Paper Chasing Part IV ~ The Homestretch

I am both excited and hesitant to write this post.  On Monday of this week, exactly 2 weeks after we sent our homestudy and I-600a off to the USCIS/Department of Homeland Security, we got that blessed piece of paper in the mail that gave us our dates to get our biometrics (fancy word for fingerprints ;)).  Unfortunately (?), the date they picked for us does not work, so I promptly called the 800 number they gave us and asked if we could go early as I'd heard whispers of this potentially exciting fact.  Turns out we *can*!  It's possible that they'll turn us away, but from what the woman at USCIS headquarters could gather from the info she had, we should be able to go THIS FRIDAY!!!  I would call ahead, but, in what is a probably a smart move on their part, the USCIS field offices do not list phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses...basically we just show up and hope (and pray, obviously!) that they are able to squeeze us in :)  If they can take our biometrics Friday, we can expect to be cleared in 2-3 weeks, woohoo!  Fortunately right smack dab in the middle of that waiting, we will be on vacation and I will hopefully be able to focus on something other than my email box (cause apparently they email you the clearance).

The last piece is the money we need to have raised to submit our dossier.  We have submitted a grant application and should hear back on that around the same time as our USCIS clearance, and to say that I'm anxious is a bit of an understatement.  Between the necklace fundraiser (which blew me away, btw ~ Jamie is such a gift to our family, and each of you that purchased necklaces, I really can't thank you enough!), babysitting, donations, selling random items, our monthly saving, and random (God-provided) extra bits of money, we have been able to raise just over 1/4 of what we need.  The other 3/4 seems so out of reach, but I know that God has this in His control.  He has not let us down yet, and every time I have felt that this was too much for me to handle on my own, He has reminded me that I am *not* alone.  Sam Toler has a book titled "God's Never Late", and every time I try to argue that and get frustrated that things are not DONE DONE DONE at this point, I am reminded of the subtitle: "He's Seldom Early; He's Always Right On Time".  I'm praying that I can remember that in these (hopefully!) final weeks of the paper-chase.  I'm trying to ignore that after this "challenge" of waiting weeks to submit our dossier, we will enter the true period of waiting ;)