A Second Birthday

It's been a while since I updated, and thought I would share a little this evening. The past two weeks have been an emotional roller coaster ride for Randy and I especially, but in reality, our whole family as well.

We have been brought to our knees many times, pleading and begging with our Father for mercy, but this time just seemed BIGGER for some reason. A God-sized prayer that needed a God-sized answer. From our perspective, we knew we were hopeless to resolve the issue ourselves and it was a true "hands-up Lord" moment. My dad told me last week that he knew the Lord had something really big planned for us this summer since the devil has been fighting us every step. Can you say AMEN to that??

A quick recap of the past week since I last updated. Our attorney meeting on Monday of last week was awesome. We feel very blessed to have been led to Ron, and we are truly grateful for his help, patience, and perseverance with us. On Tuesday evening, he had a draft of the petition for re-adoption ready for our review. A few minor changes, and the final draft was finished by Friday. Ron called on Wednesday to tell us our court date in Sullivan County would be on Monday, April 25, 2011 at 8:15. Which, brings us to this very special day!!!

Today, April 25, 2011, will now and forevermore be known as Daniel Stephen Gardner's second birthday. Today, he became a citizen of the United States of America and our American son. We are so grateful for the signatures on the decree today that will allow us to now get his AMERICAN passport. Praise the Lord from whom ALL blessings flow. Now, I anxiously await his third birthday, when he will be adopted in to the eternal family of God and live with us forever. You are welcome to join me in that prayer as well. :)

Overwhelmed with gratitude would be an understatement. We have been so blessed by the number of people who have fervently prayed on our behalf. Please don't stop praying for us, as we don't have the passport YET. Praise the Lord for His faithful people who pray , what a blessing. We also can not express how thankful we are to each and every person who has joined with us financially in this journey as well. What a blessing to carry you with us to Romania and Croatia.

Prayer requests for this week:

• Speedy service from the passport office in Louisiana
• That we could get our focus back to planning and preparing for the trip, practicing, etc.
• We will use this experience as a witness to others
• Transportation issue is still undetermined....prayers for wisdom and discretion in finishing our reservations.

Thank you again to you all. I would love for you to leave some comments, just so I know someone is reading this! :)

Kim

Along the Journey....

Just returned home from a meeting with our attorney this morning. We have been blessed to find a man of God with a heart for missions who is helping us with the citizenship issue. I feel so blessed right now, and my heart is full.

We would covet your prayers for an "expedient" court date in the Sullivan County courts so that we can legally "re-adopt" our precious Daniel. This will give him automatic US citizenship, a Tennessee birth certificate, and finally have IN WRITING his full given name of Daniel Stephen Gardner. There are no legal documents affirming his whole name at this point, so this is an exciting thing for us as well. Even his social security card just says Daniel S. Gardner.

I am continually reminded of how blessed I am and how BIG God is. This is not a concrete resolution to our travel issues, but it's a big step forward. Once we have the court date, our attorney feels the adoption can be completed on THAT same day. Wow, that's big!!! After that, we will have to get on the passport issue immediately. We are counting on our congressman, Dr. Phil Roe and his wonderful staff to help us get this accomplished as efficiently and quickly as possible.

We would covet your prayers for a quick court date. Also, we would ask that you pray for us as we discuss this with Daniel. We talked this morning about letting him know we will be adopting him here in Tennessee. He will most likely be going with us to court on this day and we want it to be a very special day for him and us as well. But, we also don't want him to have ANY doubts of who is was, is or will be. He was created to be a member of our family from day one, and we want him to know this firmly!

So thankful to God for the way He continues to direct our paths and footsteps on this journey we're taking with HIM!
Kim

Giving praise

I wanted to do a quick update this morning on where things stand and what we have found out so far this week. We were not FULLY informed at the time of our adoption all the legal requirements for citizenship. Daniel is a legal, permanent resident of the USA, but he does NOT have US citizenship. Therefore, without citizenship, you can't apply for a US passport. This, my friends is the big issue.

First and foremost, we are BLESSED beyond measure with an abundance of praying friends. Where would we be if not for the power of prayer. I can not begin to express my gratitude and humbleness over the prayers going up on our behalf. Please !!! DON'T STOP PRAYING!!! There's much to pray for!

The one really BIG bright spot for the week came in a phone call last night from our adoption agency. Finally, they had some good news for us. I can't remember her name at the moment, but she was just as shocked tell me as I was to hear. CHI (Children's House International) in Washington State dug out our files from their archives and found ORIGINAL documents from Romania. She told me, this NEVER happens. They never find originals from Romanian adoptions. I don't know about you, but I really think that was a total GOD thing. God put those documents there just for us to have today. They are overnight FEDEX shipping here, hopefully to be in our hands today. With these documents, our chances of getting things expedited for citizenship are much stronger. Or, for re-adoption, whichever route our attorney feels is best, (and fastest!)

We are working with a local attorney who God miraculously directed us to through a fellow church member. He attends Heritage with us, but we have not yet had the privilege of meeting him. We will meet with him with a load of documents on Monday morning.

Please continue to pray. There is really no human way to fix this and get it completed in time for travel in July. But, we know that God is in control, God lead us to this trip and has gone before us in every stage of planning thus far. God will NOT leave us, He will not forsake us, and we are just trusting in His almighty plan.

Specific areas for prayer:

• Expedient answers to the citizenship issue
• Good, effective meeting with our lawyer Monday morning 9:00
• Peace for Randy & I (and Kelsie!)
• We will make God look good as we walk through a difficult period
• Daniel WILL be able to travel with us in July
• Did I mention PEACE???

I so love and appreciate all the phone calls, notes of encouragement and words of encouragement I've received this week. Thank you all so much for uplifting our family.

Kim