dossier gone!

We had two reasons to celebrate on Friday.

First, our girls completed their school year! Summer is here!

Ahhhhh.

I can't tell you how much we were all counting the days. It seems that the days from Memorial Day to the last day of school just poked, poked, and poked by. As my father-in-law says, it was like watching paint dry. My goodness our girls had great years. Avery cruised through kindergarten -- and learned to read! She was so excited to start reading. Prior to starting kindergarten, she actually wondered out loud to us a few times whether she would ever read! Sweet girl. We, of course, reassured her that she would and as the letter sounds she'd come to know began to form words this year, the grin on her face was priceless.

Then our Sweet P came off the bus weeping!

What in tarnation would cause a child to come home on her last day of school crying?!

Well, it was actually a very sweet reason...she was grieving the end of her days with her much-adored 3rd grade teacher. She said many of the girls cried that day -- including she and her best buddy who cried together throughout their bus ride home! Sweet, tender-hearted little girls. I have to admit, this teacher's genuine love for our Lord and her openly sharing her faith with Payton throughout the year (as JD and I encouraged her to do if she felt it was appropriate) was more than we could've asked for. God has been so good to us with our children's teachers.

But the other thing that was great about Friday, was...

Well, two things...

On our way to Busch Gardens (!), we FedEx'd our dossier to our courier who was hand delivering it to the State Department today and then to the Chinese Embassy tomorrow!

Can you believe it!? Talk about a humungous, obnoxious, heard-for-miles exhale!

Our courier should get it back this Friday or next Monday. It will then be overnighted to us. We will then send it to our agency with six photos of us around our home. Interesting, huh?

This is where that earlier prayer request comes in again...

Remember the thing about China requiring that dossiers be sent in batches?! Yes, well, because of that requirement, our agency only sends them to China once every six weeks! Oh friends, the thought of our dossier sitting in out-going mail for six weeks makes my stomach turn. Please pray that our dossier, by the grace of God, will arrive to Wide Horizons the week before they're set to send out another batch! Just enough time for our social worker(s) to look over it and get it packaged up and sent off! That would be awesome!

Thank you, thank you! More to come soon!