Where Are We Now?

I remember the first time I ever drove in a real express lane. It was in San Bernardino, CA during rush hour. I was on my way to meet my husband in San Diego, still newlyweds, a whole country away from my family. I was all alone before the days of GPS and I was SO out of my element. I remember being so overwhelmed by the speed and the traffic (learning to drive in North Dakota did NOT prepare me for flying down the express lane at 90 miles an hour with no clue about where I was supposed to be!). I did not mean to be there, but there was no way out and I had no choice but to figure it out quickly and roll with it until I could exit. I made it out alive, but it was SCARY! Once I finally made my way off, I pulled into a rest area and totally lost it. I look back and laugh at my young, inexperienced self. But now, I kind of feel like we just pulled into an expressway. It has been 16 days since our official commitment to "Fletcher". SIXTEEN days!!!! We have almost completed our homestudy. It is waiting for 3 things to be checked off, which should all be complete by Friday. I sent our first package of documents off to the Secretary of State to be apostilled. I didn't even know what that meant just 16 days ago! By the way, it is a certification of the notary, used for international business. As soon as it comes back, which should be in under a week, I will begin finding another family traveling to Tobi's country soon to carry this set of documents over to our facilitation team. They will translate it and do whatever needs to be done on their end to make it legal there. Then they will submit our request for permission to submit our dossier (which are the documents officially requesting permission to adopt). While that is being done there, we are quickly gathering the documents for that dossier. We are about 75% done with that. Once our homestudy is done, we will go over it, send it to our facilitator and make sure it is worded right to make the US happy and to please Tobi's country as well. After that is done, the finalized copy will be written up and one copy will be sent to SC DSS for approval and then on to USCIS to be united with our I600a application. Hopefully attaining permission to bring our orphans to the US (after our fingerprinting). The other copy will be sent with the rest of our dossier to be apostilled and then off to Tobi's country. We will then wait for the official permission from them and a date given to travel for an official meeting. At that time, if Tobi is truly available (which we are fairly sure of since we have received an update since our commitment, but in Tobi's country, there are no certainties) we will see his complete file. We will then be granted permission to visit him. After that meeting with our son, we can make it official and wait for our court date. While we wait, we will have time to get to know our little guy and see some of his country. At that court date, he will officially be ours, but it takes 10 days for court orders to go into effect in his country. We are not sure if we will both go home for that wait or just Marvin. Either way, at the 10 day point, he will be ours and we can start gathering what we need to get him home. He'll get a new birth certificate and all the other stuff one needs to travel to the US. And then we will come home!!! Things are moving SO fast. I feel a lot like I did that day I found myself on the San Bernardino expressway. I am so thankful for the direction we have been given and will get from the absolute wonderful stateside facilitator for Tobi's country through Reece's Rainbow. She has walked us through every step and answered countless questions. I sometimes wonder if she ever sleeps :) It is hard to be flying so fast through the unfamiliar. I have very little control over this process. I have learned that there is SO much spiritual warfare that surrounds rescuing these lost  ones. Satan hates redemption and we have walked headfirst into a battle that we had no idea existed, at least not to this extent. We appreciate your prayers and support. This process is going much faster than we had expected it to. It has only been 2 weeks. We could be nearing the end within a few more months. As scary as that is, the faster the better! We are ready for our family to be together in one place!