The Unbearable Weight of Waiting

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.
- Isaiah 1:17

It's not difficult to recognize when a person feels sincere joy. Not the expression you witness when someone is simply pleased, but the look that a person has that is beyond being happy. It's an emotion that seems to radiate from both the outside and the inside of him or her, almost literally creating a "glow".

That definition then would describe the way that Jordan and Alexis appear to us as we draw ever so close to meeting their little brothers! Whether it's Alexis' sharing of their pictures or talking to others about the things we know about them, or Jordan's constant planning of all the things he can't wait to show them, there is no mistaking how excited they are to welcome them into our family.

Our handsome little grandson - Brantley!!

And then of course there is Ashley who cannot wait to meet them, calls daily to check on status updates, and has taught Brantley to speak Twi (okay, that last part was fabricated!).

We learned a number of things this week, and in the midst of our continuous learning curve, we almost committed our first big mistake relative to all of the documentation required for the adoption process, as well as the travel.

We didn't file our visa applications for entry into Ghana until two weeks prior to our flight dates using information we had gathered from various sources to determine we'd probably only need a week. We did not, however, take into account that the Ghana embassy is closed every Friday and that this past Monday was a holiday! Needless to say, we spent a few days writing emails, leaving voice messages, and preparing for the worst. Of course our visas arrived with days to spare! It's funny now.....it wasn't that funny then!

We reached a milestone this week by receiving our finalized homestudy! This allows us to submit our dossier to Ghana to allow our POA Kofi to set up a court date. Because we're leaving very soon, we'll hand deliver that to him when we arrive. The process marches on!

The homestudy also allowed us to submit another key form which was our petition for adoption, or I-600A. Okay, we want to clarify for anyone fact checking that we're not exactly sure what all these forms are actually for.......just that we have to submit them! LOL!

Finally, the homestudy allows us to start filing for Grants and Loans, which definitely comes in handy right now given the fact that we'll soon be paying the next large installment for our adoption fees and we're assuming someone is going to want to be paid for the airline tickets at some point! :)

Most importantly this week, aside from continuing to pray and give thanks for this incredible journey we're taking, we were notified that Kofi will be at the airport when we land WITH Daniel and Deric at his side! He will then take us all to the hotel and we will spend the entire week with the two of them as any other family would do!

We'll be posting lots of pictures while we're gone and hopefully updating everyone as often as we can!

Maybe it's really easy to recognize sincere joy when it's something you feel yourself. This week, along with so many others of late, our family shared in sincere joy.