Prayer

It is 5:48 on March 16th and I am once again struck with an overwhelming need to pray for the child that will be mine some day. It is comforting to know that prayers are answered across oceans. I pray that God protects my child, blesses his mother and keeps them both safe. I can not imagine what she (the first mother) is going through.

Is she sick?
Is she hungry?
Is she aware that there is a white mother that prays for her often?
Does she already know that she will have to give him up?
Or has she already let him go?

So many questions...so many more emotions.

As much love that I feel for the child I have never met, I feel sorrow for his first mother. My heart goes to her and what she has given us. I pray that her journeys find our God, so that we may all dance together one day. What joy I will have to know that they will be reunited. What an honor I will have to raise him up on this earth.
My heart is so overwhelmed to pray.

The Good, the bad, and bronchitus

Bronchitis
Last week was a hard one. I have been sick for the last 12 days with bronchitis. Thanks to great medicine I am finally on the mend. Because I was so tired and we had no food to make dinners (that I would not have made anyways) Jeremiah did his first trip to the store for our weekly groceries. We have been using E-mealz, so the list was already made for me. All he had to do was go and get it. He offered to take 2 kids with him to get the groceries. Thankfully he is fine with asking for help. He made it home with the right items and 2 very tired children. I see it as God preparing us all to work together as we add more members to our already big family.
The Bad
Last week I received an article from a friend that is also adopting from Ethiopia. It was discouraging. Thankfully God decided to let me hear about it when I was already sick and not able to process it very much. Here is what is going on.



"Ethiopia is cutting back by as much as 90 percent the number of inter-country adoptions it will allow, as part of an effort to clean up a system rife with fraud and corruption. Adoption agencies and children’s advocates are concerned the cutbacks will leave many Ethiopian orphans without the last-resort option of an adoptive home abroad." (find the rest of the story here http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/-Ethiopia-to-Cut-Foreign-Adoptions-by-Up-to-90-Percent-117411843.html )

That came as very discouraging news. What we have found out since then is that we will be able to do the home study, receive the referral, go see our child and then there may be a long ...long...long wait until we can pick up our child. So our child will know that we are their parents, but they will be stuck until they can be approved to come home. There is corruption, but this is not the best way to handle it. I am praying for a miracle at the point. I am excited to see how God will move in this situation.

The Good
We have officially moved into the inner circles of the adoption world :) We received a letter from our agency stating that they have processed all of our papers and we will be given Family Coordinator!!! I each step makes this seem much more real. Like a pregnant mom that hears the heartbeat for the first time.

The adoption has continued to progress at a good speed. I am so excited to meet our child.