Tomorrow will mark the one month mark since Ana-Sophia came into our lives.  I just hope that the waiting continues to go by at this speed.  Our life has been so crazy this past month.  It took a couple of weeks to find a home-study agency, fill out the initial paperwork, and pay the deposit to start that process.  I’ve ordered our birth certificates and 2 copies of our marriage license for the dossier and we have appointments for our medical evaluations.  At the moment, we are kind of frozen in the home-study.  We are preparing to  move a couple of miles away in 2 weeks and they cannot do the actual home visits until we get settled at the new house.

We are also trying to sell both of our vehicles.  Catholic Charities is doing the home-study and the director called us early last week to “warn” us that the USCIS agent for our area is a real stickler on finances.  She also said that she may not issue a visa for a special needs child to a family who already has a special needs child unless we can prove that we have substantial net income.  UGGHHHH!!!  Who does this woman think she is?  Chad will be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on Nov. 1st (huge raise), I just started working as a real estate agent in one of the top real estate markets in the country, and we have excellent credit.  All of that aside, just to be safe, we are eliminating every bill that we possibly can.  Since both of our cars are financed, getting rid of them was a logical choice.  We have enough equity in them to take the profit and go to a government auction and pay cash for 2 almost new vehicles.  We started leading a Financial Peace University (see sidebar) group in our home the week before Ana-Sophia found us.  God does work in funny ways ;)!  He has used her as a great motivator and at this rate we will eliminate about 5 times the average amount of debt eliminated by people participating in FPU.

Romans 13:8 “Owe nothing to anyone…except love.”

When we do finally bring Ana home, we want to be able to say that we owe nothing to anyone…except love (and deep gratitude to those of you who are being supportive emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially.)