Behind the Scenes

One thing we have realized in this past week is that God is ALWAYS at work in our lives even if it is behind the scenes in ways that we don’t see or even understand!

Our adoption of Aubrey and Micah is moving along very rapidly. We are amazed at how quickly things are going, and even on the days when we feel like it will be forever before we get the joy of having these two treasures join our home, we know that God has been speeding things along on our behalf and theirs. 

So here is a little update on our process: as of last week we were waiting from the okay from USCIS Immigration Services here in the USA to give us the okay to bring two orphans into our country. There are several steps to this part of the process including some paperwork,
a review of our home study, some money (of course), and a set of fingerprints called biometrics. After our paperwork was sent to USCIS a few weeks ago we had to wait for them to give us an appointment to go down to Pittsburgh to get our biometrics done. To our dismay, the appointment was set for two weeks from the time we received the notification in the mail. That seemed like a long wait to us, when every week brings us that much closer to meeting Aubrey and Micah, so we decided to follow the advice of some of the adoptive parents that had gone before us and just take our paperwork down to Pittsburgh and show up unannounced! We knew that this could mean being turned away, even after we had made the two hour drive there, but we decided to risk it. When we stepped into the biometrics office and I hesitantly mentioned to the man checking people in that we had not waited for our appointment he waved his hand and replied, “Aw, we don’t really go by those appointments anyway.” And, within about fifteen minutes we had our biometrics done and we were on our way! 

With that part done we knew that USCIS would assign us an officer to review our case. We called to let them know that we had gone early to get our prints done, and the woman told me that she would document it on our file but that we didn’t have an officer assigned to our case yet. We knew that this process of USCIS approval could take up to 90 days and that we would probably need a lot of patience! I (Erin) thought several times last week of calling to check on our status but I did not want to “bug” our officer because this is the person that would be deciding whether we “pass” or “fail” this part of the process. We knew the officer would be responsible for reading over our home study and evaluating our family and eligibility to adopt. We had really been praying that we would have favor in the eyes of our officer and that she would pass us with flying colors!

So, at the end of last week, after talking to our case manager from our adoption agency, we knew that we wanted to get our paperwork in order and over to Micah and Aubrey’s country as soon as we could. We decided late Thursday afternoon to go ahead and call USCIS anyway and see if an officer had been assigned and to try to find out where we were at in the process. Imagine our surprise when we called and not only had an officer been assigned but she said, “This is the weirdest coincidence…I just began reading your home study not even two minutes before you called! I have it right here!” She called it a “coincidence” but I laughed and said, “You know, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.” That was God working behind the scenes! I could have called earlier that week as I had wanted to, but I ended up calling her just as she was reading our home study! The timing of everything reminded me so much of how God revealed Aubrey to us through his incredible timing that I just had to laugh.  She said, “Well, unless I have any questions about your home study I could have it approved tomorrow.” Tomorrow! I couldn’t contain the tears. A possible 90 day wait had turned into about a week and a half! We waited on pins and needles to hear about our approval, and the next day I called back and left a message and when our officer returned the call she said, “I approved you today. You’ll have the form in the mail by early next week.”

We are so thankful for the answered prayers of getting through this part of the process without a hitch. And God is working behind the scenes in such a way as to remind us that it is He who is leading this process NOT us! That is such a comforting thought. Only He knows the reasons for why we are moving so quickly and we also recognize that at any point in this process things could slow down. International adoption is tumultuous in that way! The next step is for us to send all this paperwork (called the dossier) overseas to be translated and authenticated by their government. But for now we are thanking God for these answered prayers and looking ahead with excitement at all he has in store.