One step closer...

Our case worker came today for our final visit! Did you hear me?!?! It was the final visit for our home study. Our part of the home study has been done for a few weeks, but our case worker needed to finish some of the paperwork for our license with us. Our background checks came back quickly (Praise God!) and we finished all the paperwork today. Our case worker will send our home study to get approved (or denied) by the lady in charge of adoptions. She said this process could take between 4-6 weeks. After she approves (hopefully) our adoption, we will send the home study to the USCIS with our I-600. Then the USCIS will assign us a day to get fingerprinted. In the meantime, we will finish the rest of our dossier paperwork and send out fundraising letters. I really can't say enough wonderful things about our case worker. She is amazing!:) We won't see her again until September when she comes for a visit. Jeremiah, Olivia, and I are one step closer to our baby. Please pray that the lady approves our home study quickly and we get a fingerprinting date soon. I would like to get this done before school starts (but I have no control over it).
On a different note, I read the Ordinary Hero blog frequently and today I was moved to tears by this post. Throughout the past many months it has been hard for Jeremiah and me to put into words how we are feeling about adoption. I've often said to people things like, "I just don't understand why I was born here and other people were born in Africa. Why do I get to live a comfortable life when other people are suffering?" You can go to the Ordinary Hero blog to read this entire post (written by the daughter of the woman who started this foundation), but I am just posting a tiny part of it. It sums up how Jeremiah and I feel about adoption and why we are adopting from Ethiopia.
"This isn’t fair. I don’t know this mother’s life, but because of the family these kids were born into, they have to sacrifice EVERY SINGLE day they are alive to begging for money, and if they don’t, they STARVE. Because of the family I was born into, I have everything I could ever need, and then some. I can go about our day without worrying once whether or not I will eat, but end up thinking things like “Do I want Mexican or pizza for lunch?” “Do I want to wear my new shirt or my favorite shirt?” Things that do not matter on the other side of the world. Things that do not relate to life or death. So why am I the “lucky one”? How did I end up in the comfortable van and not with my brothers begging for a few coins? It allowed me to realize that God has given me everything I need, so that I could be able to provide for people like this family, and everyone else I come across stuck in poverty. I can’t spend thousands of dollars traveling or tons of months in Africa, but I CAN glorify God when I do get the opportunity, I CAN support these causes from home, and I CAN find ways to reach out to the poor of my own community. If everyone in the world had exactly what they wanted, and all of our needs were provided for, we would rely on ourselves, not on God. Through the works of Christ, we are proving our faith in Him, and obeying his Word in the process. If we turn from the poor and ignore the fact that millions are suffering around the world, we are in the end turning away from God, and ignoring the command that comes from Jesus’ own mouth in the Bible."
(http://ordinaryheroblog.blogspot.com)