Friday, November 12, 2004

November 12 2004

Very interesting week. First, our adoption agency has requested that we seek a formal, legal name change for Angel. Angel's birth name is Giselle Angel Ballenger. When we got married, she dropped "Giselle" from the beginning, and added "Sandlin" to the end, to get Angel Ballenger Sandlin. Her driver's license, passport, marriage license, and social security card all have "Angel Ballenger Sandlin". The agency believes it would be the safer route to have the legal paperwork in hand in case any one questions her actual name while we're in Kazakhstan.

Then, today, we get a call from Angel's sister, Angela, telling us that her business partner is a CASA representative and one of her cases has 2 daughters, ages 7 and 11, up for adoption.

"God, what would you like us to do?"

That is the question, and prayer, of the week. We'll find out more about these two girls shortly, and ask God for wisdom, discernment, and direction on what exactly we are supposed to do with this new information, if anything.

Meanwhile, our paperwork was delayed slightly because the agency (FCVN) director got stuck in India. The dossier has now been sent to Texas for the apostille (anyone know what that word means??), and should be sent to the translation service to be translated into Russian next week. That is supposed to take 2 weeks.

It looks more and more like it will be at least mid-January before we have our referral. We so wanted to have our children home at Christmas. Then we so wanted to be travling by Christmas. Now...well, we are reminded again that it's all in God's hands, His plan is perfect, and there is not a thing we can do to change it. So, just like Angel's original prayer (Psalm 40:1 - I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry.") we wait patiently for God to work His great plan.

November 19 2004 UPDATE:

No more info on the two tween-agers who are currently residing in Gainesville, GA. Update on Kazakhstan is that our dossier was, for unknown reasons, delayed at our agency, FCVN. Just this week, the apostille was completed and the dossier has been sent to the translation agency for translation into Russian. This process normally takes about 2 weeks, but next week is Thanksgiving, so we can expect it to take more like 3 weeks. All in God's perfect time.