Adoption Update

Our homes study was completed this week (so grateful for our social worker, Shannon), and we were able to send it off with our I-600 application to the government. After our paperwork and fingerprints are approved, this document will be attached to our dossier stack of paperwork and sent to Ethiopia! All of that to say, we are a month or two out of officially waiting. After that, our wait time is only known by the Lord. Our agency is not setting our expectations up at all on a time frame. We are requesting a 2 or 3 year old little girl and there really isn't an established pattern for kiddos over 2.

If I keep this about obedience to the Lord and paperwork, it is so much easier. But when I start to call her baby sister and think about what she may be facing right now without a family, it is harder to be patient. I cried putting together our photo pages for our dossier. Attached was our family picture of 5...she is missing. We have a little girl out there that belongs here. And then I just prayed, "Lord help me love her." Attachment was hard with Silas, and I need to start praying for my heart right now.

Here is what one adoptive parent in Ethiopia said about an orphanage:

"We are here in Ethiopia for court. We visited 2 orphanages today and one broke our hearts and needs URGENT help!!!! KVI orphanage. There were no crib mattresses in the cribs and no babies had on diapers! Pieces of ripped up sheets in the place of diapers!!! we were so disturbed that we went out and bought 6 crib mattresses for KVI and delivered them. Problem is they are NOT plastic covered so they will get ruined quickly! Babies are soaking wet because of no diapers."

We are so anxious to go and bring our girl home, but also to help out too. We want to make our trip count. So, we will be calling on you all to help out with donations when the time gets closer. Their needs might look different then. It just breaks your heart. How can we have so much and they have so little? Our cups run over. I wish this sinful flesh didn't have to be reminded of that so much.