Harrisburg

The kids and I took a day trip to Harrisburg on Monday, June 25th.  We stopped by Aunt Marilyn's house and took her with us.  She was willing to tag along and show us the way, which I really appreciated.

I took all our adoption documents that needed state certification to the US Department of State.  This is standard procedure for an international adoption.  The reason being documents issued in one country which need to be used in another country must be "authenticated" or "legalized" before they can be recognized as valid in the foreign country. This is a process in which various seals are placed on the document. Such documents range from financial records, medical exam forms, birth and marriages records, employment verification letters, home studies and other legal papers.  The whole process took about 15 minutes.  Thankfully we have family in Harrisburg and we could make a day trip of it.

Now we are putting all these legal documents together, along with completing our "With Eyes Wide Open" workbook (more training stuff).  Hopefully by Friday it will all be in a package and on it's way to our adoption agency. 

On the way back we stopped at the nursing home to visit my grandmother.  As I'm telling her where we were and what we had been doing she lights up thinking this means our child is finally coming home.  I think she worries she won't be around to meet her newest great-grandbaby.  She is very excited about this adoption and that makes me smile because for those who don't know my grandmother was adopted.  She has a softness and sympathy for this child already and she hasn't even met them.

We are still waiting for AGCI to approve our home study.  They received the rough draft last week and so far we haven't heard of any needed changes.  I'm hoping that means "no news is good news".  There were some discrepancies between our adoption agency and home study agency over who would autenticate our home study document and reference letters.  The reference letters are confidential so Scott and I would not be able to take those to Harrisburg for the state seal.  Scott was on the phone and passing emails back and forth for the last two days.  Thankfully today everything got resolved, but not without adding another $150.00 to our expenses.  So glad the adoption jar wasn't empty for this, God had provided even before we knew we needed it.

As I reflect on Monday's trip I also meditated on this verse:

"And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee."  (2 Corinthians 1:21-22 ESV)

You see, we had to get seals on our personal documents to prove to China that we are who we say we are.  But there is a greater seal we have been given, which guarentees us something much more important, who we really are as children of God, and that seal is His Spirit in our hearts.  The Spirit guarantees our salvation.