One step closer to Abbie

Friends that prayed - thank you - your prayers were heard and God chose to have the USCIS show us favor!!  For those of you in the dark - David and I had our USCIS Biometric Fingerprint appointment today - well I should say my appointment was scheduled for today.  It occurred to me sometime a week or two ago that I never saw David's name on our appointment letter nor did he ever receive any kind of notice in the mail.  So right away I called our agency who in turned called USCIS.  To make a long story short - no one could give us any answers - even I tried to call and after being on hold for 45 minutes last Tuesday I finally got to speak to a live person and had to leave a message - which of course didn't get returned until Saturday and I just got told I needed to call another number - mind you my appointment was at 8:00 Monday morning as in today.  Our agency advised us to have David go ahead and come along and just explain we never got a notice for him.  I confess I was a nervous wreck.  The whole morning I kept telling myself over and over God is good and kind and He is in control and His plan is the best plan.  Clearly the worst that was going to happen was we would have to redo this whole process and wait longer to get to Abbie.  But alas we didn't!!  When we walked in I explained our situation to the officer there - and he was straight up honest and told us it was a problem - I asked him to beg whoever he had to talk to and he immediately said we aren't gonna beg we are going to pray - can I just say that was amazing - and he was serious.  I told him I had already been praying and I had other people praying too!!  He came back a little while later and let us through - we were both going to be able to get fingerprinted!! Praise be to God!!  I did tell the officer that even if David wasn't able to move ahead it still would have been okay because that would have been part of God's plan - He is never surprised by what goes on in our lives.  Thankfully that wasn't His plan today.  So we got our fingerprints and now we are one step closer to our sweet girl.  We now await the approval of our fingerprints and then our dossier is prepared to make its way to China.  Abbie knows she has a family - we often wonder if she ever wonders when we are coming.  Well hang on sweet girl - we are coming.  I am working on getting a Christmas package together for her to send over to China.  I am going to make her a blanket and crochet her a warm hat - not sure what other goodies we will put in there but I am sure we will think of something.  I look forward to the day when my sweet family is complete and this mama can rest easy knowing all her babies are safe in the nest.  I am thankful for our Heavenly Father who watches over us all - and way better than I ever could!! I got these pictures of Abbie recently and I have been meaning to share them - these were taken when some Lifeline families traveled to get their precious treasures from Maoming last month.  They were so kind to deliver packages and take pictures for several of us waiting mommies.  These photos are a priceless gift.

love her smile!!

we have heard she is quite the little mama!!

I love this - she always looks so happy! I can't wait til she knows true Joy from our Lord!!

we sent this bear to her and it had all of our voices recorded on it.  We were told she loved it!!

We love you Abigail Joy!!