Here’s the news……..

WE’RE GOING TO INDIA!!!  Yesterday we were matched with a little boy from India named Ranjit (pronounced ran-jeet).  I’m really hoping all of you with t-shirts with the shape of Africa on them will still be excited with us and understand that it was God’s plan for us to come to India through Africa.  We never would have found Ranjit or Holt International if we hadn’t found Ashenafi on Rainbow Kids.

After talking with the Africa program and turning down the referral they gave us one week after we found out about the loss of Ashenafi, we decided to get back in touch with the waiting child program at Holt to see if they would keep an eye out for a child that needs us.  The assistant in the waiting child program emailed me with her condolences about Ashenafi on Feb 29 and said she would keep us in mind but in the meantime she immediately thought of this little one in India who had never had a family interested in him and they had listed for 3.5 years.  His name is Ranjit and the orphanage found him on the street in Pune 3.5 years ago missing his right eye and deaf in his right ear.  They have no idea if the loss was a birth defect or caused by some sort of trauma.  He’s been in the orphanage ever since and is very developmentally delayed.

We took a few weeks to pray about if this was where God was leading us.  It is just something we had never imagined (God likes to do that to us).  What do we do with all these t-shirts with Africa on them and we have this whole website with the name “Adopting Judah” but since this little boy is somewhere between 6 and 8 years old (his birth date is sort of unknown since they found him with no records) we’re not sure how well he’ll do with a name change.  It was a lot to take in and a lot to let go of.  We finally had to come to the conclusion those were all our plans and our plans are not the greatest plan.  We definitely know that we were led to India by way of Africa and for that we will wear our t-shirts proudly because #1 Ashenafi will always be a part of us and a part of Ranjit’s story and #2 is that there are still children in Africa that need prayer.  As for the name, we’ve decided to keep his first name Ranjit but Judah will be his middle name.  We may call him Ranjit, we may call him Judah, we may call him RJ, we just don’t know.  You may refer to him by any of those names :)

So we told Holt we’d like to be considered by the waiting child committee as a match for him and then found out that the day after we requested his file, so did another family.  All that time with no inquiries and then two in one week.  What are the chances of that??  It was a little confusing and frustrating at first but then it gave me a sense of peace.  If we were the only option for this little boy then maybe we were running ahead of God and of course they would match us to him as their only choice.  With having another family to choose between it gave me the peace to know that God really could intervene and lead the committee toward the other family if this was not His plan for us.  The last few weeks have been spent with the prayer that God would lead this little boy to the family that could best help and love him and yesterday it was confirmed that that family is us :)

We are currently having our home study updated and changed for India and Hague guidelines.  India is a Hague country where Ethiopia was not.  The Hague Convention is a treaty between several countries that makes it so there are specific guidelines that the government and child care centers have to abide by to keep their status to be able to have adoptions.  With this we have to start all over with immigration (USCIS) because Hague countries require an 800A instead of the 600A.  We’ll have to change a few things in our dossier as well because of being country specific and because the Hague requires things in more detail.  It’s been a bit overwhelming to think about all that paperwork again but I’ll have to do what takes to get to my son.  One other overwhelming thought is that Laila and I are leaving a week from Monday to spend 4 weeks in Michigan for her therapy camp.  While I’m not excited about trying to squeeze a lot of this paperwork into one week, I am thankful that I have been able to focus on our other three kids during spring break this week and have lots of fun with them before I leave and before all of this paperwork was piled on again.

There’s the news :)  We’re very excited to be moving forward and to have direction.  We are back to exerrified (half excited, half terrified) to meet our son and see what kind of needs he has.  From what I’ve read it sounds like our timeline will be 6-9 months before he comes home.  We only have to make one trip to India and he will come home with us.  It’s very exciting to know I won’t have to have the heartbreak of leaving my child I’ve met in another country.

Please continue to pray for us and this cutie patootie little boy that we’re so excited to bring home :)