Persistence vs Patience

After a horrible experience at our local USCIS office Friday, I spent the weekend mentally exhausted... Thinking that there would be no way I could wait another 25 days until our fingerprint appointment when other families (in other states) are walking in early for fingerprinting and getting I800A approval before their assigned fingerprint appointment date.  All I could think about was this could mean getting to China before or after her birthday... and it broke this momma's heart to know she is there and I am here for 25 more days...

When I see her face, my heart longs to just jump on a plane and go to China until she can come home with me. I want nothing more than to let her know that she has a family and that we are working SO hard to bring her home as quickly as possible. At this point she has only recently been told that a family is working to bring her home, but she doesn't know who. I can't imagine how she must feel. What questions she must be asking and wondering about us? We had family pictures made last weekend to send to her and I can't wait to put them in the mail-However, we need this approval first...

So after spending the weekend thinking about what 25 days could mean, I decided to do some research to try to locate a "live" person at a different office in our state.  The numbers of the individual offices are not published so I knew it was a long shot.  I simply prayed, "God if you are asking for persistence, you have asked the right person, but God, if you are asking for patience, please Lord, just put a wall up and lock the door tight because you know I am crazy enough to try and run through it!"  

After calling the "number" I found online about 5 times throughout the morning (persistence), a live person finally answered!  I struggled to compose myself and explained that I was attempting to get permission to walk in at the office rather than drive 3 hours (with the time change) to be turned away.  He instructed that I had contacted the wrong department...and gave me the direct number to the biometric office!!!  I called the office and the receptionist transferred me to the supervisor.  After explaining my situation for the third time, he said he would be happy to accommodate us although we may have to wait to be worked in with others who have an appointment.  I thanked him about five times and before we hung up he asked, "Just out of curiosity, how did you get this number?  It's not released to the public."  I told how I stumbled upon it all the while thanking God for the blessing.  

We left for the office immediately and were able to get fingerprinted!  When we got there, I told him who I was and he remembered our phone conversation.  The supervisor just so happened to be the same gentleman that fingerprinted us when we adopted Emma.  We talked about UK basketball and our sweet Ya Nan in China.  They were very courteous and we were in and out in about 10 minutes.  

So that is great news and helped put some positive energy back into my sails... On the way home this afternoon, I called the NBC who processes our application to let them know we were fingerprinted early.  She said they would notate the account and assign an officer to our case.  Please pray that our approval comes by the end of next week.  This would give us a great possibility to get our dossier to China by the end of the month.  At that point we will wait for China to formal approve us.  This could take anywhere between 2 weeks and 4 months.  Upon approval, we could meet our daughter in as little as 8 weeks!  And believe me, this momma is ready!