Next

So, what's next? We know there are three sweet boys waiting for us on the other side of the world, but there are still some things to do before we can get there.

We just received our acceptance agreement (a legal contract stating, among other things, that we will adopt the boys) and child reports (medical exams, declarations of birth, etc.) in the mail yesterday. Once we have some questions answered about what we're signing, we'll send it back to our agency. Tomorrow, we hope! Then, once they receive it and our next payment, they'll send our home study to their lawyer overseas, who will prepare affidavits for us.

Then we wait. For a week, or for a month. That's the expected range of time it could take.

When we receive those affidavits, we'll finish compiling our dossier, which will be sent back overseas to be used to file for a court date.

Then we wait again, for another month, maybe. That seems to be the current trend, but of course, like all things in intercountry adoption, that could change at any time.

The next thing we hear will be news of a court date, which may be weeks away, or perhaps days. We'll book plane tickets, pack bags, and tie up loose ends. We'll try not to explode from the excitement.

Because soon, someday soon, we will meet three precious boys who will, we hope, be our sons. I can still hardly believe that we could be so blessed. With all our shortcomings, all our failures, all our short-temperedness and unfaithfulness and the ugliness in our hearts, God is still choosing to give us the gift that is these boys. Wow. He is so good!

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Where We Are

Can we interrupt this several-month-long silence to tell you something?

Something really big? And exciting? And wonderful?

We have a referral.

We've known it was coming, but this morning, we got the call. And now it's official. We have a referral!

Maybe most exciting of all is that baby #2, who now has a name and a face, is really babies #1, 2, and 4. That's right. Our family doesn't just get to grow by one, but by three!

H, S, and J are three, four-and-a-half, and six-and-a-half. They have the sweetest little faces that we cannot wait to see in person. We are so excited to meet them, and are so grateful that God would entrust three more little lives to us.

We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is where He wants us right now, and that knowledge gives us such great confidence, hope, and joy, in spite of all of the unknowns this journey holds. We're not selfless enough, loving enough, prepared enough, optimistic enough, anything-enough to do this on our own. But our God is El Shaddai - HE is more than enough.

"[We] are where [we] are for such a time as this - not to gain anything - but to risk everything." And somehow? Somehow, God is so good that really, in so many ways this hardly feels like a risk. Really, it just feels exactly right.