A Turning Point . . .

My prayer for a while has been that we bring Avery home this year. We have been officially waiting since December 11, 2006, but started this process the January of 2006. It's been 3 years, and at the current wait times for a non-special needs baby it will be 2012 until we get to have Avery, if that. Even if the CC@A starts to speed up and do about 10 days a month it will be 2011. When we started this process they were referring about a month of LIDs at a time, now they are doing anywhere from 1 to 6 DAYS worth. Ugh. Those are the basic facts of adoption for Ch!na right now. Do we want to wait that long? Do we want Carlie and Avery to be that far apart?

This wait time has been on our minds a lot, but we weren't sure what we could do about it, if anything. We were just waiting, and, quite frankly, got a little lost in the wait, content. It was frustrating because we know there are MANY orphanages in Ch!na with MANY children in them. What was the big hold up and where was the big speed-up we were all hoping for after the Olympics? As each month of referrals went by with things not progressing like we had hoped, we were getting more and more frustrated. So, we wait . . .

Then I came across this blog post from a fellow Dillon mom, who now has 3 adopted children from Ch!na (go check it out at Gathering Peeps). The post is based on Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." The blog entry goes on to say that satan hates families. He hates these orphans and God's heart for them. That we fight a very real enemy! This is so true! And Ch!na being a country who does not want to have too much to do with Christ, well, then maybe we need to be a little more proactive in doing what we can to bring Avery home!

We have known that there are many children on the special needs waiting list. Some children with very minor, correctable special needs, and some with more severe needs who are all waiting for their families. There are several families that I follow along with on their blogs who have adopted a child from the waiting child list. These children are beautiful and such joys to their families! However, if we wanted to be considered for a special needs child we would have to switch adoption agencies because ours did not have access to the SN database - yet. Our agency is wonderful, and convenient! I know it's about getting your child home, not about the agency, but we just weren't too sure about switching. My husband and I decided to go ahead and fill out the SN checklist, and be ready for whatever. It was a little over two pages long, with almost any special challenge you could think of. Our job was to go through each one and decide if we could/would accept a child with that particular need or even multiple needs. What could our family handle? We poured over that list. Researching anything I wasn't familiar with. It took us a long time, we were very thorough. When we were just about done with the checklist we received an email saying that Dillon now had access to the SN database! HALLELUJAH! We didn't have to switch! Breathe a sigh of relief! Praise God! Yee HAW!

I am just amazed and in awe of how He opens doors and closes doors at the right times. Paths are clearer, straighter and shorter!

So, I turned in our special needs checklist this past Friday. The wait has shortened for us considerably.

More information to come . . . .