New Developments

This coming Thursday will mark 9 months since our dossier was "logged-in" in China. We still aren't certain when we might receive our referral. Yet, we do feel closer to understanding why we have had such a long wait. Right now we are aware of two factors that we believe have influenced the slow down. God, of course, always knew these two things would occur and took them into account when orchestrating our wait.

The first obstacle has been my health. For the past 4 or 5 months, at least, I had been having difficulty walking, being active, and sometimes even standing without experiencing a lot of pain. Three doctors and one outpatient surgery later, I realize that if we had travelled this summer according to our original plan, I would never have been able to have made it. (There is a lot of walking, etc. involved in the trip.) I'm so thankful God knew that I would be having these problems and timed our adoption accordingly.

The second factor that has influenced our wait time involves another change that God wanted to make in our desires and attitudes. In an earlier post, I mentioned that we felt like God was leading us to adopt a child with special needs on our second adoption. Actually, at that time, I had already been in contact with our social worker about viewing the newest special needs referrals. We continued to seek God's will about the child He had for our family. We both felt like God had a little girl with a cleft condition waiting for us, but it was still a difficult decision. The time for our regular referral may only be 3-4 months away, and changing to special needs at this point could lengthen our wait well past that amount of time. We are all so weary from the waiting, but we want to be obedient to the Lord's leading. I emailed Laura this past week with our desire to change over to the special needs program and be removed from our original referral position. Our referral request will not be sent to China for about 2 more months. After it is received, it may be up to 4 or more months before our daughter's referral picture and information is sent to us. Of course, we are all hoping that it doesn't take quite that long.

Please pray for our willingness to rely on God as we face new challenges related to this decision. Pray, also, that we will be patient as we wait for God's perfect timing.


I Corinthians 2:9 "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

We are truly excited to see what lies ahead for our family.