One Year Anniversary

Today, Friday, marks the one year anniversary that Will's adoption was finalized. I will not soon forget Lydia opening up the letter from U.S. Immigration telling us that we were approved! The date was January 26, 2007. The one thing about Will's adoption that astounded me was the amount of paperwork involved. If you stacked up the paperwork that Lydia had to put together for the adoption, it would rival the U.S. tax law, no joke. Later that night, after receiving approval from U.S. Immigration to adopt from Guatemala, we contacted Celebrate Children International and before long, we had pictures of our two-week old baby. Here is one of the first pictures we received of William.

We spent the next several months(6 to be exact) waiting... We could do absolutely nothing and had to place our faith in Will's lawyer. On July 11 of last year, Lydia was taking her brother to lunch when her phone rang... She described to me pulling the phone out of her purse, seeing the caller ID identify our case worker, and spontaniously bursting into tears before she even answered the phone... Will's(Julio Cesar at the time) last name was RING! All of the paperwork was finished and the adoption was finalized. The Guatemalan court system had ruled that he was ours! How good was our God. The process that was taking many 9 months to a year, took only 6 months for us and God was enabling us to hold our son before his 7 month birthday.

Life without Will?... We can't even begin to imagine it!

The Ring Family with Will's Wonderful Foster Mom