Prayers Answered and Doors Opened!! YEAH!!!!

First of all, thank you so much for the prayers! We feel their great presence and my how they are working!!!! After weeks of pleading with Catholic Social Services offices, and having no luck, I was finally able to get the receptionist to patch me through to someone this Monday afternoon. As I explained the many struggles we’d encountered, she assured me she would look into it and have some sort of solid answer for the delay by tomorrow. I felt a little more confident after she explained that as of today she was in charge of the entire adoption services department. Just as promised, her assistant called me the following morning to let me know my paperwork was waiting for pick-up in their office. YEAH!!!! That’s what we’ve been needing, and now I could drive to Anchorage to get it. At that time I thought to myself, "Wow, sure wish Rick could take some time off from work and drive into Anchorage with me (because by week’s end we need to drive again to Anchorage to have our fingerprints redone with USCIS -- ours were set to expire on Aug. 31st)." We’d planned to drive into Anchorage later in the week because right now his construction project is so involved and at such a critical point right now and he couldn’t possibly break away until later in the week. Even so, I couldn’t help but wish there was some way to bypass making another trip to Anchorage later in the week. That’s when God opened the doors WIDE OPEN!! At that very instant, Rick called to report he’d unexpectedly hit a stopping point at his jobsite! One of Rick’s workers had been complaining of feeling sick all morning, and the other helper just amazingly remembered he had a doctor’s appointment in which he was about to miss if he didn’t leave right then. So Rick gave them the day off, but being the work-a-holic that he is, he tried to busy himself with other little tasks for the remainder of the day. When he called to let me know what was going on, he told of how weird it was that at that same moment both of the guys needed to go, but instead of being frazzled about their job being halted, he had a wave of calmness just blanket him. Then I told him, "Rick, I think God’s telling us it’s time!! We need to travel to Anchorage to pick up the document and then go to the USCIS for fingerprints while we’re there too. God just miraculously created an opportunity for us to move forward with this adoption! We’ve been patiently waiting by the door awaiting our Lord’s instruction and now the doors are flinging WIDE OPEN and we have to act now – it’s God’s perfect timing!"
Experiencing God’s amazing way of taking control is just pure joy! Thank you so much everyone for your prayers! Please know how much your prayers are moving our process along in such a mighty way! The documents are scheduled to arrive in Colombia early next week, where they will be translated which takes another week. By my calculations, we should still have 4 weeks or so from that point in which we might receive a referral, then travel, complete the adoption and be home in the U.S. with our new additions to the family before Christmas If a referral doesn’t get issued within the next 5 weeks, it is likely we will not receive the children before Christmas, and we would not be able to travel to meet them until next year. Taking into consideration that the ICBF closes their offices from approx. Dec. 15th to Jan. 15th, they try to finalize all adoptions by that month-long holiday so that no families have to stay an extra month’s time in Colombia. I sure hope that made sense! We continue to keep the window of optimism open and place all our trust in God to see it through. Please pray alongside with us for the paperwork & referrals to process through at lightning speeds! Continue to pray that those Colombian officials reach a speedy decision in matching our children with us, and also in matching children to the other waiting families awaiting referrals from Colombia.