It happened….almost two weeks
ago we received “the call” that changed our lives! It started as a normal Tuesday morning with
Todd in California and me sitting down to complete some adoption grant paperwork after dropping the kids off at
school. I wondered who was calling so
early in the morning and when I saw it was our agency I just knew. As soon as I answered they asked if I was
driving and told me to sit down…..I started crying. (I didn’t stop for a week!) It was then that I learned of our third
child. I heard a name, a gender and an
age…..and love began! It was instantly
clear that God’s hand was already upon it all….it was my day off; Todd was
still in his hotel so we could talk, cry and pray together for a long time; and
His Hand has been upon everything since!
Our youngest is ….a little boy! He just turned 14 months old on December 21st! He has the smoothest sweet skin and the
darkest eyes that have a definite sparkle to them! He has those sweet baby cheeks that you just
can’t wait to kiss. Oh my goodness I
could just go on and on!
We have said we were open to a
boy or a girl up to the age of 5 so we feel that God has hand-picked this
little guy to be in our family and we are thrilled beyond measure. If you see us we will be glad to show you a
picture if you ask (and maybe even if you don’t) but we will keep that to
private times for now.
For those of you following our
journey here’s what happened: you know
that we have waited for this new law to be passed this entire year so that
matching of families and children could begin.
We are the first family to receive a referral with our agency. When we received the call we learned of his
name and approximate age only. I had
found a picture of him on the orphanage website and in our newsletter (we are
pretty familiar with the children at the orphanage after praying for them all this
time) but it took almost 24 hours to get a picture of him from our agency. We received the actual referral with
personality and medical information 6 days later (everything was in
Creole/French and had to be translated).
We had 15 days from the date we received the referral to give our
decision in writing (official and notarized letter) which we did….of
course!! Unfortunately, our acceptance
letter was rejected because it was written in English and not Creole. No one (not even our agency) knew it needed
to be written in Creole. We had it
translated, re-signed by all parties and resent as soon as possible. Yesterday (New Year’s Eve) we received
confirmation that they received and accepted our referral acceptance
letter. Those are fancy words for: we are officially matched and he is soon to
be ours!!!
What happens next? Well, we expect we will travel to meet him
sometime in January. Can you believe
it?? I am beside myself. Will he be
quiet, outgoing, shy, playful, mischevious, giggly, ticklish, snuggly, timid,
sweet? All those things we will find out
in time! Ok, back to the basics….we must
be evaluated by the social worker to see how he bonds with us and vice
versa. We must stay for two weeks while
they evaluate us (and no our children are not allowed to travel with us). Assuming they approve us and our bonding, we
return home and our paperwork then all goes to Court where he will become a
SHEARER!!! The court process can take anywhere
from 3 weeks to 3 months. After court,
they will print passports and visas which can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3
months. Then we will return to Haiti and
bring him home!!!!
In October I was dreaming of who
our child would be and thinking it was going to be another 1-1.5 years before
they would be home. Now we know who he is and we are looking at probably 6-9
months to have him home! I am beside
myself with excitement!! The planning,
dreaming and everything that is going on in my mind is unexplainable. What IS explainable is how God has had His
hand in everything!
Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely
in families.
