First Runner Up Never Felt So Good!

A LOT has happened since my last post! I am going to try to give you the shortened version. About 2 months ago, we went through a very discouraging time with the adoption. Through a series of events we came to find out that after 10 months on our agencies wait list, we were still somewhere between #60-70. AND they were not getting many referrals a month (avg. 1-3), sometimes none at all! Now some of you may be thinking, "Does that mean there aren't as many orphans anymore?" Oh, how I wish that were the case. There are still MILLIONS of children growing up in orphanages in Ethiopia! The slow down is caused by government issues, famine, and the simple fact that is is a 3rd world country and they are on a different time-table than we are.

As you can imagine this pretty much devastated us. It meant it would still be years before we would meet our son or daughter. We prayed desperately that the Lord would comfort us and guide us, and He did just that. We had been with a very well respected agency that helped pave the way with international adoption, BUT that also meant a ton of other people used them as well. Obviously, by the length of their wait list!

We started to look at other agencies, and we discovered a smaller agency that many people in this area have used. We called them and were thrilled with the time and effort they made for us. This agency was started and is run by people who were formally missionaries, and went into this field when they saw the prevalent need world-wide. The director actually met with us when she was visiting Nashville, and her passion for these children was obvious. She frequently makes trips to Ethiopia to see how things are running and to meet the children. We prayed about it and decided to make the difficult decision to change agencies.

That meant redoing a TON of paperwork! We could use some of the stuff we had, but most had to be redone and updated since it was over a year old. If you know me, I only saw that as a challenge! My goal was to get it all done in a week! We got our part done that quickly! We officially got our dossier to them April 29! Now let me tell you the best part of this story-because they are a smaller agency, guess what number we are on their wait list???

That's right we are #3 on their girl list!!! AND...

And #2 on their boy list!!!

We are still only planning to get one for right now, but whichever list moves faster determines which gender and child will be part of our family forever! As Jonathon said, "I've never been so excited to be first runner up!"

So basically this means we could get a call in the next couple of weeks that we have a referral! Or it could be a few months before all the paperwork is ready for our referral. Either way, we have hope! We are thrilled!

 Thank you all so much for your continued prayers, support, and encouragement!