Our dream is coming true!!!

It's hard to believe that our dream is finally coming true!!! We have our airline tickets, we have our room reserved, we are getting ready to go bring our daughter Savannah home!!! We leave for Guatemala on Wednesday night, May 16 (technically, May 17 since our flight leaves after midnight!) and we arrive in Guatemala City on Thursday, May 17 at around 11:30 am!!! Yes, we're taking a red-eye flight, just so we can get to GC at a reasonable hour on Thursday! We're willing to sacrifice a little sleep and comfort to be with our girl earlier in the day!

Savannah will be brought to us on Thursday afternoon between 3 pm & 5 pm! Then, we have our appointment at the US Embassy on Friday, May 18 at 8 am. It's going to be a really long morning for us since we are #20 on the list, so we'll have to wait much longer than most everybody else. But, we also know that God has a reason for us being #20 and we can't wait to see what He has in store for us during our wait! Since we have a Friday appointment, we will be staying in Guatemala for the entire weekend & Monday too! We are planning to take a day trip to Antigua on Sunday and we are really excited about that...it looks gorgeous from the pictures we've seen! We're not sure what else we'll do while we are there, but we'll certainly have plenty of time to figure it out...we have all day Saturday, all day Sunday, & all day Monday to explore! Our flight home to the US leaves GC at 6:30 am on Tuesday, May 22, and we arrive at our home airport at 3:15 pm!

We still have not heard from USCIS regarding our new fingerprints...our original fingerprints expire today, so hopefully our new ones will be ready in time for our Embassy appointment next week. According to our attorney, it should not cause a problem for us either way since all of the paperwork has already been processed and it was submitted & approved prior to our fingerprints expiring. It would still be nice to have a little extra reassurance from USCIS though...we'd love to receive our approval notification in the mail before we leave...just in case!

Thank you for all of your support & prayers throughout this process. We give all the praise & glory to God our Father, through Christ Jesus! Without Him, none of this would be possible! Without Him, we could not have made it this far! Without Him, life would be empty! We are so thankful that we took a leap of faith way back in November of 2005 when we decided to follow God's leading. If we had not listened to God and not pursued our adoption, we would never have been blessed in the ways that we have been blessed during the past 18 months. What's even more exciting is that we know that He will continue to bless our family and our new daughter Savannah! We know that He has great plans for her life and we are just honored to be a part of it. Some people say that adoption is all about choosing to bring a child into your family...but I truly believe that adoption is also about being chosen. We were chosen by God to be Savannah's parents! Of all the babies born in Guatemala, God chose Savannah to be our daughter! That is so awesome and it continues to amaze me every time I think about that. God chose us! We were chosen, hand-picked to raise Savannah, to love & nurture her for all of her days! And, Savannah was chosen for us!!!

Adoption is a miracle and it is a life-changing experience. This process has brought us so much closer as a family and so much closer to God. It's taught us that we are NOT in control, and that only God knows what will happen and when it will happen...nothing we say or do can change that fact. His timing is always best, even though it may not seem that way to us. If we put our faith & trust in Him, then He will not let us down. He is always there and He always will be there!!! Our God is an awesome God!!!