Challenges for the week

Have you ever experienced challenges when something good is just around the corner?  Opposition is a spiritual principle and it has been alive and well in our home this week.  The frustration with the USCIS officer came to a head on Wednesday - we ended up about 10 days later than what the normal turnaround time is for that approval.  Our senator's staffer was completely ineffective.  Our 401k took about a $2,000 hit in the last 10 days with all the economic turmoil on Wall Street.  This ate into the money we were going to liquidate to pay for two college tuition fees next month and the rest of the adoption. I made a transition in my office a couple of months ago and that has disrupted our income at the moment, so the 401k money turned into being our safety net for the adoption.  One of our dishwashers broke down - they are Bosch, so probably not cheap to fix.  At least we are fortunate enough to have another dishwasher.  We will just have to do some dishes by hand after dinner for a while. FYI - dinner dishes for a family like ours does not fit into one dishwasher.  After Deanne and I made a trip to the store Wednesday night we stayed in the car in the driveway discussing the challenges and hurdles throughout this adoption process.  Wondering if this was opposition from Satan or a sign from the Lord that this is not the right thing to be doing.  We determined it must be Satan and we were going to stick it out.  Then walking to the front door Deanne tripped on the front steps and broker her wrist.  (That's why she assigned me to write the last two posts)  Because of the transition to a new company, we are between insurance plans, so this is an out of pocket cost.  It looks like it will be less than $300, so we feel lucky about that.  But the idea of going to China in a cast isn't all that pleasant which is what will happen if we travel in September like we are hoping.  In addition to that, there is all the preparation needed to go that will be more difficult for her now.  She will even have to devise new methods for styling her hair and putting on makeup.

All in all, it has been a pretty draining week - emotionally and financially.  Not good going into the final lap of an international adoption.