Some days adoption feels impossible. On those days, the
paperwork seems overwhelming. And I feel like we will never bring our
child(ren) from India home.
Today was one of those days.
We have been working on our dossier for months. A dossier is
basically a huge compilation of paperwork that the adoption agency submits to
the international country to approve you to adopt: birth certificates, police
clearance, medical records, letters of reference, financial statements, tax
forms, and of course the Home Study. It’s more paperwork than you can imagine!
India usually takes about two months to look over a dossier and approve the
family in their system.
Last week, we received our police clearances from Hawaii,
all our birth certificate apostilles, and various letters from family and
friends needed for our dossier. I smiled and praised God as I checked off box
after box on our master checklist. The checklist revealed we only needed three
more pieces to complete our dossier! I could see the light at the end of that
tunnel.
Then today, I received an e-mail from our family coordinator
that all our letters of reference do indeed need to be notarized (which was not
noted in the guidelines); oh, and now they are requiring five reference
letters, not two. Also, if it’s not too much trouble, we need to get a letter
from our pediatrician stating the overall health of current children living in our
home. And of course, it must be notarized.
One step forward, three steps backwards.
These additional documents will probably take weeks to
collect, which means we won’t be submitting our dossier as soon as we hoped.
Let the discouragement set in.
Adoption is too big for me. There are so many hurdles and
setbacks that if I didn't have a mighty God, adoption probably would be
IMPOSSIBLE.
I cannot complete all this paperwork on my own. I cannot
convince CARA that we are fit to parent Indian children. But I have to finish this paperwork, so CARA will give us a referral.
Getting a referral feels like a dream that will never come
true. But that is a lie, and discouragement will not rule my mind!
So I will pray. I will trust. I will beg for hope. And then I
will print off another document to sign. I will visit the notary one more time.
And I will trust that my Savior, who did not leave me as an orphan, is sovereign
enough to complete this adoption. He
will accomplish all His purpose (Is. 46:10).
Trusting Him,
Melissa
