Hanging onto the "Rope"

Over the past three weeks, I've found myself, many times, feeling like Jude and Jake in this picture. Navigating my way through a spider web of paper chasing of documents for our dossier, organizing important fundraisers, home study requirements and meetings, and just LIFE! AND just like the boys, I've been hanging on for dear life hoping to make it through it all without falling flat on my face! The great news is.... it's all coming together! God is so good- He's totally been the "rope" I'm hanging on and trusting in this journey! When I've felt overwhelmed and like I was about to fall through a hole in the web, I've been continually reminded to just hang on! He's faithful and trustworthy and He's leading the way.

So here's where we're at in the process as of now...

Our home study report is being written up and hopefully we'll be able to review it and send it off to AGCI to be reviewed maybe by next week sometime?! Our in-home meeting with "B", our social worker, went really well! She is full of insightful information regarding children that are coming from an orphanage and the differences in raising Jude compared to our next child. And truthfully, while I feel somewhat ill equipped to know how to handle it all- I trust that God's grace is given according to need, and he will prepare Joshua and I along the way!

Our dossier is almost complete! We are waiting on our FBI prints to come back in. Because we had a heads up that the wait has been up to 14 weeks long, we tried to be ahead of the game and we mailed off our request at the beginning of August... so I'm hopeful that we'll have our prints back within a couple weeks! Also, we're waiting on our passports to come back in and I think that they should arrive around the same time as the FBI prints. Other than that, besides our two reference letters for our dossier (that are on the way) we have all the required documents collected! I have been one determined mama to knock this sucker out as quick as possible so I didn't have it hanging over my head! I've managed to collect it all in about 4 weeks... now I just need to wait to get the two documents back.

That being said... here's our next prayer request. Once our home study report is approved with AGCI we are then able to turn in our dossier. BUT we are also required to turn in our next chunk of money totaling $5,000 at that time too! I know, take a breath with me- it's a lot of money, I get that. We have paid all the fees for documents to be gathered so far for our dossier and we have paid our home study in full already, which leaves us with $1,473.08 in savings as of now. So our prayer request would be that the funding of the remaining $3,527 would come in in God's timing.

We continue to plan on doing our part in bringing in any extra income whenever and where ever we can and we continue to seek God's guidance in how we can do that! We plan on doing another yard sale at the end of October with the remaining items we had from this past weekend's sale and including any other donated items people might be willing to give. I just got an email yesterday asking if I'd be willing to lifeguard for the Toyota US Open Triathlon of the Life Time Fitness Triathlon Series coming up on October 10th. It pays $100 (which I probably would have done for free honestly because I get to work with the Coast Guard- how awesome is that?! I'm a dork when it comes to water safety if you haven't already figured that out), and so every little bit helps! We are still doing the Just Love Coffee fundraiser,  the Worthy of the Prize Auction, the Chosen Child T-shirts, the Chosen Child Band, and the Chosen Necklace sales as well.

So here's the deal.. it might just turn out that we have an approved home study and completed dossier sitting in front of us, BUT that we can't turn it in because the funds aren't there to accompany it. And while that sucks truthfully... I have to be okay with that and trust that it's God's timing. He has been faithful to provide for each step along the way so far in His perfect timing, so I trust Him again with this. The hardest part about the thought of not being able to turn everything in is the fact that we can't be put on the wait list until it is. As of now, the timeframe we've been given from AGCI from wait list until referral (for a boy 0-12 months old) is 10 months minimum. So obviously the sooner we're able to be put on the list, the better. It's the whole "hurry up and wait" thing really. So... once again, I lay over any agenda I might  have and trust that God's got this thing figured out. But you're prayers that funding would be there around the same time that the dossier and home study are complete would be much appreciated! (o;

So, that's that in the Helms house as of now! Our prayer is that God would continue to get the glory through out this journey and that we would be obedient and faithful along the way! Thank you for your encouragement and support!