8 Months + 1 Day Waiting for Her

Yesterday marked exactly 8 months waiting for her.

The toddler girl or baby girl we will adopt from Ethiopia.

I've said before that we began this adoption adventure because there are 147 million orphans in the world and we want to make that number 147 million MINUS ONE!!

But, for now the minus one is on our side.

Until we can bring her home, our family is minus one.

And although life is very busy and joyful, somehow it is always there, the fact, the feeling that someone is missing.

We are trying not to go crazy being in the "any day now" phase of waiting on the referral for the child we'll adopt. "The Call" could come today or 2 months from now.

In addition to longer waits for referrals, there has been a slow down recently in the length of time between getting a referral and getting to travel to meet your child. It was just about 2 months after getting a referral and now sometimes it is 4 or even 6 months later! So that's hard, I'm afraid once we see her face the wait will be even more difficult, but we are trusting God's perfect timing and trying not to be impatient.

We have heard updates from our agency that the longer waits are not for lack of orphan kids, our agency's group home is actually overcrowded right now, it is just getting through government red tape, like traveling back to remote villages to track down birth certificates on kids that the court is now requiring. I try not to think about the fact that our future daughter is very, very likely in an orphanage right now.

And yeah, this beautiful Christmas song makes me cry, but there is hope, the song begins with, "It's Christmas time again but you're not home, your family is here, yet you're somewhere else alone, tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms. . ."

But it ends with, "It's Christmas time again and now you're home, your family is here so you will never be alone, so tonight before you go to sleep I'll hold you in my arms. . ."



We are praising God that with His help this year will be her last Christmas without a family and our last Christmas without her!

P.S. If you click on that YouTube video, pay attention to the pictures. They are actual photos from one of the band members of Third Day and show him, his wife, and their 3 daughters as they journeyed to adopted a little girl from China. He wrote this song as they waited for her. Their wait was over 3 years! Makes ours seem short!

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