Approved!

Our initial online application was submitted and approved by the foreign country!! (Did I ever give them a proper nickname? How about "Crescent Moon"?) We now have until June 15th to get our Dossier submitted to them. We still have 2 home visits remaining. We're hoping to get those finished VERY soon, so we can get our home study completed. The next step will be our first major risky step. We will submit our I-800A application. We are hoping this goes through and is accepted. There is a small chance that they will request that dreaded letter of permission, but we (myself, the home study agency, AND the placing agency) have tried everything we know of to figure out how to obtain this letter, but nobody we have talked to on the American or the German sides knows what this really is. The hope is that IF someone at the immigration office (I-800A) requests this letter before approving us, they will be able to tell us exactly what it is and how/where to get it. Based on conversations with our home study agency, it will likely depend on who reviews our application. I guess they have only had 1 instance of the immigration office denying it to someone and they lived in Switzerland. It's going to be a nerve-wracking part of the process while we wait 6-8 weeks to find out whether we get accepted. I know that God is bigger than all of this and that He wants this little girl home with us, so I will cling to Him.

I have tried to be very open about the process (and some of the struggles) with the kids without overwhelming them with the MANY details involved. Knowing the simplified version of what we're working on now and knowing that we need to get approved by America, DJ had some very calming words for me just yesterday. He is currently in the "black and white" thinking of the world and is slowly expanding his views of blame, which explains a lot about this conversation. He (and L) are very eager for us to bring "our little girl from Crescent Moon" home. (Yes, they really call her that most of the time, except they say the country's name! Sometimes they actually use her name, which I will call "Z" for now) DJ made the connection that we are trying to bring her home because God wants us to. He said that if those people in America don't give us permission to bring her home, that it wouldn't be our fault we couldn't bring her home and so God would not be mad at us. But, God would be mad at the people who would not let us bring her home. He also added that he thought if that happened that God would be really sad with us. I agreed. Pretty good observations for a 5 year old! :-) I reassured him that God is bigger than the people who are going to make this decision and that since God wants this little girl in our family, He can make sure she gets here somehow. This left me having to explain that God doesn't typically "make" people do things, but that He can still make the situation work out. Thankfully, DJ was satisfied with that (or just too confused to keep asking difficult questions!) I hope D gets the calvinism/arminianism debate because I SO don't want that one and that's where the conversation looked like it was headed! ;-) But, that's really off-topic.

-V