In the Loop

We want to keep everyone updated on what’s going on but sometimes it’s hard when you’re just not sure.  Here’s a little bit of it.

We received a referral for another boy from Ethiopia about a week after we lost Ashenafi.  He had no problems and on paper was exactly what we were looking for.  But, he wasn’t our son.  I know that may seem crazy and some of you may be saying “give the money I donated to you back, you whack job!!” but we prayed and did not feel led to go forward with him.  Now, this is pretty frowned upon to turned down a referral and really for no reason.  So we had a talk with the Africa director and explained ourselves a little bit and at the same time got some clarity for ourselves about what our goal in this really is.

We want to help a child.  We are not desperate for a child because we’ve been parents already to three wonderful children.  We’ve had babies and we’ve adopted and we know the joy that comes from both and have the choice to do either of those things again.  This is about helping a child and of course this child will be a joy to our family and we will love him with everything we are.  There’s just something that doesn’t sit well with us about sitting on a waiting list with several other people waiting for our turn for a child.  If there are other families out there eagerly awaiting to be parents then we want them to have that and would not want to take that away from them.  Now hang in there with me because I’m not saying we’re calling it quits!

The calling on our lives is finding the one that wouldn’t have a chance without us.   There are so many families so afraid of special needs and medical needs and it’s just not something that bothers us.  We already know pretty much any kind of pediatric specialist you can think of by name, we have a great therapy center near us that we go to for Laila weekly where we can find other therapists for another child, and we have an amazing friend and family support system.  We are completely set up to care for a child that may scare many others.  I know what you’re thinking, “AND you already have you hands full!”  Well that may be true but does anybody ever not think they have their hands full??  And, bottom line is we are Christian and we go to and do what the Lord leads and let Him work out the details.

So, I’m not ready to give all the details about the things we’re in the middle of right now with our adoption but I am asking you to pray.  We have another referral but are not matched to the child.  It would be a lot of changes and there are some speed bumps presenting themselves.  Our prayer right now is that God would completely slam doors shut that we are not to go through or give us the courage to walk through the ones that may be different and scary.  We may know next week or the week after that what is going on with this little boy but please join us in prayer to know what the right thing is.

We’ll try to keep you in the loop and give more information when we’re ready.  Thanks for sticking through this with us!

(And PS, the little boy we turned down had several families ask for him and they stopped taking applications one week after they presented him.  God is good!)