Are we there yet??

Nope. Not yet. I thought I would post, however, to tell you all where we are right now.

We are still waiting on my latest set of fingerprints. Everything else in our homestudy is done. And nearly everything else in our dossier is done. We will be getting letters from our local police department tomorrow (more background check stuff) and have to take a few photos of our house and ourselves and we will be done, done, done!

I verified that the prints made it to the FBI a week ago, so it should be about another week before the clearance (please, Lord!) reaches our social worker.

In the meantime, we have actually put our name on a list to consider a certain baby girl with correctable special needs. This was not something we had even considered going into the adoption process, but God has really been working on hearts, and obviously our current situation, to take on things we never thought we could. Anyhow, we are sort of the back-up family to be considered for this particular child, as there is another family interested in her who is further along in the process than we are, which gives them priority over us. Should they decide to "pass" on the opportunity, so to speak, we may have the chance to look over her information and decide if we want to move forward. That is, unless another family further along shows interest. So complicated! Anyway, the odds are pretty slim right now, which we knew would be the case, but the possibility is there. It goes without saying that we believe God has the right child waiting for us as we are waiting for her, so we are doing our best to be patient!

In Light of Current Events

I wait.
Dear Lord, Thy ways
Are past finding out,
Thy love too high.
O hold me still
Beneath Thy shadow
It is enough that Thou
Lift up the light
Of Thy countenance.
I wait --
Because I am commanded
So to do. My mind
Is filled with wonderings.
My soul asks "Why?"
But then the quiet word,
"Wait Thou only
Upon God."
And so, not even for the light
To show a step ahead,
But for Thee, dear Lord,
I wait.

-Elisabeth Elliot

Mother's Day

This is what I received for Mother's Day:

Its from Junk Posse, hand-made jewelry with an adoption theme, by Tracy in Colorado. Isn't it fun?

In other news, we found out today that my fingerprints were rejected...again! It is so discouraging. This means I have to go through the whole resubmission process again and another 2+ week wait. Just when we thought we were getting somewhere!

Career-Ending Injuries, Fingerprints, and Garage Sales

Our homestudy is done! Except for my FBI fingerprint clearance. For some reason the resubmission still hasn't cleared yet. As soon as it shows up though, the homestudy will finally be finished.

We're still polishing off the last few items of our dossier -- we hope to be done by the end of May.

In other news, we attempted to take over a paper route as a means of raising funds. It was short-lived, however, as the action of throwing papers threw out Allan's back for three days following our first delivery! So that job went the way of my Dairy Queen career in college, which lasted all of two days. Fortunately Allan has a few other ideas he might try....

We will be having a garage sale soon, probably in conjunction with several other members of our extended family. I believe it will be Memorial Day weekend. I'll post more details later!