let me explain

i wanted to give a little explanation for why it seemed like we were so close to a referral before christmas and yet still haven't received one.

every child who is going to be referred to an adoption agency to be referred on to prospective adoptive parents must have proper paperwork. this paperwork is the evidence that shows the child is truly available for adoption and has not been trafficked or unethically removed from his/her birthparents.

in the past, the ethiopian government was satisfied with a lesser amount of paperwork. however, as accusations of wrongdoing have become more prevalant, the government has added additional paperwork requirements. this paperwork must be gathered by local social workers, not adoption agencies. and the problem is, ethiopia is a third world country with a fragile infrastructure and drastically fewer resources than the united states. so some orphanages may only have one social worker gathering paperwork for many children. that social worker may have to travel out to a village to get information. that social worker may have to dine with a local official several times just to get him to sign a particular document. there are many cultural and logistical variables making the paperwork process in ethiopia very slow right now.

i also know that some social workers are currently having to backtrack on paperwork for children who have already been referred. in mid-december, around the time we heard we were next for unrelated children, the ethiopian government began requiring death certificates for deceased birth parents to be included in referral paperwork (meaning, a referral can't be made without this paperwork). there are some cases right now of children whose referrals were made before that new paperwork requirement went into effect, but whose cases now can't be heard in court until that paperwork is gathered. thus, social workers are having to balance gathering paperwork for those "old" cases with gathering paperwork for children waiting to be referred. and, of course, with all of that you run into the cultural and logistical variables i already mentioned.

i would ask you to pray specifically for those gathering paperwork affecting our case. our agency was told in december that paperwork for 4 toddlers was "forthcoming," but it hasn't arrived yet. please pray it comes within the next 3 weeks. we would like to give jamie's brother the good news by phone before he deploys to afghanistan for a year. but also, please pray for the overall paperwork gathering process in ethiopia. this paperwork is protecting vulnerable children (it is a good thing), but the inefficiency of the process is keeping children in orphanages -- and without families -- far too long.

and as an aside to all of that, i feel a need to say that despite all the slow-downs and all the shattering of expectations, we would not do this any other way. we have been so blessed by adoption and feel confident in saying that God isn't done building our family through this miracle. he has given us such grace and patience and sustenence throughout this process, so please don't pity us and wonder if we regret making the decision to do this. in fact, the way we see it, the only decision we ever had the option of making was the decision to be obedient or disobedient to God calling us to something greater and bigger than anything we could've dreamed for ourselves.

in other news

i wanted to do a little update that doesn't involve doom and gloom about our adoption. the truth is, i make it out of bed in the mornings. i function throughout the day. i'm not sad all the time and, in fact, am mostly joyful about life. yes, the adoption has been painful and hard as of late, but it does not totally define my entire life. so here are some very random tidbits that are a peek into our world...

jamie got me one of these for christmas.

my parents were so surprised that i would even want a sewing machine that they were convinced the box had been delivered to the wrong house. i had mentioned a few times before christmas that i might want to learn to sew. i attended a friend's baby shower back in november where she received several handmade gifts, and it occurred to me that if i could learn to sew, i could make handmade gifts too. unfortunately, i'm not a very crafty person and am scared of failure, so it took me a month just to take the machine out of the box and use it. thankfully, my friend, erin, was there to help me, and i have successfully completed two of these, though the stitches aren't straight and neither is my cutting. i have a lot to work on, but now i'm motivated.

recently, i've gone on a crusade against high fructose corn syrup. it's not that jamie and i have suddenly transformed into the healthiest eaters on the planet, but we are trying to make better decisions about what we consume. fast food, for example, is a killer on the body and the budget, so i wish we could just go cold turkey on it. i've tried to get into reading labels at the grocery store, and i'm amazed at how much stuff has hfcs as an ingredient. many brands of bread use hfcs, which offends me because people easily make their own bread and don't have to use hfcs. then i noticed that my jelly and salad dressing also contained hfcs. they even put it in yogurt and chocolate milk! seriously, soda is the only product containing hfcs that doesn't offend me because i expect it in my soda...but not in my bread.

i just finished the chronicles of narnia for the first time! i love cs lewis. i know that's the most christian cliche thing to say, but i don't care. that man has saved my faith in many ways, and i most definitely plan to give one of my sons the middle name lewis. what i love about lewis is that he pushed the boundaries while also ardently defending orthodoxy. i like to think that's what i try to do on my best days. now i'm reading a book about dogs that is proving to be pretty interesting.

hmmm...what else to say? i'm coming up on 6 months working the same temp job. i think i'm guaranteed to keep this job until i need to quit as long as the housing market continues to suck. i'm currently on the look-out for a cheap table that i can paint teal and use as a sewing table. we almost, on a whim, painted a magnetic chalkboard wall in our sunroom (which will be our kid's play area downstairs). we're still going to paint one, but we realized it probably shouldn't be done on a whim. we love our church and feel like there's no other place we'd rather grow in our faith and raise our children. we finally, i think, have names for our kids -- 1 girl name, 2 boy names. whichever name we don't use now will be saved for the next kid, which i just assume we will have (probably by adoption, but i haven't totally ruled out pregnancy).

