Paperwork Goes International

According to our plans, this post would have been on our blog almost two months ago.  Along the way, our plans have changed due to the additional psychological evaluation and longer than anticipated process for approval in the US.  But we have received word from Living Hope Adoption Agency that our dossier is being sent to Honduras today.  Once it arrives in Honduras, it needs to be translated, which is anticipated to take a few weeks, and we simply wait for that day when we receive our "referral".  Referral sounds so clinical...let me step aside from the official terminology.  We now wait for the picture of the little girl that the Lord has set aside to be a member of the Crossgrove family (sorry, I had to take a moment to regain my composure.  So I don't get emotional again and get the keyboard wet, I'll use the technical term for the rest of this post).  We do not know how long the wait will be.  The original timeline said that this phase would be no longer than six months, and could be shorter.  So giving one month for translation, the earliest we could anticipate receiving our "referral" by the end of September.  Allowing for the full six months, the latest we should be waiting would be February of 2012.  Once we receive our referral, then the travel plans will be made and Alicia and I will make the first trip.  We also learned the Living Hope anticipates sending three more dossiers in the next two weeks, so with the two families ahead of us and three right behind us, there is a good chance we will not have to travel alone.  We'll see!  I am learning a very practical lesson about the passage of Scripture that I will be preaching in just a two weeks - James 4:13-15

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

The Lord continues to teach us patience and dependence!