We recently got the most amazing, wonderful surprise! We were given an adoption grant of $1,000 from Forever Families Foundation! This foundation is a new one, but it is already making such a difference. This amount meets us half way on our next agency fee installment, or from a different perspective, covers our child's one way ticket home!! When we heard that we were one of the applicants chosen this fall, it was perfect encouragement at the perfect time. A burst of "steam" on this marathon. Such a weary season this fall! Missing granddad (the joyful, thankful grief believers get to live- it still takes time), crazy bad colds/sinus rotating among the three of us for eight weeks no matter HOW much soap and sanitizer flows, a not-fun adoption bump that is just part of the process sometimes, and finally being right in the midst of our referral wait. When the letter arrived from Forever Families Foundation, it was like light breaking through! It is more than the dollar amount, it's the encouragement- that hand pulling you along a few steps. We are so grateful and we encourage you to check out the work this organization is doing! Please visit http://www.4everfamiliesfoundation.org/. No one asked us to say a word, by the way :-). It is our pleasure to share this!
Speaking of where we are in the process, we are waiting to see our child's photo for the first time. I have found between both of our adoptions that the two toughest times in the whole process are the wait for referral and the wait for LOA (the last "yes" from China for a specific child's adoption). These are both emotionally loaded times of suspense, and naturally they would be the two longest waits, with the way our process works. Because we would be overjoyed to adopt either a little boy or a little girl, and our special needs list is a little wider than last adoption, both we and our caseworker anticipated a swift match, but things can ebb and flow sometimes. Great example of the way that God's timing is so very "other," apart from ours.
People say the waiting does not get easier the second time, but really so far- so far!- it is better this time for me, personally. No mistake, plenty of emotion and yearning right now, but I'm busier and it does help! Maybe it's different because we were first time parents last time, and there was a certain agony in not knowing whether this stepping out would really "work," regardless of the pull on our hearts or the program's steady reputation. We trusted God then, but realize for a post-infertility couple, what that often looks like just prior to adoption is believing His goodness and love when things don't work out like we hope they would. No explanations, no medical or earthly reason we could see. Just God is good. Not safe, in an earthly sense anyway. Good. Our plan was to adopt much later...like so many other couples, when it was comfortable to do so. But Vivienne could not wait, and her heavenly Father knew her by name. We are not interchangeable cogs in this adoption process- our daughter needed her mommy and daddy to hurry up and bring her home, and in His mercy He didn't let us miss out on her. Vivienne's adoption was certainly not the only, but definitely the most impactful teacher in my life of really wanting His timing and will more than ours. Lessons in waiting being what they are, I am still very thankful we were propelled with such an overwhelming drive to begin the process earlier than planned this year!
By the way, sorry to have three fundraiser type items on the column to the right- we ended up ordering additional shirts to meet our minimums for the second shirt run. It was so helpful and fun to be able to do, but it does add one too many items to the blog I feel like :-) Still, it's my only way of attempting to wrap things up there! I hope you'll forgive there being too much there for a little while!
