A little movement....BIG EXCITEMENT!

Wow!  Last week we received news that SeJoon/Nathan's legal paperwork had been received by the agency.  This is good news for us because this means that we can now file the I-600 form.  This is a petition form to make Jeremy and I both immediate relatives of Nathan until we bring him home and officially become his mommy and daddy (of course, we all know we already consider ourselves to be this:).  When I got online on the US Customs and Immigrations Departments website to look at what the form requires of us, I couldn't get past the first page that reads:

I-600, Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative
Purpose of Form :

This form is used to classify an orphan, habitually resident in a non-Hague Convention country, who is or will be adopted by a U.S. citizen as an immediate relative of the U.S citizen to allow the child to enter the United States. The petition is filed by the U.S. citizen who is adopting the child.

The words in bold literally brought me tears of joy reading them.  The agency says that although this is not a travel call, this is definitely one step closer to getting that phone call.  This makes me feel extremely overjoyed!  The process seems to still be moving along at a snails pace, but we are so hopeful that it will speed up over the summer months to come. 

Also, we received new pictures this week.  What a wonderful week for the Romine family!


I think right here he was saying, "I want you Brandy Romine to be my mommy!"  ha!  Maybe just wishful thinking!

 

Embracing Change....

Wow! It has been a while since we last updated our blog.  A lot of changes have taken place during this interim.  There have been many new laws issued in South Korea regarding adoption that pose some changes to our adoption process and especially our trip to South Korea. We started hearing about these new changes back in February and over the past 4 months, new laws have been issued, unanimously overturned, and then re-issued.  This being said, I don't want to focus on the changes taking place and give specifics because honestly, we do not know specifics at this point.  I want to just ask for prayers that our adoption would continue to be in the palm of God's hand and that it would all be completed in His timing.  We can choose to  get frustrated/overwhelmed/exhausted and stay that way, or we can simply choose to trust in the Lord and believe wholeheartedly that He started this work and He will complete it.  Our family is choosing the second option and we hope that you will agree with us on that. 

 

Throughout the last month, we have been so abundantly blessed by friends and family.  We have some amazing friends who selflessly donated their family boat to us to sell and put all of the money towards bringing Nathan home.  Wow!  We listed the boat on craigslist one evening at 9 pm and sold the boat at 5 pm the next day.  God is so good to us!  We have also been blessed by some family members who recently just gave us some money they have been saving for Nathan.  Wow again! (if that makes sense :)  We have also recently been approached by many other family and friends who want to help and are excited to be traveling this journey with us.  What I am amazed at through all of this is that God is providing for this adoption for us and we haven't even had to ask people.  We started thinking of this adoption process about 4 years ago and were overwhelmed by the finances it takes to adopt.  It is amazing to me how God has proven to us time and time again through this adoption that He will provide.  If we just take a step of faith and trust in Him with what we feel He is asking us to do, He will provide!  It is easy to get overwhelmed by situations in front of us or by a choice that we are thinking of making, but one thing we are sure of now is that God will put the finances in our bank account to bring this sweet little boy home to our family! 

 

We pray for his sweet little heart to be attached to ours as ours is to his.  Healthy attachment is extremely important when you adopt, so we hope that you will join us this next week in this prayer for our family as well as a prayer for quick timing on bringing Nathan home to us.  We pray specifically that God will break these chains of injustice that are taking place in adoptions around the world and that we would be able to bring Nathan home this summer (I know, this is a BIG prayer, but please join us!).