Golden Ticket

As soon as I saw the metered postage on the plain white envelope I knew that our I 171H had arrived.... FINALLY! It had quite a journey getting to our home, which is not surprising since that summarizes our whole crazy, faith building, adoption process. I pulled out the telltale envelope, inspected the return address and screamed! "We got it!! We got it!!"

My 10 year old scolded me, "Mom, stop. It's embarrassing!" But I could not be hindered. I am so excited and relieved to have approval to bring our baby home.

We filed for immigration approval in late November. Turns out, I could have applied in early October, but I wasn't thinking clearly and thought I needed more paper work than I did. So waiting for the not-needed paper work, I delayed applying by 2 months. Dear Lord, I trust your timing!!!

We waited patiently for our fingerprinting appointment... the first step toward immigration approval. The appointment notice never came to the PO Box. It was sitting in our house mail box for who knows how long. Ryan said we were lucky we didn't miss the appointment. Dear Lord, thank you for your timing.

We were fingerprinted on Dec. 21, 2011. I was hoping for the I171 H to come before my birthday in mid-January. But that week my agency called and asked if we had heard anything and suggested that we look in to why it hadn't come. I contacted the officer working on our case on Jan. 17th. She had mailed a "Request for Evidence" notice to us because when I sent the application, I enclosed an outdated Homestudy from 2009. I was astonished and so disappointed in myself. Dear Lord, you are Ruler of the World and Father to the Fatherless, I trust you.

The amazing thing in all these delays is that there was not ONE referral for a baby girl over those months.

I mailed the correct Homestudy overnight. Checked the delivery confirmation. It had arrived. But for 3.5 long weeks Ryan and I worried that it had gotten lost in the mail, or still wasn't the right paperwork - or that we had just been put at the bottom of some pile. No one from USCIS would return my phone calls. All I could do was pray.

On Wednesday, Feb. 15th before I opened the mail box, I prayed. And there it was!! Yes, Lord!! THANK YOU!!!

I called our agency who congratulated me and said that the I171H is our "Golden Ticket". Our OK from our government to give one child a family, love, proper health care, 3 meals a day, a cozy bed, shoes.

Half way around the world, there are millions of orphans. I am reading a great book called "My Family, A Symphony" by Aaron Eske. In it, he says that UNICEF estimates there are 132 million orphans world wide (there are 80 million children in the US total). He goes on to say "Not every child is destined to win a golden plane ticket and escape poverty in faraway places. Only 0.0003 percent will, that's three in a million. International adoption is a wonderful option for these lucky few, but the millions of others left behind need options too."

There are not nearly enough Golden Tickets.

And my favorite quote at the end of the chapter says, "As I see it, the world will have passed the ultimate equality test the day international adoption becomes obsolete in every nation, when each country has the resources and systems in place to help its families and communities care for all their kids."

Oh, Dear Lord. Father of the Fatherless. Give me passion for your children, the orphans. Thank you for the gift of softening our hearts to the desire to adopt and giving us strength to persevere through these years of the adoption process. To you be the glory.