Wednesday, June 22, 2011

News from Bulgaria!!

  I can't even begin to explain how excited I was this morning when I pulled up the emails and had one from Shelley!!  Ten pictures of Teddy, and promise of a video later!!  She said that in the video, he counts to 10 in English!  Included in his photos were some with his friend that we got to know well when we visited there.  Both of them have grown!  Well, I guess it might just be my imagination, but their hair is a little bit longer, and Teddy's summer polo shirt makes him look so cute and grown!!  Yesterday marked the 2 month date since we last hugged Teddy and told him good-bye.  I know that the Lord has a great plan in all of this waiting, but I can't help praying for Him to SPEED this process onward!!!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Every bit of Progress counts!!

  I just heard from Toni (who actually saw and hugged Teddy today!) that our documents were translated, authenticated, and submitted to the governing authority.  We'll now wait on two important signatures before our file goes to the next step.  Sometimes it takes weeks and weeks to get these 2 signatures.  Once recently (but I think that this is very rare!) it only took one week.  We'll yet again (and again and again before this whole thing is done...) get to see what the Lord works out.  More than anything, I know that He is fully capable of getting those signatures in record time if He so chooses.  So, we wait to see what His plan is!!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Article 5 letter

   Well -- it's finally in Toni's hands.  She will translate it, and submit it for authentication.  I got an email from her today with that news!  So, with the "new strategy" I won't even try to foresee how long it will be before we head to the next step!!  The Lord knows... and I'll submit to His timing.  I've had plenty of practice in that type of submission thing!!  ha!
   One other fun bit of news is that Shelley is heading to Bulgaria this weekend.  And, on Monday, she'll see our sweet Teddy!!  Of course, she'll be there to visit her little girl, but she promised to see Teddy and give him a hug for us!  And, I mailed her a packet to give to Teddy as well.  So, this next week, he'll have a reminder that we have not forgotten him, and hopefully he'll understand that we're working hard to bring him home!!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Change in Strategy

   I just checked to see what my last post was, and decided that I needed a strategy change or this whole process was going to get too frustrating.  So, from now on, I'll keep all the hopes of the "good news" to myself, and I'll just post things as they actually happen instead of how we are hoping that they will happen.
  --Guess I should explain myself here. 
  We'd hoped that Toni would be able to go to her appointment at the embassy last Monday...  which she did.  Then, we'd hoped that she could go back on Tuesday and get the Article 5 document that she must have in order to proceed with the next step..... and remember, they'd told her that there would be "next day service."
  Well, when she went on Monday, the person who was supposed to review our file was not there.  And, she called later in the week and the Article 5 document still wasn't ready for her to pick up.  I still have not heard from her, so I'm supposing-- in this case -- that no news means no good news.    :(

Saturday, June 4, 2011

A Yes, and a No

   Well, the answer for the pictures arriving in time for Toni to go for an appointment at the embassy on this past Thursday was a no.  The pictures did not arrive until afterwards...  but they DID arrive (which is better than being lost in snail mail!!  Ha Ha!)  So, now Toni has an appointment on Monday afternoon.  And, the really good news is that the document that the consular has to give Toni will be ready on Tuesday!!  Yay!  I think that the embassy can take up to 5 days to issue the document, but next day service is wonderful!
   The next step is to get this document (called an Article 5 letter) translated since it will be in English-- naturally, coming from the American embassy!  Then, the translation has to be authenticated.  These are small steps... but at least they are steps in the right direction!!