Harder to have patience

I feel like I am repeating myself now but we are still waiting for news from the USCIS.  It has been 11 weeks now and still no word.  We are still waiting on the arrival of our marriage certificate from Seoul and our background checks from Florida.  We had to resubmit for those last two items because Ukraine will not accept any documents older than 6 months.  Do to the unfortunate events with the home-study provider we went over the 6 month mark.  Those documents are not expensive but they do take a long time in the turn around. 

Our latest letter from Vitaliy read, “I pray, I pray for you with all the strength that I have, for you to make all the documents go faster!”  We were also told by our missionary friend that helps us translate our letters and communicate with our son that Vitaliy is starting to lose hope that we are coming.  This process is taking so long, he fears we are not coming at all.  We wrote him a letter trying to explain that it is not a lack of desire that we have not come yet, but the legal process and paperwork that is required before we can go to him.  We know this is hard to explain to a 10 year old boy waiting in an orphanage for a family he has never met to come and bring him to a home he has never seen.  Will you who read this post join Vitaliy and our family to pray for the documents to go faster so we can be together? 

We are also facing a challenge with his enrollment into the military dependent system that will allow us to bring him to Italy with us immediately post-adoption.  It is too complicated to explain but this is a major issue that needs resolved as quickly as possible. 

Onto the financial side, we are $16,000 short of our goal for the adoption costs.  We are grateful for every dollar and euro we have raised but we are still very short of the final costs of the adoption.

Specific things to pray for us:

1.       That Vitaliy will not lose hope and that God will encourage him and comfort him as he waits for us.

2.       The USCIS documents, marriage certificates, and Florida background checks get here this week.

3.       The apostilling process of all the documents goes smoothly and without any undo surprise waits.

4.       That the military legal system will find/make a way for us to get Vitaliy command sponsored to come to Italy without us all having to go to the US first.

5.       That the $16,000 we still need will be generously donated to us in the next few weeks and that all those who have and will donate are richly blessed for their generosity. 

We REALLY need your prayers right now, please.