Amen to THE END...and new beginnings!

Esmée arrives in the U.S.A.!!!
March 18, 2014

Four years buried in prayers, perseverance and paperwork on the Haiti side came to an end last spring when we were finally able to bring our much loved girl to meet family and friends in the states. Traveling and reuniting with family and friends in eleven states and Canada has kept us very busy the past few months while continuing to be buried in paperwork on the U.S. side! We have been working hard to finally fully complete this process and return to our beloved Haiti! As soon as we arrived in Texas we began making appointments with our doctor and lawyer in order to obtain medical evidence to prove the girls ages and court proceedings to legally change both our girls names and obtain U.S. birth certificates. These proceedings helped us obtain the paperwork (with new legal names for both and corrected age for Esmée) to proceed with applying for updated Social Security cards, U.S. passports, and Esmée's certificate of U.S. citizenship. It's a good thing we planned an extended stay away from Haiti because it has taken since March to get all this done! We finally finished TODAY! The end of chasing the paperwork trail is finally here! We are tired but thankful and praising the Lord for His faithfulness every step of the way!


As of August 14, 2014 we have all the official U.S. docs with Esmée's legal name and age change (updated or corrected from Haitian docs)! This was not an easy undertaking, but just like everything else the Lord has seen us through!



Esmée signed her citizenship papers at Homeland Security today!
Her U.S. passport came in the mail a few days ago and the paperwork that we needed back from the passport office in order to make our appointment with Homeland Security today arrived in the nick of time in yesterday's mail!

And look who received their new updated U.S. passport in the mail today!

So we are really truly D.O.N.E.! Finished! The End! Our Chosen (Elita) and Much Loved (Esmée) girls can "officially" begin their new lives with all the privileges of their new citizenships! We are reminded once again that adoption is a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us...how He has chosen, loved us, and paid the price of our redemption so that we can become His sons and daughters with all the privileges of family inheritance and citizenship! Summing up the end, we remember where we began "according to the kind intention of His will" which has carried us throughout these chapters of our journey.

These verses were the inspiration for our girls names with the meanings "Chosen and Much Loved" and the title of this blog. We pray that for those who have observed and journeyed with us it has been a testimony of God's faithfulness and encouragement to you in the ups and downs of your own journeys. We pray that you too will look to the riches of His grace, know the hope of His calling, and find redemption through adoption.

^3 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, ⁴ just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love ⁵ He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, ⁶ to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷ In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace ⁸ which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight ⁹ He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him ¹⁰ with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him ¹¹ also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, ¹² to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. ¹³ In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
¹⁵ For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶ do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe." -Ephesians 1:3-19

We began this blog over four years ago at the beginning of our adoption journey. We love to share stories and struggles, the joys and pains that accompany adoption with fellow adoptive families and encourage one another. However, we typically prefer to do that privately to protect the privacy of our daughters. It will be rare for us to blog much more here. We hope you have been following our family/ministry blog at http://www.reamteaminternational.org/ where we have been and will continue to share our stories! Please continue to pray for us in all our new beginnings and let us know how we can pray for you too! To the praise and glory of His grace...Amen!

 

THE END

 

But not the end of blogging so please sign up for automatic e-mails to follow all our new beginnings HERE!

We will be returning to Haiti in just a few weeks!

 

Four years in waiting...We can't wait to see you!

Want to be the first to see us? This Tuesday, March 18th, is the big day! We invite friends and family to come to the Austin airport (see flight itinerary below) and welcome us back as a family of six! We would love to hug your necks! We plan to stop off and eat somewhere inexpensive, convenient, and kid friendly (if Eric gets his way it will be Chick-fil-A) nearby and can visit some more there! If you can't make it to the airport on a school night, we hope to see you soon! Here is the plan in a nutshell. We will all be around San Marcos/New Braunfels for the first two weeks after arrival and then spend the last week in the DFW area before Eric heads back to Haiti on April 8th. Elisabeth and the kids will be in San Marcos, TX, until they fly to VA on April 16th, and will then travel to KY and IL where Eric will rejoin us May 13th. We begin our journeys to FL, GA, TN, OH, NY and Canada between the end of May-mid July. Then we head back to TX, and Eric heads to Israel with our mission Heart of God International Ministries. He will return from Israel in mid August and we will have a few weeks in TX, before we head back to Haiti! Please pray for us to finish packing the next few days, for our hearts and others that we are saying hard good byes to, for the people and ministries that we are leaving behind during these months, for safe travels, that immigration will go smoothly in Ft. Lauderdale (we only have about an hour to get through or we will miss our next flight), and for all of us to do well with all these travels and transitions! Please read THIS post if you have not done so and plan to see us! Thank you for your faithful prayers over the past four years that we have waited for this day! We cannot wait to share our joy with you!

Your Itinerary

Carrier	Flight Number	Departing		Arriving		Booking Code	Meals
		City	Date & Time	City	Time
AMERICAN AIRLINES	1158	PAP Port Au Prince	Mar 18, 2014 09:15 AM	FLL Fort Lauderdale	Mar 18, 2014 11:30 AM	N	N/A
AMERICAN AIRLINES	1337	FLL Fort Lauderdale	Mar 18, 2014 12:50 PM	DFW Dallas/ Fort Worth	Mar 18, 2014 03:05 PM	O	Food for Purchase
AMERICAN AIRLINES	1670	DFW Dallas/ Fort Worth	Mar 18, 2014 05:35 PM	AUS Austin	Mar 18, 2014 06:30 PM

When all is signed and done...

Nou te fini! We finished! Tickets are purchased and we will be stateside bound on March 18! We are all super excited! Yet when all is signed and done we are emotionally in a place where we definitely feel that all is not said and done. There is so much that could (and maybe or maybe should not) be said about what has transpired throughout our 4 year adoption process. There is so much that is still to be done as the ending of one process begins another. A giant work is finished but we are always a work in progress. When all is signed and done we find ourselves still processing. Perhaps we have just now allowed ourselves to breathe and begin to truly process all that has happened and how our family has grown. One day I hope I will be able to put everything into words in a beautiful way to express our deepest thanks for what God has done for us, in us, and through us during this process. When all is signed and done I imagined I would be able to share so much. But there is so much we cannot fathom and can only say THANK YOU. I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for those who helped bear our burdens, who prayed with us and for us, who visited us in Haiti and/or sent special supplies our way, who showed up to our fundraisers, who settled me down, who got riled up with me, who listened, who cried, who truly cared, who sent us Scriptures, who held our hands, who held our daughters, who brought them care packages, who visited orphans, who believed us, who supported us through the best of times and worst of times, who gave us the benefit of the doubt, who asked before making assumptions, who fought with us, who stayed our friends even when we were many miles away, who chose to reconnect, who mourned with us and rejoiced with us...who rejoice with us now!

"He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
 -Ecclesiastes 3:11