Wasting No Time!

It seems like have been working like mad on paperwork for the last two weeks and I guess I have! We are buying a house and adopting and there is paperwork for both. Friday I spent 8 hours immersed in paperwork- getting our I-800 packet ready to mail and getting financing started for our just signed by the buyers contract.

Monday was a little more normal. However at 11:57pm Mr. Incredible and I set off for our night of journeys. We arrived in Austin about 5 am and went to the McDonald's located near the capital. He worked while I sat with my head on my hands and tried to rest my eyes. At 7 we head to the Secretary of State office, it opened at 7:30, but we had to wait in the lobby until 8am. We were walking out at 8:09am with our I-797 notarized copy certified. Off to Houston we headed. Praying. Google said the 165 mile trip would take 3.7 hours with traffic. We prayed for no traffic. We had NO traffic. We arrived at the Chinese Consulate 2.5 hours from when we left the SOS office with 15 minutes to spare in getting our paperwork submitted for same day authentication service. We waited in line, and waited, and waited. At 11:07 I finally was able to step to a window and submit our paperwork. I asked for same day service and she informed me of being after the deadline. I politely as possible pointed out that we had been in line by 10:45am, that we had driven from Longview to Austin then Houston this morning alone all for this one document, please help us. She called her boss, we got the same day service! This document and our updated homestudy was then overnighted to our agency to that our "dossier phase" could be complete. We arrived home at 7pm. physically exhausted, mentally worn out and knowing that we had done everything humanly possible to get Lilly home quickly; while firmly believing that God had everything in control and was working on Lilly's behalf.

Wednesday I returned the call of the CIS officer assigned our case (she called while we were gone on Tuesday) and found out that somehow on Monday (when our packet was delivered) or Tuesday our packet was lost and she was wondering if we had copies of all we sent. Well I didn't have a copy of two items, so I hung up with her and dialed up our agency and within a couple of hours had the two copies I needed. In the meantime I had sent her everything that I had. Today (Thursday) we got notice that our I-800 provisional approval has been issued and is being mailed today. Hopefully we'll see it by next Thursday if that happens I can get our last packet to our agency by Friday am and then it will be on it's way to China Friday afternoon! The only thing we will have to wait for then is her visa approval and China to issue us travel approval!!! We will probably be in China in 2 that's TWO months!!!!

Believe it or not, I am speechless. God has taken a thought and exploded it into a reality. We made formal application to our agency only 3 months and 5 days ago! It is awesome, wonderful, scary and humbling to see God working like this. It has taken getting out, way out, of our comfort zone. It is being willing to obey even when we don't understand. It will be tough, but God is never failing.