God has been moving mountains for us today! First though, I want to share with you how He encouraged me last night.
All day I was so discouraged over the thought of having to do all that paperwork over. Where would I get the energy? ugh. Despite the lethargy toward the paperwork, my mind was racing with all that needed to be done. I had made many phone calls but was not able to speak to anyone and was forced to leave mesages and wait for a response. This frustrated me even further. Worst of all was thinking that baby Jacob would be stuck in Guatemala while we waited for approval from the US Government. I knew that I should be trusting God, but despite my attempts to tell myself to do that, I was a bundle of pent up energy.
I needed to spend some time with the Lord. After taking the kids to Awana last night, I planned to put a praise CD on in the car and sing at the top of my lungs. ha. Praising God always gets my focus where it belongs--on Him.
I grabbed the nearest CD and popped it in. It was a CD I had used to practice some Christmas music for church. The second song was the one that inspired the Christmas poem for Jacob--about Jesus being "One Small Child' who was sent to redeem the world. I knew God was reminding me not to get side-tracked in the mire, but to press on and keep my eyes on the goal of getting Jacob home.
The next song came on and by then I was just smiling.... It was a song that was about Mary, called "When Her Eyes are on the Child." Some of the lyrics are as follows:
There's a mother....
And she's traveled very far
But she's not thinking about her journey now
There's a baby in her arms
And when her eyes are on the child, she finds all the strength she needs
All the struggles and the trials just turn into perfect peace
She can even stop and SMILE when her eyes are on the child.
God is so good! It felt like a hug from Him and a gentle reminder that He had everything under control.
This morning I started making phone calls again. The first one yielded results as I was able to connect with our homestudy agency. The director had gotten my email and phone message and her wheels were already turning about the best way to help. She was very frustrated with the situation at Immigration since our paperwork was still current. However, because of that, she is able to update our homestudy very easily. And...she said that we would not have to get all new police clearances, physicals, etc. Everything we have is still current. Praise God!! Our social worker was too busy to handle it this week, so the director said she would have to figure out which one of her workers would have time to help us.
A few hours later I got a call and a very sweet voice on the other end said, "Karin...I handled some of your paperwork last summer. Do you remember me? Joan called me this morning and I told her that I already knew you! I am not busy this week and I can have this done by tomorrow. I am also planning to go to the office tomorrow and I can get this all notarized and sent off to you. I am the perfect choice to do this for you this week. I already have your homestudy on my computer and I can just go in and make the necessary changes"
Yay...GO GOD! :) Our homestudy agency is located across the state and they have social workers all over Michigan. It was no accident that the only one available already had our homestudy on her computer!
We still needed an employment letter since Jeff had changed jobs and also proof that Jordan had been to the doctor. It can take days to get that verification. I typed up a letter and emailed it to the Human Resources director at Jeff's company and within the hour, she had put it on letterhead, signed it and emailed it back to me! Our doctor's office normally takes days to get me copies of anything but they, too, had the paperwork ready within an hour. WOW!
We should have everything sent off to Homeland Security on Monday. We are going to pray that our approval is completed by the time Jacob is ready to come home.
