The Downs and Ups

Wow this has been a crazy time since my last post! About 2 weeks ago Mike and I got an email from our friends (Fred and Alice) in Kenya who run Hands with Hope Orphanage in Njiru, Kenya. In that email was a picture of a beautiful 2 year old baby girl named Serah. Alice told us that Serah's mother had passed away and that she was taking her in to live at the orphanage. She was emailing us to ask us to pray that she would "have a good life". Receiving this email with the heartbreaking story of this precious little girl losing her mother, as well as the reality of what it would take to have a good life growing up in an orphanage without a mother to love on her everyday - just totally broke me and Mike's hearts.

Presented to us is a picture and story of a child that we would take into our home in a heart beat and provide everything for her she would need to grow strong, live healthy, get a great education and have a family so ready to love her everyday. But due to the fact that the Kenyan government will not allow adoptions to the US right now - nor do they encourage adoption by families of another race - it would take a modern miracle for us to be able to adopt Serah. So we were totally devastated by the sadness in our hearts, as we long to adopt a daughter and the sadness that Serah is now without a family. It just seemed so unfair to everyone involved. The Kenyan government not only does not allow adoption but they also do nothing to provide for the millions (?) of orphans. I know that Fred and Alice will do everything they can to care for her and the other children in the orphanage - but Mike and I firmly believe that an orphanage is not an equal substitution to a loving family. But again - like everything else heart wrenching in this adoption journey, all we can do is try our best with what we've been given and give the rest over to God.

So after a lot of prayer and consideration Mike and I have decided to start helping out the orphanage financially - because for now, that is all we can do for all the beautiful children in the orphanage. When I am so anxious to nurture and love a baby girl, giving financially just doesn't feel like a good substitution. But I know that the food and supplies our donation will provide will improve the life of the children in the orphanage. We have Serah's picture up on our fridge and bathroom mirror and we pray for her everyday, and give her over to God's keeping.

As hard as this was to see, given the slow movement of our adoption over the last few months, I think it really is also a blessing. Because now I have an actual child who I know and I can care for in a few ways, even if it is from miles away. And in this waiting place, that is a real comfort.
______________________________
Fast forward to Monday of this week. I was talking to Mike and we were both commiserating about how hard it is to live in the constant state of unknown. Never knowing if our adoption is going to happen, or whether we will find ourselves one, two, three years from now still in the process. Our hearts are so incredibly tied to adopting a child from Africa...but sometimes it feels like that may not be in the cards. We discussed how long we need to give the Ethiopia process a shot before we start looking back into domestic adoption through foster-adopt. It would be a really hard decision - but really what we have always set out to do is give a loving home to a child who is already here on earth rather than give birth to another child, and in the end I know that it won't matter where we get our daughter from. But for at least another year our hearts are still set on Ethiopia.

So needless to say our hope reserves were running low on Monday and then Wednesday, Thursday and Friday our agency posted 3 new referrals and wait list movement. And the best end to the week was the referral late Friday afternoon - the referral of a 3 year old girl! The toddler girl wait list hasn't had a toddler girl matched on it in 4 or 5 months and I was beginning to think there would never again be movement on the toddler girl list. But with the placement of this little girl we get to move up to #5 on the toddler list and #17 on the baby girl list. For some reason FIVE sounds really close to getting a referral! Even though I know it could be months and months until there is another referral, it just all seems so much more hopeful. I am praying that this is the beginning of referrals returning to a more frequent place (and I am really praying for Heather to get a baby girl referral soon! She has been #1 for almost 4 months now).

So we ended the week on a joyful note, and here's to hoping that this season of waiting...though we still have a hard road ahead of us....will smooth out a little. A little refreshment in the desert.