This is the Day--An Adoption Update!!!!

THIS IS THE DAY, friends....I believe it with all my heart....THIS IS THE DAY!

It's always a wonderful feeling to be able to post an adoption update...especially when what follows is NOT that we don't know anything different than what we have been posting, but instead that we have news of PROGRESS!!!!!

This past Saturday we got an email from our orphanage director saying...

"About your dossier, I have contact in the Ministry of Justice and I know that IBESR has finished studying it and just sent it to dispense, anyway let's pray that it will not take long."

This is wonderful news!!!!  Any movement in the right direction is worth celebrating!  We are now at the President's office where our file will sit waiting for his approval on our adoption.  This step is necessary because we technically do not meet Haiti's qualifications to adopt.  These qualifications are based on a law that was put in place in the 70's.  It is old and outdated so many people still can get past it with a Presidental dispensation of the law.  We have actually never heard of anyone not being given this dispensation, but sometimes that signature can take over a year or more to receive.  It can also come very quickly--some have received it within 2 weeks of being placed on his desk.  As with everything in Haiti, there is no rhyme or reason to the maddness...it's completely random...or is it???

To some extent, it is random, but to those of us on the opposite side of the water, we have to believe we are praying to a God who can put absolute randomness on the back burner and miraculously move our paperwork to the top of the pile even today.  Through His Power anything can happen!  We continue to pray for His Will to be done and believe in our heart of hearts that having Nora home in our arms and surrounded by our love HAS to be His Will.

This is where I get excited--to be able to pray and watch the Lord at work is such a privilege!!!  It is humbling and honoring to be a person who can give such an amazing testimony of God's provision!  I can do nothing else at this point in the adoption process except pray for God's Will to have full protection and reign...and you better believe I am doing just that!  Even last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up feeling an incredible urgency to pray for our file to be seen by the President TODAY and to thank God for what He is doing for Nora.  The phrase "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it" was the first thing that came to my wearily awake mind in the middle of the night.  The childhood song came flooding back and I found myself singing it in my head as I lay in the stillness.  I had no idea why God woke me up with this song or these thoughts, but I had to believe there was a reason.  When I woke up this morning I realized I didn't know if that phrase was actual Scripture or if it was just a Christian line from a cute song so I decided I would look it up.

This is what I found...

Psalm 118:23-25

"the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.  The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.  Lord, save us!  Lord, grant us success!"

Oh, Hallelujah!!!!  My heart of hearts is praying these verses boldly and confidently THIS DAY.  That God would have woke me in the middle of the night to pray boldly that our file for Nora would be signed by the President's office THIS VERY DAY because, and ONLY because, The LORD has done this!  I am choosing to rejoice and be glad today for the success the Lord will be giving us today.  Please join me today in praying for this very same thing--that no matter what happens in Haiti today, the Lord's will to have our paperwork to receive dispensation today would be protected from any and all evil and that He would get the glory for this miracle.

And now for the icing on the cake...the way the LORD makes Himself known to me in such amazingly powerful ways...I wanted to find a YouTube video of this childhood song for you all to listen to at the end of this post.  Oh, I'm in so many tears as I type this.  Do you know how GOOD our God is???  I typed in the YouTube search engine:"This is the day the Lord has made children's song" and guess what popped up at the top of the list--get ready for it--are You even serious, God???--"Haitian Childrens Chrous at the House of Hope: This is the day the Lord has made!"

Only God can pull this together....

THIS IS THE DAY, FRIENDS, LET US REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT!!!