopefully it will be in CEJA's hands in a week and a half or so.  After CEJA has it, we can be more like 99.9% sure.  The 1% uncertainty right now is the possibility of someone who is fully approved and ready to go submitting a petition for the same children between now and next week when CEJA receives our addendum.  Once they have our addendum, if someone else petitions, they will probably say, "we are already reviewing a family for those children."  I do not think we will get anything "official" granting our petition until after we're fully approved and we receive our invitation of invitation from Brazil.  But Luciana will let us know what she finds out.

She thinks we might be able to travel in mid-June!!

We have plans to go out to a super-nice restaurant tonight.  It's "restaurant week" in New Haven and lots of very nice eateries offer a prix-fixe menu at better-than-usual prices.  I've wanted to go to Ibiza forever and it's three weeks before our 7th wedding anniversary and we'd planned to celebrate early.  Now that we have this news, we're also going to celebrate our family--I promise we'll only celebrate 99%.

HOLY SMOKES!

We have sought council from 2 social workers, our family coordinator, both sets of parents, two adoptive moms, a mother of 6, our pastor, our closest friends and our Lord who has put us in this moment with great purpose.  We have not thought lightly about the possibility of adopting four children--and these four in particular.  We have received many wise words, many questions, and much prayer.  

Today we submit a document petitioning the court in Brazil for permission to adopt the four children we think God chose for us long before we began this process.  

When we told our dear friend Jay about this yesterday, his response was a good summary of everyone's words to us over the past couple weeks:

HOLY SMOKES!!!!  I am so happy for you guys!  What a big step, but if anyone can do it, you two can in the grace of Christ.  We will keep praying.

So, we take one more step today.  One more step in faith.  One more step without exhaling until we hear back from the court--hopefully in a week or two.

New favorite movie

What's the right way to start this post?   You know that twisty, windy, long and unpredictable road we've been on since 2006 when we decided to grow our family by adopting internationally?  Well, it's still twisting and turning.  I think some of the most beautiful locations are arrived at after a long walk on a bendy path, don't you?  

Anyway, let me tell you about my new favorite movie.  It's about twelve and a half minutes long, was filmed in a small orphanage in Brazil and has four main characters between the ages of 3 and 9.  And they could be our children.  All four of them.  One is giggly, one is an actor, one is a busy worker and one is a kind and nurturing soul.  

Ready to talk

I titled this post several days ago.  Ready to Talk.  I guess I wasn't really.  I'm still not sure if I'm ready to talk, but if we're let God move us on, it's important to document where we've been and what we've learned.

We got our hearts tangled up in thinking about being parents to the two boys we petitioned for.  Maybe too much.  Maybe too soon.  We must have prayed for and about them for a hundred hours in the short time we knew about them, and we know that literally hundreds of loving friends and family members lifted our petition to God as well.  

So why aren't we angry at God for not answering our prayer?  We couldn't have prayed more.  Or more fervently.  Or with more faith.  Why?  Because God answers prayers His way, not ours.  And it's a good thing too.  We know what we want and what we wish for, but we don't know the whole story from beginning to end.  God's plans are perfect and they are meant to bring Him glory... not us.  In fact (after the disappointment wore off), I've felt more peace than I can understand.  If 10,000 prayers were offered asking God to have His way, and the answer is "no," then I am certain that this is what God chose for us.  Waiting a little longer.  And it's hard not to imagine that He will do something amazing in the wake of this disappointing answer to prayer.  We may not know what that is yet, but we are resting securely in knowing that His plans are better than ours and trusting that He will make our family whole.

We are grateful to our friends for all the encouraging words we heard during the last week.  We are blessed even when the answer is no.  

Requesting Prayer

I know it's been over a week since I wrote, and that usually means nothing is going on in the adoption process.  This time, it means that SO MUCH has been going on that we've really been unable to post--so much time spent talking, processing, praying and hoping.  

Last Friday we got a referral.  We got information about two boys (7 years old and 3 years old) whom we are both very interested in adopting.  On Tuesday, we submitted a petition to the court of minors in the state of Parana, but it turns out that we're not yet sure whether it's the big news we've been waiting for.  The referral was not sent just to us.  It was sent by CEJA to several different agencies (probably).  That means that there could be several different families reviewing the same information we reviewed and submitting petitions just as we did.  In all likelihood, most other families have had their paperwork waiting in Brazil longer than us, and would therefore receive preference over us.  We are told by LIMIAR that we should know in a couple weeks whether the court grants our petition or not.  

First things first:  if you're reading this, PRAY!  Please pray our documents to find favor in the eyes of the courts so that these two little boys might be our sons.  Pray for whoever is reading and approving our dossier and our petition that they will see Jesus on every page and between every line and just know that they need to place these boys with our family.  Pray that God will be glorified through this step of the process and that the boys will be placed very soon in the home that God has chosen for them.

Second things second.  I may be stating the obvious here, but we're a wreck.  Though we're trying our hardest to guard our hearts to keep them from being broken, we are already falling in love with these two sweethearts.  There is so much about them and their story that makes us feel like we could and should be their parents.  Though we've reviewed a few other kids' files (see this post that I wrote back then but didn't post until now), and had our hearts broken by what we've read, this is the only time that we've both been smitten and felt strongly about wanting to adopt them.  We are hoping that this tug on our hearts for these two boys is God's voice revealing to us who our children are.  We are distracted all the time and praying harder than we've ever prayed before.  

We submit to His will for our family--and we hope it's these boys.

Luana

Today we received referral information for the first time.  We are praying that God will reveal his will for our family and for the little girl whose file we're looking at.   

*****

Her name is Luana and we feel like God sent us her file to teach us some important lessons.  Lessons about following Him, and lessons about how to prepare to be adoptive parents.  Getting to know Luana and her experiences during the first six and a half years of her life has been a struggle and a blessing to us.  We've been blessed by what we've learned from her and we've struggled with not being able to make it all better for her.  We've also struggled with the idea of continuing to wait.  But we will continue to wait because we feel strongly that God has 2 children waiting in Brazil for us to be their parents.

Because LIMIAR and AWAA decided to send us Luana's file to review, we have talked through several issues and we feel that we will be more prepared to know our children when we see them on paper for the first time.

1. Siblings--Though at the time we decided to request siblings, we weren't sure why God was asking to do so, Luana has made us realize that our hearts' desire is to adopt two children.  God gave us that desire and reading Luana's story confirmed it for us.  Thank you Luana.
   
2. Age--At the time we learned about her, Luana was just over 6 and a half years old.  She sparked some fruitful conversation about what it will be like to parent children of different ages. Luana, you are valuable.
3. Biological Family--Luana's file contained small bits of information about her biological family through which our hearts have begun to understand what it will be like for our children to have some (but not all) information about their history.  You are priceless, Luana.
4. Previous placements--Will our children come to us from an orphanage or from a birth family or foster family?  Will they have been placed in an adoptive home prior to being placed in our arms?  We thank Luana for preparing us for various possibilities and the long-term effects they could have on a child's heart.
5. Behavioral issues--Several different takes on  Luana's behavior were expressed in her paperwork.  She is a dear child with a broken heart and has taught us some of what it will mean to raise a child within the corral of Love.
6. Learning issues--We talked through school and learning issues after looking at Luana's story.  We thank God for the resources he has given us.
7. Health issues--We always knew we would receive some medical information with a referral, but we didn't know what it would feel like.  Praise God for Luana.

Lord, you brought us Luana's face and have taught us so much through her.  We pray that you will unite her quickly with the family you have prepared for her.  Heal her broken heart with your love and the love of her new family.  Restore her to trust and feel joy all the days of her life.