The Wait

The waiting season is upon us,  it is kind of like the winter season I feel. A time of unrest, excess energy, and drury days. There is the occasional spark, a ray of sun breaking through the clouds to make us smile. The waiting season, like winter, is long and I am soooo ready for it to be over.
I recently sent an email asking about any other paperwork that we needed to file or task to be complete at this time. The reply was simply this, "You are in the waiting period right now..."
So here is an update of what we have done while we wait. The last month we have concentrated on working on grants. We have researched all of the grants available to us, we have crossed them off as we apply. We have gathered more paperwork that is required for our grant applications. We have a date scheduled to be finger printed by homeland security. And we pray!

One of the drury days this month has to do with a letter we recieved in the mail from AIAA (the actual child placement agency). This letter had a 2 fold purpose, to let us know that the cost of adoptions from Korea are going up this year and that there may be another 4-6 months of waiting prior to recieving a formal application. The cost of the adoption really didn't bother us much at all, we are counting on God for the money and when you are spending $30, 000 plus, what is another $1000. The real problem was with the second part, the longer wait. We have already been told that our wait from home study completion (Dec.) to our referral will be about 5 months.  I could not bring myself to think that we would have to wait an additional 4-6 months on top of the already loooong wait.

I will have to admit, like waking up to an unexpected 12 inches of snow, I was very upset! My heart longs to bring our child home. To hold our child, to kiss their sweet little cheeks and to rock them good night. In my mind, and in Travis' as well, our child is out there somewhere right now waiting for us. I couldn't grasp the thought of waiting a whole year for this to take place.  Travis, being the voice of reason, told me of God's timing and that maybe "our" child hasn't been born yet. I listened and with my mind agreed but in my heart I prayed.

Since this day, I have spoken with our representative from AIAA, she assured me that the months would definately not continue to "pile up", that the letter was simply to inform us that they were not in control of the length of the wait, but it was up to the number of referrals being recieved from Korea at the time.
Right now, we still wait. We have no idea when we will receive our referral or if we will receive any of the grants we applied for.  All we can do is wait, just as we wait for spring! We are praying that this waiting season along with the winter season are over soon.

Please continue to pray for us in our adoption process, specifically the grant applications.  Pray for our child (the possiblity of more than 1 is very,very slim). Pray that they are warm on these cold nights and that they are in a loving home. Pray for my job situation, recently my hours at work have been cut and I am not working very much this month.

We continue to trust Him for everything. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."(Proverbs 3:5)

Bethany