The Next Leg of the Journey is Upon Us!!

Wow!!!  It's hard to believe that so much time has passed since we had "update-worthy" information to share.  We do, however, have some very exciting news to share!  In May of this year, God revealed the next step of our journey.  We are now in the process of adopting a 7 year old boy from South Africa!!  This is in addition to our adoption from Ethiopia.  Right now you might be thinking....."Isn't one enough?" and maybe it is, but we really feel like this 2nd adoption (as well as the 1st one) was a call from God.  "N" was a waiting child because of his age.  Sadly, older children are not perceived as being cute and cuddly and are much less likely to be adopted.  Truth be told, we weren't planning on adopting older children ourselves....  Our entire adoption journey has been a testament of God's grace and amazing ability to bring about change and transformation in people when they least expect it.

I'm going to do my best to keep this as organized as possible, but I make no guarantees.  Let's recap:

We began the adoption journey in May of 2010 not knowing where or when, just that God had clearly laid adoption on our hearts.  In November 2010, we sent our paperwork to Ethiopia, optimistically expecting a referral within 4-6 months (based on others' experiences and recent referrals from our agency).  Then 4-6 months came and went.  So did 10, 12, 16, and so on.  In November 2011, we found ourselves in the top 3 families waiting for a referral from our agency (according to a family-generated, unofficial waiting list).  Would we receive the Christmas gift we so desperately wanted?  I'll be honest, some times in there were definitely easier than others for us.  We didn't understand why it was taking so long when God had lead us down this path.  But, there are things in life that we don't get to understand.  We don't always get to see the plan before it unfolds, and often for good reason.  We still sit at the top of the list for Ethiopia, waiting for a 0-12 month old baby girl.  The referrals are slowly starting to trickle through again.  Our case, however, is on hold until "N" is home.  So our precious baby girl may very well be a Christmas present after all, but in God's timing.

So what's the scoop on this second adoption?  Well, I found myself on the waiting child page on our agency's website (which I look at fairly regularly) looking at the faces of these beautiful children and wondering how long they will have to wait for a family (If you're still trying to follow my crazy timeline - this is the very end of April and beginning of May 2012).  Even though I had seen him many times (he was on the waiting list for 14 months), I clicked on "N"s picture.  I read his bio and thought to myself, "Why doesn't someone adopt him?" and the response I got was "Yes, why not?".  It was amazing how, without recognizing it, God had once again prepared me for a journey I had not imagined.  So.....I told Kevin about it.  As was our decision to begin the adoption journey, this realization of our desire to adopt an older child was also mutual.  God is so good!!  So, we met with our social worker, assuming "N" was from Ethiopia, to see how much of the travel and expenses could be combined.  Here's comes the next twist.....he's not from Ethiopia.  He's from South Africa.  This posed two potential concerns/roadblocks.  #1: That means all new everything and none of the costs carry over and #2: Six weeks of required time off (not including any bonding time once home).  Amazingly enough, God gave us peace with both of these potential obstacles.  This may sound weird, but we have a peace about the entire process right now, maybe more so than we have all along.  We feel like this is the way it is supposed to happen, and that's a great feeling!  So, let's see......back on track.  We decided to adopt "N" in May.  We updated our homestudy paperwork and started the paper chase of preparing a second dossier.  Oh, did I mention that we were also simultaneously updating our about-to-expire Ethiopia dossier??  Thank goodness for a very organized husband!!!  The paperwork has come together pretty quickly, even with 4 trips to the doctor to have our medical clearances done correctly!  We are now only one document shy of being ready to send our paperwork to South Africa to be processed.  We hope to receive that document this week (so please pray for that!)  The estimated processing time for us to receive our official referral (and for "N" to get to know he has a family!) is about 4 weeks from the time our paperwork is sent over.  Once we accept the referral, they estimate 4-8 weeks until we would travel to South Africa!  Again, we will be in South Africa for about 6 weeks.  The first 2 weeks are a mandatory bonding period.  At the end of that time, we will go to court to state before a judge that we would like to adopt "N".  Then, the rest of our time there is waiting for paperwork processing and preparation of "N"s visa.  We will have an appointment with the US Embassy to get his visa, and then we will bring him home.  Keeping in mind that all this is estimated, we expect to be home sometime between Thanksgiving and the first week or two of December, which will put "N" home just in time to spend his birthday with his forever family!!!

I apologize for the length of this post, but it's a lot to share.  I hope to have more to share soon!!!!  Thank you to all of you for your prayers and support!!!  We are so blessed to have such a strong support system!

Laura and Kevin