The Waiting Game

Well it has now been over 5 years since we have been trying to adopt again.  We have had to remind ourselves many times that it is all in God's timing.  Our plan was to return to China to adopt a sibling for Annierae, from her same birth country.  We waited a year to submit our dossier to China because that was the Chinese government’s rule.  Our dossier was logged into China on February 6, 2007.  After waiting in line for two years, China referrals slowed way down, we were given the news that I (Kristine) had stage 2 breast cancer.  After waiting another year to go through treatments and surgeries we were told that China would no longer accept us, unless we were willing to adopt an older child with more difficult special needs.  Hmm, I am not well enough to take care of a child with little to no special needs but a child with server challenges I could handle?  Our hearts were broken and we thought that our hope to adopt again would never happen.  I remember begging God to take away the desire for another child but that feeling would not dissipate. 

God's plans are always better than ours, another reminder that we have held onto.  We are thankful that God made us wait.  If not for the wait, our beautiful daughter Ja may have never become part of our family.  If we had brought a child home from China when we thought we were going to, we would have never been open to taking in a 16 year old refugee from Burma.  We would have never known Ja and I think that somehow we would have felt an empty spot in our hearts and not known why. 

We are also thankful for the way God answers our prayers.  If He had taken away my desire we would have never pursued finding an agency that would work with us, even though I had a history of cancer.  Adoption Associates was very positive that if we sent in a dossier to Ethiopia, we would be accepted into the program.  Our dossier arrived in Ethiopia on November 17, 2010.  We thought that it would only be a couple of months until we received a referral.  Ahhh, but once again referrals slowed down and so we waited.  We prayed fervently that God would fulfill our dreams of adopting again.  He answered this prayer with the referral of our beautiful daughter, Melat.  After meeting her in December, we were reminded yet again that God is so good and His plans are much better than ours.  As we say with all our daughters, we could have never dreamed of better children then the ones God has blessed us with.  God knew well before Greg and I ever meet what our family would be and He had his hands on our children, taking care of them in ways we never imagined before bringing them into our lives.

We are thrilled to report that on February 24^th we will be heading to Ethiopia to bring home our sweet Melat.  The wait the past couple of months has been the most difficult in all the years we have waited.    To hold your child and then have to leave her behind is unspeakable to us and we honestly don't know, other than by God's grace, how we did it.  Melat will be home with her forever family on March 2^nd, 2012.  It's been a long wait but God had a plan and we waited for Him to unite us with Melat.