“Our Adoption Journey Thus Far…”

Well, Bart and I are not the most tech savvy people you've ever met, so that may explain why it has taken six months since we began our adoption journey to get a blog up and rolling!  But I am excited, this is so much fun!  :)

We are blessed to be in the process of adopting one, two, or six... just kidding... children from Ethiopia.  What an exciting roller-coaster to be on.  As many of you have heard of other's testimonies of adoption, it is rare that it comes smooth and without it's up's and downs.  

There was an opportunity to hit our first big turbulence last month, mind you, on our anniversary.  Why they didn't take that into consideration is beyond me.  The email came and was quite a surprise to us, as Ethiopia has become a very well established country to adopt from.  The news was that they are reducing the number of orphans they are processing in courts from 50 per day to 5 per day.  That significant decrease could result in an additional year of waiting!

We are in prayer that God will uphold His children and bring them into homes that love them and care for them, regardless of what it looks like on paper.  We know God is in charge in all of this, but would love your support in prayer that He would protect these precious young ones, and that Ethiopia would find a way to allow more to be processed.  

So… to bring you up to speed on our adoption journey this far, we have felt called for many years to adopt, but we were waiting for the right time.  In October 2010, we felt the clear call of God to begin the process.  After much research and prayer, we chose America World Adoption Agency, and we are so glad we did. They have been amazing and are there to answer our every question.  

Last week, after nearly 3 months of waiting... we finally received the approval from the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) and sent off our Dossier (all of our paperwork and homestudy) to Ethiopia!  That is a big step because now we are officially on the waiting list for our children.  Currently, we are planning to commit to waiting for a sibling group of either gender between the ages of 0-3.  The wait for a sibling group is unknown, but we are expecting 8-12 months, maybe more. (And down the road, we have the freedom to request a boy or girl if the wait gets too long).  

I am not so good at waiting for much of anything, but thankfully God knew that about me and gave me a wonderful, sensible, patient (very patient), husband!  So on to the waiting!  

Thank you for being apart of our lives and our journey.  We love the support and the friendships we have from each of you and are blessed to be apart of your lives as well.

May God bless your day,

Bart, Heather, & Benji