My Birthday Wish

There has been a lot going on with our adoption process. I intended to write a detailed update today, but we have no internet. Our internet provider sent us an email on Friday saying they were going out of business, and Friday night our internet stopped working. Not fun.

I'm sitting in my car with our laptop, stealing borrowing our church's internet to post this. So it's going to be a not-so-detailed update. (And, yes, I will be sitting in my car in the church parking lot later this week if we don't get internet in time for Black Friday. Sad thought.)

The situation in Eastern Europe is pretty much the same. Thankfully, it looks like the new adoption entity will begin inviting families to travel soon. This won't affect us because we can't travel until the new special needs list is published. It is great news, though, for families hoping to adopt children five and older or younger children whose special needs are on the current list.

Our facilitator is not optimistic about the new special needs list coming out soon. (You know, the list that was supposed to be published by October 11.) This is discouraging, especially because our paperwork will expire in March. We have prayed and prayed about expanding our age range to adopt a child who is five or six, but neither Jeremy nor I feel a peace about that at this point.

Some of you might remember that we still have a dossier in Ghana. We started the process to adopt from Ghana over two years ago, but the program we are part of there has run into roadblock after roadblock. Last week, the agency we are working with in Ghana suggested that we consider moving to one of their other country programs. We've discussed this before, but hadn't been presented with the same options we were this time around.

There is one program that sounds like a great fit for our family. It's in a country that tends to have a very stable and predictable process (at least as stable and predictable as any international adoption process can be). This country is beginning to list children who are HIV+, and they often have children become available who test positive for Hepatitis B (another special need we would consider).

I share all of this to give you a quick update and because I have a special request. This Tuesday is my thirty-second birthday. (I know, I'm old. :) There's one thing that all of you could do to make my birthday extra special. Would you be willing to commit some time to praying for our adoption on Tuesday? We are facing a lot of big choices, and we want to go where God is leading. Not where the path looks easy. Not in the direction that seems logical.

I will be taking time to lift our adoption to the Lord on Tuesday. If you'd be willing to join me, here are some specific prayer requests...

1.) Pray for the situation with the special needs list in Eastern Europe. Pray that God would work through those involved in making decisions about the list. Pray that they would consider the needs of the children waiting for families above anything else – politics, greed, personal agendas, etc. Humanly, there aren't a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the special needs list. But God is in control.  He is bigger than any politician, and he loves each precious child who is waiting for a family.

2.) Pray for wisdom for Jeremy and me as we consider this new country program. Pray that the Lord would give us unity and clarity about whether we should move forward.

3.) Pray that we would follow God's leading even if it's outside of our comfort zone - whether that means considering older children, learning about different special needs, or just taking some time to wait and quiet our hearts before the Lord.

4.) Pray that Jeremy and I would have peace and unity wherever we go from here.

Thanks for taking the time to share this journey with us. I promise to post that update with more details really soon!