Time's Up!!

Remember when I said we were rushing around trying to get our immigration clearance updated?  Well, I rushed as much as I could, but I couldn't control others and whether they felt our sense of urgency.  I also couldn't turn back the clock and start sooner.  We didn't make it.  On my last post, I mentioned making a couple of changes on our home study and the fact that those changes would cost us $360 to renew our application rather than the $0 for no changes.  Remember that?  Well, since we missed the deadline, we now have to re-file from scratch and pay the $890 for a first time filing.  Don't you just love bureaucracy?  Why must they make this difficult!

At first I wanted to throw my hands in the air:  We're having a hard enough time raising the money with out throwing away part of it.  Why do I keep messing everything up!?  Are You trying to tell us to quit?

Then I looked for someone to blame:  I know I was supposed to keep up with expiration dates...and I was!  It was far off to me.  Doesn't everyone know I've never done this before and could use a little guidance??

I worried about how much we might be set back:  We're out extra money...Will the MOJ throw us out of line and cost us our registration date which is now almost 9 months old?  Will they deem us unfit parents if we don't care enough to keep everything up-to-date?

Then I thought about why I had hesitated to make the changes in gender and age.  It was partly because I did NOT want to make the trip again into downtown Nashville to have the changes apostilled.  1) Find someone to keep the kids because they are not allowed in the building.  2) Find someone to go with me to help me watch for the right exit while I'm watching 4 or 5 lanes of same-direction traffic (not used to that).  3) Drive around endlessly looking for one of the few coveted parking places within a block of the place.  4) Go to the umpteenth floor where I can barely look out the window from across the waiting area because the height makes me dizzy.  5) Find my way out of there because you can't leave the way you came for all the one-way streets.

I know.  That entire paragraph is pretty lame.  I didn't mind it too much the first time around.  It was one of those "necessary evils" to be endured.  And at least I had 30-something papers to have apostilled.  I did NOT want to make the trip for just one or two papers and just for a couple of wording changes.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that having to redo our USCIS application was certainly NOT optional like our change in parameters.  Now, we HAD to go back to Nashville.  May as well make those other changes and get those papers apostilled while we are there.  Perhaps this is God's way of making sure we make those changes.  Perhaps our daughters are not in the age range we originally set.  Perhaps he DOES want to us to adopt boys instead.  OR perhaps he just wants us to prove that we are willing.  I mean look at Abraham and his almost-sacrifice of Isaac.  God was looking at his willingness to obey, not that he went through with the original plan.  Can you imagine Abraham arguing and saying, "No, Lord, I have to do this thing.  You SAID...."  Perhaps we will make these changes and still end up adopting girls in the original age range...no changes needed.  Now that I think about it, I can also see now that we are making the changes for free after all.  It's the reapplication we are paying for, not the changes.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

One bright spot...our registration with the MOJ is still valid because our USCIS papers were valid when we registered.  Now, I'm sure they wouldn't leave it that way indefinitely, but maybe this won't turn into a problem.  I have the new application and check in the mail.  Pray that it will go through quickly and smoothly.