Approved!!!!!!!!

This will be a shorter blog post, but mainly a post to announce the GREAT news we received today...

WE ARE APPROVED FOR OUR VISA!

We got the visa approval email this morning from the Embassy.  Praise the Lord!  Nora will be coming home soon!

Here is the low-down on the remaining steps....

• In the next 2-3 days we will receive a second email from the Embassy giving us the date of Nora's visa appointment.  This appointment is typically being given out about a week to 2 weeks from the date of approval so we hope/expect that appointment to be around the first week of November.  Our director will take Nora to this appointment for us.
• After that appointment, the actual visa will need to be printed and this typically takes about 2-3 days to obtain.
• After receiving the actual paper visa, we will still need to get one remaining document from the director of IBESR in order to have the ability to leave the country with Nora in our arms.  This exit letter typically takes an additional 2-3 days to obtain after the visa.
• We are free to leave the country with Nora and welcome her to the United States as a US citizen!

So, once we receive the actual date of Nora's visa appointment, we will have a much clearer time frame of when our trip will happen.  We hope she would be home by the middle of November, but only time will tell.  I will update on here again once we have this date and have a bit of a better idea in mind for our travels.

Thank you all for your love and support and, most importantly, your prayers!  I believe firmly that God is completing His Work through the faithfulness of our prayers and our faith that He can do anything.  I posted this photo of Nora on facebook the other day.  One of our friends and fellow adopting Mamas took it while she was visiting Nora last week at the orphanage.  I found it profound because I had just had on my heart to keep praying and praying and praying for God to move on our behalf just as if I was the persistent widow written about in Luke 18:1-8.  That my God, who is love, would come and grant me the answers to my prayers if I would just keep knocking and knocking and knocking on the door of God.  And then...this photo came later that morning.  A photo of our sweet baby girl holding on to a closed door.  It all became so clear to me--Nora is on the other side of that door.  I will not stop knocking until she is in my arms.  Micah and I both commented about how she looked ready for us to come for her.  I am beaming with joy at the fact we will indeed be coming for her so very soon now!  Just hold on, Nora Josephine, Mommy and Daddy are coming to open that door!

For years now I have been daily reading a devotional book entitled God Calling which was edited by A.J. Russell.  Next to the Bible itself, this is the book God has used the absolute most to touch my heart.  I believe it to be divinely inspired.  Each day's entry has some sort of way of touching me deeply.  Today's entry did not disappoint...

October 23-Hill of Sacrifice

     You must trust to the end. You must be ready to go on trusting to the last hour.
     You must know even when you cannot see...You must be ready, like My servant Abraham, to climb the very Hill of Sacrifice, to go to the very last moment, before you see My Deliverance.
      This final test has to come to all who walk by Faith. You must rely on Me alone.
      Look to no other arm, look for no other help. Trust in the Spirit Forces of the Unseen, not in those you see. Trust and fear not.