A Pretty Significant Development. Maybe.

Hello friends,

We want to thank all of you who have been praying for us in this adoption journey.  We appreciate your love, support and prayers more than you could know.

For the last few months we have been on a roller coaster ride of emotions.  Never sure what is happening or when, if anything is going to happen or not.  It's tried our patience, tested us in many ways, and also taught us a lot.

Today is not different in that way.

WE HAVE NEWS!!!!!!!

Yesterday Derek and I met with our agency.  Our paperwork has come in!  This is the Child Proposal document (the one we were waiting for).  This is great news, and so, after reviewing the Proposal and signing a bunch of paperwork with our practitioner here, we went to Toronto and signed the official documents for the First Order for Court.  These documents, if all goes well, will go to Guyana today and get brought to a court there.  If that goes well, and gets passed through quickly we will have a court date of JUNE 26 and 27!!!  This also all hinges on one final stamp of approval from the Government of Ontario which we may or may not get this coming week.
Because we are required to be in the country at least 2 weeks ahead of time, we would be flying out next Friday, June 7.

That is 10 days from now!

Of course nothing can be booked yet because nothing is for sure, but this is a very high probability.   
I probably don't have to tell you that we are feeling a bit overwhelmed at this whole prospect.  We weren't expecting a June court date.  I am definitely not complaining because this gives us a month with our son that we were not counting on!  So amazing!  But there are so many things to do in the next 10 days, it's very daunting.
Because the kiddos are coming with us, it is a lot more involved than when just Derek and I went.  But a lot of the paperwork/vaccinations etc have already been taken care of, so it's mostly just packing.

And we still haven't sold our rental house.   But thankfully we have a huge line of credit!

And,  God is faithful!  We are trusting in His plan and if selling our rental is not part of that, than I'm sure He will work it out!

Anyway, we were excited to share our 'maybe' news......we will keep you posted when we have more.

Also, we are planning to host a bonfire on Tuesday June 4th at our home.  Anyone who wants to stop in and say goodbye and have a visit before we leave is welcome!  Please bring a small item to donate to the Red Cross Home where Keem lives.  We'd love to go there with a suitcase full of medication, hygiene items, and baby care products.  Please no toys, diapers, wipes or bulky items, as they take up too much space.  Things like baby tylenol, advil, motrin, diaper rash cream, antibacterial lotion, nutritional supplements, vitamins, etc. are ideal.
If you need directions or an address please message me via facebook and I'll give that info to you.
Hope to see many of you there! 

uncertainty

We’ve been in a bit of a discouraging place the last few weeks, but a lot has been happening in that.  It’s been a series of events that have lead us to this place starting with a phone call I received from our agency last week.

In the phone call we discovered that our lawyer in Guyana may (or may not) be taking a 4 - 6 week vacation in JULY.  Normally this would not be a huge deal for us, but when we were hoping to go to court in July this is not great news.  Now we are faced with the possibility of an August or September court date.  This is also something that is, in and of itself, not that big of a deal.  We had been toying with the idea of taking the whole family down to Guyana for the summer until our court date, and we know the uncertainty of “Guyana time”.  BUT, unfortunately for us, our homestudy/government approval expires the first week of August.  We cannot take the risk of going to Guyana in June, and finding out that we need to come home and update our homestudy because our lawyer is gone on vacation in July.  So now, we need an update....and fast.  I’m back at it, doing police checks, fingerprints, physicals, references etc. etc. etc.  I can’t believe it’s been two years since we started this process.  I feel like I just did all of this paperwork!  Everything takes time.  Police checks and fingerprints are almost a month before they come back.  When you need everything in a hurry the stress starts to weigh heavy on you.  It’s also a time when you again are reminded that nothing is in our control.  I can’t control the mail, the time it takes for a particular agent to process our paperwork, I can’t control the circumstances surrounding this.  It’s humbling and it’s good to remember who is in control of it all.  It’s also much harder to put yourself out there and trust God, when there is so much at stake.  I know he’s in control of this, but I am constantly fighting my natural tendency to try and put things into my own hands.  I am an advocate when it comes to our adoption, don’t get me wrong.  I have been more bold than I have ever been when I am trying to get appointments, get things processed or moving along.  I’ve surprised myself with that, as this is not my character at all.  But, I am reminded every step of the way that this is not in my control.  As soon as we think we have it all figured out, something happens and we are back on our knees again asking for direction.  That is exactly where God wants us to be, I’m sure of it.  It’s just a bit of a roller coaster ride, that’s all.

Another thing that has been weighing on us a bit more than usual is our finances.  I don’t like to bring this up often, but it is a huge part of adoption.  Trusting that God will provide the finances when we need it has been a huge part of this process.  Derek has a great job, and we are very thankful for that.  But as I watch my husband work every day, sometimes for 36 hours straight, never being home and so physically and emotionally exhausted, I get discouraged.  He goes from the fire department right to work at his second job.  As a wife, I wish I could take his place, but realistically I don’t have the skills he has.  When he works so hard and then we have unexpected circumstances (home study updates) that costs money, it can get very discouraging.  We want very much to take our whole family with us when we go, so we don’t have to leave our kids behind for 6-8 weeks.  We want them to be a part of this, and if at all possible have them with us.  But it’s an extra $4000 just to fly them.  I believe that if we are meant to bring them with us, God will provide a way!  We are in the process of trying to sell our rental house and it’s been on the market for 3 weeks without any signs of interest.  Please pray that we will be able to sell our house quickly.  It would be a huge burden lifted!

Yesterday I received a phone call from our agency saying that they are working hard to get us a court date in June.  Now, I say this very cautiously because from our experience, in “Guyana time”, June means July, which in our case (because of the maybe vacation) would mean August.  BUT, if we got a court date in June then we have to have all of our paperwork done by the end of May.  That is 2 weeks (or so) from this date.  We also would need to have our house sold by the end of May, so we can afford to go!  Those are two things that at this moment seem impossible.

I guess the whole last few weeks have just been unsettling.  We don’t know when we are going, if we are going with our whole family or not, we don’t know if we can get our paperwork done on time.....so many unknowns!

Please pray that we won’t get discouraged.
Pray that paperwork will get done smoothly and quicker than expected.
Pray for our practitioner that she might be able to get things done quickly on this end.  Pray for our son in Guyana, that he might have people there loving him, holding him, hugging him.
Pray for Derek that he might have the strength to keep up this pace, and for me that I might be supportive and helpful to him.
Pray for our kids here that they won’t get discouraged by this wait and uncertainty.
Pray that we will cling to God and seek his will in this whole situation.
Pray that we might keep things in perspective.  Thinking especially of Tim Bosma and his family right now.  We feel overwhelmed with our situation but it's small stuff, I can't imagine how the Bosma family is feeling right now.  Please continue to pray for them and Tim's safe return!
We need your prayers, and we appreciate them so much.