Our adoption agency - Americans for African Adoptions - is currently in Africa. I can only imagine what Cheryl is doing, who she is meeting as she continues her work to care for orphans in Liberia, Uganda and Lesotho and to match them with families eager to adopt. Will she meet our son while she is there? I don't know. I can only pray that God uses her visit to prepare the groundwork for our son to come home soon.
Who is our son? Some days I can almost imagine his laughter at the dinner table, can almost visualize him playing ball outside with his dad and Sam (but playing with a soccer ball or a baseball?). Other days I feel so dissociated from even the adoption process, the dearth of progress causing me to wonder if we really are adopting, or if this is just something I read about someone else doing.
The news from Africa is troubling, even more as we consider that Ethiopia is reducing adoptions by 95%. War and drought and illness continue to plague the continent. The UN estimates 18 million African children have lost one or more parents to AIDS. The orphans' extended family support is stretched or nonexistent. My heart aches for the children. What will happen to them? One of those children is my son - the child of my heart.
Cheryl if you do meet our son in Africa, will you tell him we love him? I stand on the faith that God has met him. God knows him and God has a plan and a purpose for him. Pray that God's plans will quickly be fulfilled.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.[b] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matt. 10:28-31
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Paperwork Purgatory
I refreshed my email at least five dozen times between 5 pm and 10 pm last night. Our home study social worker said she'd email the first draft of our homestudy this week. I'm trying not to be impatient, but this home study has been two months in the making (from gathering paperwork through interviews and now waiting for the write up), and until we receive the final copy, we're stuck in limbo.
I knew the waiting would prove a difficult part of the adoption journey, but I didn't realize until yesterday just how little control I have over the waiting process. At least when we were gathering documents for the home study and the dossier I felt like I was doing something - I had a plan and a purpose and a checklist. Now the plan is to wait - wait for the homestudy, wait for USCIS, wait for the agency to submit our dossier, wait for the Lesotho government, wait for our son.
It is a moment-by-moment prayer to give all timing and control to God. We commited our adoption journey to him before we even began our initial application - this little boy was His son before he will be ours, and God's plans are perfect. So we wait. And I refresh the email on more time...
Colossians 1:12 - So that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints.
I knew the waiting would prove a difficult part of the adoption journey, but I didn't realize until yesterday just how little control I have over the waiting process. At least when we were gathering documents for the home study and the dossier I felt like I was doing something - I had a plan and a purpose and a checklist. Now the plan is to wait - wait for the homestudy, wait for USCIS, wait for the agency to submit our dossier, wait for the Lesotho government, wait for our son.
It is a moment-by-moment prayer to give all timing and control to God. We commited our adoption journey to him before we even began our initial application - this little boy was His son before he will be ours, and God's plans are perfect. So we wait. And I refresh the email on more time...
Colossians 1:12 - So that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints.
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