Dossier...and AHHH!

I (Julie) thought I would give you all an update on our dossier.  A dossier is all the paperwork required by the country from which you want to adopt.  It is around 50 different documents, totaling around 175 sheets of paper…once completed, it all gets translated and then bound into a 350 page book, stitched and sewn together by hand- pretty neat.  We want to extend a HUGE thank you for your prayers...there was definitely a miracle!  Stop reading this paragraph if you want the long version with all the ups and downs, and don’t want the ending given away and skip down to “Long Story”).  Short story, we missed our second deadline, but were given a week extension from Ryan’s country for our paperwork/dossier to be submitted - instead of a month penalty!  This is HUGE!!!!  So the process moves forward without too much delay- and our dossier is in Eastern Europe and set to be reviewed.   Thanks again for praying!

Long Story:

The "AHHHH's!" in this story are a combination of my flesh and my spiritual training; disappointments, me pulling out my hair, and tears, combined with prayers that God grows my faith to trust in His power and goodness and that He also gets us on His time table.  I have come away realizing the silliness of me thinking I can control anything and a wonder at how great He is and His plans are (even when I don't see the end yet).  And at times like this I have to go back to Jesus dying on the cross for my sins as the best example of His goodness and His power. 

Here is the long detailed story.  I had to get this down somewhere, it is just too incredible.  We were preregistered in Ryan’s country and given a date in April that the courts in Eastern Europe (EE) would accept our dossier- which is called being submitted.  Our dossier has been complete for a while, except for one document.  The missing piece was our USCIS or US government’s approval.  Our USCIS application was turned in in February along with a letter from our pediatrician urging the government to expedite our case due to Ryan's medical needs.  We have also been working with our congressman to help speed this process along.  Despite this, we missed our first adoption paperwork deadline in April in Eastern Europe (EE) because we still did not have our USCIS approval.  No one had any idea that we wouldn't have received approval by April- what a wait. AHHH!

So, since we missed our deadline, EE re-registered us for a May 10th deadline, and would be able to receive our paperwork between 10-11am.... Anyways, by the last week of April, we still hadn't received confirmation!  AHHH!!!  After many calls from us and our congressman urging a decision, we were given USCIS approval on Tuesday, May 1!  (see last blog posting)  GOOD and a sweet answer to prayer!  We needed the letter in the mail by Friday, May 7th to make our deadline.  So our thoughts were, if we can get it by 2:30, when the mail usually comes on Friday, then we can bring it to the Secretary of State’s Office, get it apostilled before 5:00 when they close for the weekend, and have the whole dossier sent via FedEx, DHL, or UPS Friday night…which would get it there two days or perhaps the day before our deadline- PERFECT!  Our crew on the ground in-country would have time to translate the new pages and get it to the EE courthouse in plenty of time.  We prayed.   Low and behold, Chris’s doctor appointment even got cancelled that Friday afternoon and we thought that for sure, this is it!!!  So I waited by the mail box and did NOT get it.  AHHH!!  Backup plan- Chris went to the Secretary of States office, while I tried to get USCIS to have our letter faxed there, and this next part is in itself a long story, but I will make it short…We tried everything to get a copy of our approval emailed or faxed to us, to make our deadline, but our USCIS officer wouldn't budge.  Chris waited at the Secretary of State’s office until the doors shut, leaving without what we needed.   AHHH!!

Ok, new plan…We prayed to get it in the mail on Saturday the 5th so that we would at least have Sunday to try to figure things out and not have to wait till Monday afternoon and we did! ANSWER TO PRAYER!  But, because we got the approval letter on a weekend, we still couldn't get it apostilled (a special seal) at the Secretary of State until Monday, when they reopened- AHHH!  We thought there was no way to make the deadline, until we found out about a special FedEx shipment method.  So here came the newest grand plan- or so we thought...

Saturday and Sunday we worked for hours with FedEx to open a special account allowing us to ship “Next Flight” on a commercial jet (hard to do since 9-11) and have a courier hand deliver the dossier door-to-door.   They said they could get it to EE for delivery on Wednesday afternoon- perfect. YES!!!  God even provided a generous couple, willing to pay the pretty penny to use this service!  This time frame would still allow the team on the ground there time to translate the documents that still needed to be done in order to turn it in at 10:00am the next morning.  There was mention of a holiday and having to hire more expensive couriers, but not much more was said about that.  We went to FedEx that night, while our neighbor sat for our kids, so we could get all the boxes weighed and measured,  the customs forms filled out (over 18), and all of the shipping labels written out correctly.  At last three packages- containing pounds of papers and documents, checked and put in order, notarized, county certified, and apostilled…and on and on- were ready to go!  This was it! 

You can imagine my surprise when I called FedEx early Monday morning and they said they couldn’t promise delivery on Wednesday anymore, but only on Thursday by 4:00pm- too late!  AHHHH!  We were still unsure of the confusion; the “holiday” was mentioned again, saying that customs would most likely be closed.  But, we decided to go for it anyways, praying for a miracle. 

So, first thing Monday morning Chris was at the Secretary of State’s office waiting for the doors to open to get our USCIS approval apostilled.  I took Honey B to school, then took the other girls with me to Chris’ school and picked it up the long awaited document from him.  I came home and got our 3 FedEx boxes ready, all the shipping labels re-filled out (there had been a change in that process too), and called the courier- hoping he could come before noon.   Chris came home from lunch and it was crazy…so another teacher, Anna, offered to take his afternoon classes so that he could be here to assist me and help get everything out correctly and on time…and watch the kids.  So thankful for Anna’s help! 

The courier came to our house to bring the documents directly to the airport, but got here around 1:30, and had even more paperwork for us to fill out.  He left our house at 2:45, with our precious dossier.  The plane that he needed to catch left from the Columbus airport at 4:00 for NY.  A gap too close for comfort. The courier called at 3:45, saying that the documents were out of his hands, but couldn't guarantee that they were on the flight- that depended on the team to which the dossier was passed.   AHHH!  Talk about suspense!  A call at 7pm confirmed that they HAD made it on the flight to NY, and were ready to be loaded on the plane to EE. YES!   We prayed they would get there in time...

Come to find out our paperwork did get there on Wednesday, YES!!! , which was "on time" but, it WAS a national holiday, so our paperwork sat in the airport because there were no customs agents there to clear it.  AHHH!!!  So, it got cleared on Thursday, May 10 and from there we just had to wait.  We had no word all day on Thursday.  FedEx confirmed delivery, but that was all the information we had.  Did they really get it, could they turn it in later that day?  No word.  Then on Friday morning as I was leaving to get Honey B to school with the girls the phone rang…Yes it did get delivered on Thursday but didn't reach the destination until 1:30, missing the 10-11 o'clock window.  AHHH!!!  But, that was only the first part of the news…

Our friend, Jennie, sent out an email on Monday, asking our friends to pray "that people would be willing to do things in this situation that they wouldn't normally do," and God answered that prayer...by a government doing what they normally would not do, giving us a week extension!  So our paper work is there in Eastern Europe and they will have a whole week to double check it, translate it, and carefully get it to its destination this week.  Lord willing, it will be ready at the door at 10:00 on the date of our appointment.  What an answer to prayer!!!!!

And this good news was given to us on Friday, the day before our big Columbus, OH fundraiser- The Wine Tasting and Silent Auction!  Join us at the next posting for another story of God’s amazing power!