25 July 2010

New Zealand, would you please allow us to live in your lovely country??

Before one can move to New Zealand, one must apply to live in New Zealand. And before one can apply to live in New Zealand, one must ask permission to apply to live in New Zealand.  It took Billy several hours over the course of three days to fill out the online application called an EOI (Expression of Interest).  He submitted our EOI along with the application fee (~$450) and less than 2 weeks later we received our official invitation to apply for permanant residence in New Zealand!!!  From that date we had four months to submit our completed application and then the fun really began. All eight of us must have complete physicals, the three of us over 16 must have a fingerprint, FBI background check and bloodwork and the six of us over 10 must have chest xrays. We are nearly finished with all of the paperwork and  our background checks came back today!  No crimimal record, by the way.  Now we are just waiting to finalize Graham's adoption so that we can get his birth certificate and ultimately his passport.

While we've been working on the piles of paperwork, God has been doing a lot of work on His end.  One of the biggest issues I had about moving was that my wonderful grandmother (Gram) lives in Somerset where I can take her to various appointments, get her groceries and just enjoy her being near. While she's been doing quit well living on her own, she has had a couple of falls and we've wondered if she shouldn't be living with someone. My sister and nephew live a couple of hours away and she works nights. Gram has decided to move in with them so that my nephew doesn't have to be home alone at night and she will nearly always have someone home with her.  We will miss her terribly and she will miss the great grandchildren but I believe this is all part of God's divine plan.

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