Home Study Done!

Our social worker actually came this past weekend.  It actually happened.  This is nothing short of a minor miracle.  

Our social worker is Australian, but lives in Bahrain.  We had all booked the tickets and everything for her trip.  Then two weeks before she was scheduled to leave, we realized she hadn’t thought to get a visa.  So she applies on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday is the weekend.  The following Monday, things got much worse in Bahrain (there’s been a lot of political unrest, google it, it’s bad), and their family decided they needed to leave for awhile.  I got a short message saying, “If you haven’t sent money yet, don’t. I’ll explain when we reach. Had to leave Bahrain.” or something like that.  We were a little concerned, obviously for their safety, but also for the future of our home study and entire adoption.  What did this mean?  Did she not get her visa?  Where are they going?  When will they go back? etc. etc.

About five days later, we finally heard they were in Switzerland and planned to return either to Bahrain or Dubai, and as far as they could tell, the study was still on.  Oh, were we thankful.  On Wednesday this past week, we learned they had returned to Bahrain and nothing would have to be changed, re-booked, or extra money spent.  Again, so thankful.  She arrived as planned on Friday night and spent Saturday and Sunday with us.  

The whole experience was just wonderful.  She is a believer, and as such, spent time reading Scripture with us, praying, and just had such a joyful spirit and graciousness that put us at such ease.  I am so thankful the Lord connected us with her to do this for us.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like with someone else.  What a blessing she was and continues to be to us!

There are just a few more paperwork items we need to complete before we can be done with our part and wait on the study to be written.  We are also waiting on our FBI clearance report, which if it takes the average time, should be done in the latter half of May.  We’re praying our home study report will be in our hands by the end of June, but that may be ambitious!  But we know God is able to do this, and even more!  Some hang-ups we might face are:

-Our child abuse registry checks have to be sent in by the home study agency. Please pray we get that all sorted out and it’s taken care of in a timely fashion.

-We’re hoping our FBI background check will not take an unusually long time.  Praying....

-Our medical clearance letters came from doctors in the states who have been familiar with our health for about six years now.  But we have not been physically examined by them recently.  We could go to an doctor here we’ve never seen before to be examined, but he will not know anything about our parents, history, etc.  So we opted for our primary care providers, who we update with all medical care done over here.  This was okay for the social worker, but she wasn’t sure if the agency would accept it, and so we’re praying they realize it’s more honest and consistent than finding a random doctor here to sign a paper. 

None of these things SHOULD cause any major problems or delays, and we’re praying they won’t!  : )  So excited to be done with the paperwork and begin the waiting.