Moving Along

It's been a while since I wrote on the blog so I wanted to update everyone on the latest news. We received a call from our agency last week and they informed us that we have a LID of July 27, 2009! We are getting a little closer to bringing our precious Julia home! Our friend, Lindsay (who interned at NDFH), came home on Monday night and she had so many pictures of Julia and her friends at the foster home. There was the most precious video of them singing, The Muffin Man. When we skyped with her on Tuesday night, she sang that song. We had asked Lindsay to come over so Julia could see her. They had had a very emotional goodbye in China so Julia was very surprised and happy to see her!

Last week, my eight year old daughter, Lydia, and I went to an incoming Kindergarten get-together at the park near our house. We were representing Julia and brought her pictures with us. Mark and I plan to put her in Kindergarten soon after we bring her home. We feel the routine and getting to know new friends will be beneficial for her. We took pictures of a couple of potential classmates holding her picture, then we e-mailed them to NDFH. The next day, we received pictures of Julia looking at her potential classmates!

We feel so blessed that Julia is in such caring, loving hands! God continuously shines his bright light on the kids and their caretakers. I mentioned our friend, Lindsay, who is such a mature, caring teenager. She wrote the most breathtaking article about Julia in the Texas Catholic newspaper. If you would like to read this article, please go to www.texascatholic.com and scroll down to COLUMNISTS. As a result of this article plus God's infinite wisdom and mercy, a pediatric doctors' group has offered their services for Julia's pediatric care. PTL!!! We are so blessed and give thanks every day. Hope you enjoy the article; please pray for the doctors, Lindsay, Julia, and us. God bless!

Incredible Connections Part II

We were so overwhelmed and overjoyed that the parish had responded so enthusiastically! We had the means to bring her home and her file was supposed to come through very soon. But it didn't. God had figured things out way ahead and postponed her file coming through for several months. At the end of October '08, Mark lost his job! Fortunately, our homestudy wasn't finished and we put the adoption temporarily on hold. Thank you Lord for the timing of all of this! We were down mentally, emotionally, and financially, but God said "Be not afraid."

Around the middle of March '09, we were presented the opportunity to buy an established vending business and the SAME week, Julia's file came through to the agency! God is so wonderful and blessed us once again. We started everything up once more and angels here on Earth helped us with several parts of the paperwork. The homestudy was finished so we could apply for the I-800A, and we received approval from USCIS around 40 days later. Paperwork for pre-approval to adopt Julia was sent May 19th and May 26th, we were pre-approved to adopt this precious little soul.

The next big milestone occurred on July 14th when our dossier went to China! I'm am in awe of our God who knows our hearts and moved the hearts of our parish to provide the funds to bring her home. Our parish has at least 4500 in attendance on any given weekend and to know that not only will we be Julia's family, but the whole parish as well. PTL!!! " Our God is an awesome God, He reigns from Heaven and Earth."