Turning a Blind Eye

 The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;
  he turns it wherever he will.
(Proverbs 21:1 ESV)

       Today God gave me a very clear reminder that He is in control--of everything and everyone. As I was getting ready to go to sleep last night, Brent came in holding a copy of our home study (never good). He'd been working on our application for funds from Lifesong and while he was gathering documents, he happened to notice the date of expiration printed on our home study: November 30, 2011. Impossible. We've only had our home study completed for about four months or so and it's valid for a year. The date should read November 30, 2012!! This sounds like such a trivial thing. An error. A typo. To the Chinese government, however, it's reason to kick your paperwork back along with the gift of at least a 2 month delay. I didn't panic ( well, I shrieked in horror on the inside). Then I prayed that the Lord would fix this somehow. I checked that paperwork 1,000 times and never caught that error. Brent checked it. Lifeline checked it. All God's Children checked it. It had gotten past all of us.

    This morning we fired off an email to our social worker at AGCI and waited for a response. We just got delayed two months--could I stand another delay? Yes. If God wills it...we'll wait longer. Our social worker responded after checking with several colleagues and couldn't believe that we had gotten through the immigration approval process with that error. We were granted our I-800A several months ago. They hadn't noticed. And then today, we were officially notified that we've been logged into the computer with the CCWA. They hadn't noticed either. I firmly believe that God turned their eyes away from that date and allowed us to proceed.

   At this point, we believe that if our home study agency corrects the date for our records and we travel with a corrected copy of the home study--we'll be OK. It may pop up and cause a problem in the future, but at this point we are exactly where God wants us to be in this journey. There is such peace in knowing that He turns the hearts (and eyes) of immigration workers, government officials--whomever He chooses.

 I have to smile in my heart when so many high-ranking, important people think that they hold our adoption in their hands. Like paper dolls, God is maneuvering them as He wills and ultimately our adoption lay in His mighty hands. Amen to that!