Just over five years ago, a little boy was born in Ethiopia, Africa. Within a month of his birth, God planted a seed in the hearts of a man and woman in America. That couple--after years of feeling their family was complete--suddenly had the desire to adopt a child internationally. Because that boy was not ready to come home to his new family yet, God changed the man's heart for a short while. Over the next two years, the woman continued to pray and plead with God for a baby to come to their family. God answered her prayer by changing her husband's heart to be in line with her own. But it was still not time for the little boy from Ethiopia to come to his new home, and God was still working on the man and the woman in America. He wanted the couple to grow closer in their relationship, to draw nearer to Himself, and to strengthen their faith. In His infinite wisdom, God allowed three more years of difficult infertility to pass.
One year ago TODAY, December 3, 2009, another little boy was born in Ethiopia. He was the brother to the first boy, who is now five years old. Within that same week of his birth, the man and woman suffered through their last failed infertility treatment. They decided they would not pursue any further treatments. They decided they would like to foster children and perhaps adopt if that was in God's plan. The woman had never before considered adopting an older child, but miraculously, she felt a tremendous amount of peace all at once, despite not knowing what the future held for their family. She just knew that everything would work out okay.
The story sounds pretty miraculous don't you think? We believe it is nothing short of a miracle that we will be adopting one-year-old T (we can't reveal their names until the adoption is finalized) and 5-year-old M. God has been weaving a beautiful tapestry, intertwining our lives with these precious little boys whom we have not yet even met. Not only was I amazed when God revealed to me the precise timing of the boys births with what He was also doing in our lives simultaneously, but we are also amazed that this has all happened so quickly. I'll try to take you through how it all happened:
In less than a month, we received our approval from USCIS (immigration) to bring a child from a foreign country to the U.S. It usually takes six weeks to four months, so that's a miracle in itself. We received the approval letter the Friday before Thanksgiving. I emailed our caseworker Patty at WACAP to see if we would now be on the Ethiopian waitlist for adoption since we had our I600A approval. Patty called me the following Monday to talk to me about the waitlist, how it worked, how many families were in front of us with similiar child requests, etc. Then she asked if we would possibly be interested in hearing about two siblings that were available for adoption that were a little outside of our age requests, but that she felt just might be right for us. (We were open to either gender, ages birth to 4 years old, siblings.) You have to understand how rare it is that a family completely skips going on the waitlist and goes right to being matched with a child or children. Out of more than 100 families, we were the only family that fit the closest to the referral. Most families want at least one girl and/or children closer in age and younger.
As soon as she started to tell me about these boys, I knew these were to be our sons. I could hardly breathe. As soon as Brian came home, we talked, looked at the emailed medical information on the boys, and decided we felt a strong enough pull to open the pictures. If we had had any doubts at that point, all of them melted away when we saw their beautiful faces. We talked briefly with each other and the kids, prayed for confirmation, and in less than a few hours we were absolutely sure we wanted to accept this referral. It just felt completely right. Again, this was a miracle, because just four months ago I didn't want to adopt a child older than 2-1/2 year. Then we changed that to three years old, then a few months later to four years old. But even though our son will probably be five and a half before we bring him home, I just know that God chose him before he was even born to one day be a part of our family.
Despite the excitement of being matched with the children we are going to adopt, it will be difficult because we have to wait possibly up to four months before we meet them for the first time. That longer wait is because our paperwork is not yet in Ethiopia. The normal procedure is: get your USCIS approval, get on the waitlist, and then while you are waiting for six months to a more than a year to be matched with a child, your paperwork is all completed, sent to Ethiopia, and ready to go once you are matched. But because we skipped the waitlist, we have to wait for all our paperwork to "catch up".
So here is what we can expect to happen now: our homestudy has to be updated (to reflect we are approved to adopt a child up to six years of age) by our caseworker here and then sent to WACAP. This will be added to our dossier, along with our approved I600A application (immigration). Then WACAP will send the entire dossier to the U.S. Sec. of State to be verified. Then it will be sent back to WACAP with the appropriate verification signatures. After that, WACAP will send it to Ethiopia and it will be notarized by them. Then it will be translated, reviewed, and the translated copy will need to be verified. Then it gets submitted, reviewed, and we receive a court date. That probably won't happen until early February. Once we receive a court date--which probably won't be until April--we will travel to Ethiopia to meet our boys for the first time at the orphanage. During our weeklong stay, we will also meet some of the birth family (hopefully) and officially adopt the boys. Then they will be transferred from the orphanage to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to the WACAP house (owned and operated by our international adoption agency). They will stay there until our next trip and court date with the embassy, which will probably be 6-8 weeks later. So it may not be until May or June before we can bring them all the way home to live with us.
Although it's difficult to wait for them now that we know their names and have memorized their faces, we know that God is using this time to help prepare our family and these boys. Please pray mostly for them. They have only been in the orphanage a little more than two months. They have already suffered tremendous loss, and I'm sure they are frightened and sad. This will be so confusing for them, and they will need much prayer now and in the future. I know this won't be easy, but I also know that this is all part of God's plan, so He will work it all for good. We are praising Him for His many miracles in this. I can't completely wrap my mind around all of it yet. I am just so grateful and humbled by it all. Truly nothing is impossible with God. I would never have imagined 5 years ago that our lives would take this direction. Even though I was absolutely convinced that we would somehow have another child someday, I never thought it would turn out like this. My plans were so different from God's, but His were so much better!
