So What IS Happening?

Wed. February 24, 2010

The short answer?  Not much.

The long answer...well, it's hard to explain.  We've been waiting 34 months.  Our paperwork is sitting at the CCAA and has gone through the review room with no complications.  Now it will be passed to the matching room where hundreds of parent's dossiers are matched with hundreds of orphan's paperwork.  However, for many reasons, China is moving very slowly with that process.  Why?  No one really knows for sure.  They claim that with the loosening of the one child policy in some regions and the promotion of domestic adoption within China, there are just not as many orphans available to meet the high demand.  Although this may be true, the fact remains that the CCAA only works with a few of the many orphanages scattered throughout the country.  It would be very easy and cost effective for them to improve services and staffing at all the orphanages in order to get all the available orphans a chance to be adopted.  I can only speculate why they don't do this. 

So what does this mean for us?  A very long wait with no ability to predict when a referral will come if we stay on the healthy, infant track.  The current wait is 46 months and subject to go up.  This month we have had to work hard to renew our INS (USCIS) paperwork and update our New York home study report.  Obviously this takes extra energy and money but we still feel the Lord has us on this path and we are trusting in Him to lead us if we are meant to change our plans.  So please keep us in your prayers, that our hearts remain open and our wills remain obedient.

Colston (now 18 mo.) and Oakley (almost five) are doing wonderfully and continue to bless us.  Daddy and the kids are content in the wait but mommy is starting to get more emotionally engaged and desiring to hold another little girl in her arms.