I really wish I could start this post with some wonderfully amazing piece of information... such as we have a face, we have a son, we have court dates. I simply can't. I can tell you that after weeks of gathering paperwork for our dossier, signing and notarizing around 50 papers (seriously!), James and I decided that we in fact weren't comfortable with the agency we had originally chosen.
We couldn't ignore the check in our spirit, or the concerns we had - BELIEVE me I tried every way to rationalize, justify and chalk it up to nerves; thank goodness we choose to follow the One who laid out this path before us. Thank God! He is in the details and He renews my strength, He guides me along the right paths, bringing honor to His name.
On Friday Feb. 25th James and I had the appointment to have ALL of our paperwork notarized; we were ready to mail them off that day.... we returned home to find 1 page wasn't ready, we couldn't complete it because it was for Caitlin, who just turned 18, three days prior. To recap for those of you who don't know, we waited about 6 weeks to move forward, allowing Caitlin to turn 18. SO I /WE were so ready to release the paperwork on the 25th and to move forward... we officially started this process in November and just wanted to make some progress.
In the adoption world there are lots of blogs that keep you posted of their stories (a lot cooler than mine, I might add ;o) truthfully it was hard, to see families that started at the same time as us, already posting they had chosen their child, already had court dates, and we officially weren't even considered a client (family) yet.
During this time of gathering, fundraising, and waiting on baby girl to turn 18, we had some doubts, some concern, the "check" in our spirit of moving forward. No matter how much our time frame would get pushed back, we could no longer push forward.
So as of today, after much research, prayer and peace we have chosen another agency to partner up with to help us reach our boy. We are thrilled to be moving forward. The only downside is, their requirements of paperwork differ from what we had originally prepared. We are back to the gathering part, again, but have more knowledge and the legwork is mostly done, the homestudy was already prepared and due to the generosity of others we have several sets of fees ready to pay.
That is where we are at on this adoption journey. We still take comfort in knowing God's timing is perfect! He loves our boy and is watching over him until we are there and then He will (still) watch over all of us. So as the Ethiopian adoption program reviews their policies and procedures and rumor has it will cut the numbers of children matched up to their forever families by 90% or something.... we take peace in knowing God called us to this and He ain't surprised by nothing and we are to be obedient in everything.
So to a sweet friend who reminded me today (not even trying to) I say thanks... this is how I try to sum up my feelings. Although we wait on meeting our son face to face and living out the dreams we have dreamed for him, first and foremost....
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