Following the rules . . . most of the time!

This morning Bruce and I (along with Bruce's sister, Marjorie) went to the USCIS  (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) office near downtown Atlanta. We received our appointment notices in the mail last week, but our original appointment date was listed as November 15th. Thankfully, our home study agent had already told us that when we received our appointment notices we should find the earliest date we could all go together and just "head on down there."

I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about going down there before our scheduled appointment time. I mean . . . what if they turned us away? After all, isn't it always better to follow the rules? But our home study agent assured us that this would be the best way to help save time in the long run, so we opted to head out on faith. (But right before I left I sent out an email to some dear friends and asked them to pray for the Lord's favor to be with us as we went.)

I am glad to report that the people at the USCIS office were extremely nice and welcoming to us, and we were able to get in within 30 minutes of arriving at their door. All three of us went through the process of being fingerprinted one more time (this is the third round of fingerprinting for all of us now), and our fingerprints are safely tucked into the Homeland Security System now. 

Now we begin the waiting time (again!). They tell us it could take four to six weeks for our fingerprints to be approved. Once that happens, and we receive our letter of approval, our dossier can be sent on to Hungary. But that process can take several weeks, as they have to translate all the documents from English into Hungarian.

So, the other day I started thinking . . . if we could "break the rules" with this whole fingerprinting thing, what other "rules" could we break along the way that would allow us to get to Hungary and meet our little boy sooner rather than later? Those thoughts led me to write to our adoption agency representative and ask her. Just what can we do to speed things up a bit? I received an email back from her yesterday stating that there ARE some things we can do to speed the translation process along. It's not usually done this way, but they are willing to make an exception. 

Although I am usually someone who follows the rules (except for maybe when I'm trying to drive within the speed limit . . . but that's another story!), I have found that this journey into adoption has shown me that sometimes the "rules" are not really rules at all. They're just "guidelines" or "suggestions." Of course I wouldn't have known that at all without others (who know more about this process than we do) taking the time to tell me about it. I'm grateful for the two people God put in our path . . . people who care about that little boy in Hungary, who is waiting for a family to become his very own. 

I don't believe it's a coincidence that our home study rep and our adoption agency rep have both shared information with us that isn't always shared with every adoptive family. God still has His hand in this journey, and I'm grateful for that! He continues to remind us that He is orchestrating EVERY step in our journey toward Christopher.

As we enter into one of the last rounds of "waiting", we'd really appreciate your prayers for us. We do not have the funds in our adoption account to pay for the rest of the adoption (at least not at this point). But we have seen God provide up to this point, and we believe He will continue to provide in the days ahead. Our prayer is that we would remain faithful and that we would not doubt Him at all. Please pray for our faith to remain strong and for our eyes to continue to seek Him. We thank you, in advance, for your prayers!