November 21st - a day to remember!

One year ago today was when we received Blake’s referral and our lives were forever changed. Click here to see the posts from this time last year. Here are a few of the lines from the post made about November 21st…

From Children's Hope: Heather, you are going to think I am nuts, but I wanted to get a hold of you before the weekend. I know this sounds crazy, but we have a three year old boy that just came available in Vladivostock (Vlad)…

I could not get home fast enough to see that picture! I used the time in the car to pray. Is this God testing us to see if we can do things according to His will? He knows I am a fanatic about planning and schedules. Is He trying to make me realize that not everything is according to my plan? When I got home Justin gave me a huge hug and I lost it. All of the emotion of the past day and a half was exhausting…

We have decided that we will call Children’s Hope on Monday and let them know that we would like to travel to meet this little boy. We are so nervous and scared, but we are excited all at the same time.

This is the picture we saw that day…



And this is Blake now…

November 14th...

It is coming up on the one year mark of some major events for our family. One year ago today our papers were mailed from St. Louis to Moscow. Here is what I wrote on the blog that day…

Off they go!

So we got this email today!

Dear Justin and Heather,
I have reviewed your Registration documents and everything is OK. Thank you so much. I am sending your documents to Moscow today, Friday, November 14. They will arrive in a couple of days. Once you are assigned a region by the Moscow office, I will contact you to let you know where that is. Then you will need to start working on Region specific documents. I will guide you through that process when the time comes. Congratulations on completing the next step in the process and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bischoff

My heart raced just reading it. I mean, I knew they were supposed to go out today, but to get the confirmation made me all nervous and excited!
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Justin and I both remember breathing a huge sigh of relief that we finally got to this stage of the process. We also both thought we had a few weeks to relax until we were assigned a region and then we would begin more paperwork. Little did we know God had other plans in mind….