A Stack of Papers

It may look like *just* a stack of papers, but it is not.  It is so much more than that.

This stack of papers represents:

About 100 (more or less) forms filled out.
A half dozen phone calls.
A dozen emails.
Staying up late.
Sitting in the floor of my computer room scanning documents.
Trips to the drug store for photos.
Trips to government offices.
A friend coming over to notarize at nine o'clock at night.
Months of waiting.
Lots of hard work!

Even though the list of documents for the dossier seemed daunting at first, it all seems completely doable now.  Do NOT let the amount of paperwork fool you - she is WORTH IT ALL.  At times, especially waiting for the I-800A to be approved, it seemed to drag on and on.  It was a slow torture waiting.  Oh how God taught me a lot through this special waiting period. 

The next step is sending this stack of papers to our agency for a final review - and then off to China!  Once our dossier is logged in (LID = Logged In Dossier) - we change the waiting game.  Instead of waiting to complete paperwork, we will be waiting for a referral. (A referral = a match = a child = a little face that will be ours.)  This next phase of waiting is the one that I have been dreading.  It is the "real" waiting that adoptive parents do.  Whether you are adopting internationally or domestically, you wait until either you are matched via your agency or a birth mother chooses you. God has so much more to teach me in this next phase.  My prayer is that I can stay focused on HIM and HIS WORD.

Prayer Requests:
1. *BIG ONE* That all of our paperwork is CORRECT and our dossier will be sent to China this week!
2. Dossier to arrive in China with no problems.
3. We can be LID soon!

Thank you for sharing in our journey!  I post a little more updates on my Instagram - so feel free to follow me there with the user name: ABIDINGINGRACE.