Another (half) Step Closer!

Yesterday we came home to some exciting mail, our fingerprint appointments!  We have been at a standstill waiting for this to come and so we were thrilled to see those envelopes from the US government.  When we looked at the dates though we were a tiny bit less thrilled.  The appointment fell in the first 2 weeks of classes for Laura at OSU med school.  Although she was willing to miss a day to do this, Dad was worried for her.  (The school is not very happy when first year students miss a lab as there is really no way to make that up.)  I spent some time on-line trying to find a contact number for the OKC office and found that there is no way to contact them directly.  When I contacted the main immigration office they told me that the only way to officially change the appointment was to send the current appointment slips back and they could be re-issued.  The danger there is that doing that puts us back at the end of the line and the officer warned us that there is expected to be some big changes coming very soon that might seriously slow things down.  He also said that some offices will do walk-in fingerprinting and some won't and that it is at the discretion of the officer you happen to see when you get there.

We prayed for a sympathetic officer.  :)

The kids took a chance and drove to OKC this morning and got a very nice officer who agreed to let them sit and wait and get worked in.  After a few hours wait, they both were fingerprinted!  Yea!  They asked if we could come down and do a walk-in just to speed things up and he said no.  Last night I specifically prayed that at least Laura get fingerprinted, so I don't even mind that Tim and I can't be printed yet.  We got both the kids done today, which is twice as much as I asked for.  :)  God is good, always.

Tim and I used the afternoon to go to the Sheriff and get our background check from them and that is done.  One of the people involved in getting it accomplished was one of our patients; I wonder what new rumors will start in the community now.  :)

I posted earlier that we had found out that Jaden was one of the LWB kids and that they were sponsoring his surgery costs.  I was looking at the LWB site and looking at kids to sponsor financially and guess who was listed?  Jaden!  (You probably guessed that correctly, didn't you?)  His total surgery cost is expected to be about $2300 in China and LWB already had full sponsorship of him.  I usually look at their site daily and so I don't think he was even on the site 24 hours before he was fully funded.  Tim and I sponsored him anyway and when we got the thank you response from LWB we got a happy bonus, a new picture of him was attached to our certificate.  He is so incredibly cute and is forever smiling.  I can't wait to see that smile in person.  It does look like he may be going to surgery in August.  I hate that I can't be there for him but I know that LWB will take wonderful care of him and I know they usually send one of his caregivers with him so that he won't be alone.   If you are reading this before mid-August 2012, I would love it if you could stop and say a prayer for healing and safety for our little guy.  I'd also love it if you would put a note in the comment section and so one day Jaden can look at this and know that he was loved and prayed for, even before he knew about us.  Blessings, y'all!

Jaden Christopher Sanford--I like it!