OK, i think that's enough about me. what about you? current reads? current crusades against evil, fake food ingredients?

1 year

i wanted to write something meaningful to mark our being on the waitlist for one year tomorrow.

but, instead, all i'm thinking about right now is how the ethiopian government is now requiring that death certificates for deceased birth parents should be included in referral paperwork. those words just loom heavy: death certificate.

it is a reminder to me of why we started this process. the world isn't right. and as christians, we believe we're to be little vessels for God to use to make those wrong things come undone. no child should face a future in an orphanage. no child should have to grieve the loss of a birthparent alone. no child should go a single day without hearing a mom or dad tell them "i love you." i hate that poverty and disease and war have killed off many thousands of mothers and fathers who otherwise might have been wonderful parents.

and i especially hate thinking about my toddler-aged child (though i have never seen his/her face or heard his/her story) sitting in an orphanage quietly mourning the mother he/she has lost and wondering if there will ever be another mother to hold him/her again. i think that he/she must be old enough to remember what his/her mother's face looked like, how her hands felt, how her voice sounded, how she smelled...and also old enough to remember how suddenly she was gone...when all the sights, sounds, and smells just disappeared.

but, in adoption, there is hope for redemption.

tonight, i claim for my children and all those who need families words of scripture, promises from God...he sets the lonely in families...he defends the cause of the fatherless... he is close to the brokenhearted...he knows our sitting down and rising up...he never leaves us or forsakes us.

i will not leave you as orphans, i am coming to you. -- john 14:18
in him the orphan finds mercy. -- hosea 14:3

known

i'm really digging this song as of late. if you haven't heard audrey assad, find her on itunes. right now, this song affirms for me that God knows my heart about our adoption. he knows all my sadness, all my worry, all my anticipation, all my frustration, all my joy. he knows all those thoughts that are jumbling around inside of me...some of which never make it to human ears. he also knows our children in exactly the same way. he knows all of their sadness, all of their worries, all of their frustrations, and all of their joys. he knows all of our burdens and bears them alongside of us.

today we found out that our agency is waiting for paperwork for 4 toddlers that is "forthcoming." this is the same paperwork our case manager told about 6 weeks ago. once that paperwork comes in, we will be matched with a toddler and then the next infant. however, we also found out today that 2 families who got their paperwork in before us (and who had been waiting on siblings) decided they were tired of waiting for siblings and decided to open themselves up to unrelated children, which means we are no longer technically "next" to receive a referral. this was a bit devastating, but we are trying to push forward and believe God is orchestrating all things to bring us to the two specific children he has chosen for us. please pray we would hear soon.

planting trees

sit down and write that letter. sign up and join the fight. sink into all that matters. step out into the light. let go of all that's passing. lift up the least of these. lean into something lasting. planting trees.

what trees are you planting?

will you help?

i have no clue how many people read this blog. but tonight i'm posting this plea hoping that at least a handful of people will read it and choose to make a difference in the life of a child.

our friends, daniel and abby umlauf, are in the middle of a second adoption from ethiopia. last december, they received a referral for a little boy they had planned to name moses. unfortunately, the region in which moses was from closed to adoptions around the time they accepted his referral. for five months, they waited for moses' adoption to proceed. when it did not, they eventually -- with much heartache -- accepted another referral for a little boy they named asher. but they still felt that moses was their son and wanted to adopt him if his region re-opened. last week, they found out moses is officially available for adoption. his paperwork is completed. all he needs is his family to complete the necessary steps to finalize the adoption. what's standing in between the umlaufs and moses is $14,000.

i know that seems like a big amount of money. i know to them it seems impossible. but if we can all give a little, it can turn into a lot.

there are a lot of people out there who think fundraising for an adoption is wrong. there are a lot of people who think you shouldn't adopt unless you have all the money. but the reality is, there are millions of children who literally can't wait for people to get their lives settled and their finances in order. they need families right now. so when i see a family like the umlaufs -- a family so in love with this little boy they know is their son, a family willing and ready to bring a child into their family -- i believe it's my responsibility to do whatever i can to help them because moses needs his family.

if you have children, please consider that you would do everything in your power to get to them if they were not with you. you would ask your family and friends for help. and you probably would even appreciate it if a stranger came to your aid. i'm asking you to put yourself in the umlaufs' shoes and ask what you would want someone to do for you. and then i want you to do that thing.

here is the website you can go to give. when you get there, click donate now and click general fund under specify donation. move on to the optional section and select CWA family. make sure to write "daniel and abby umlauf" so the donation is applied to the umlaufs' account. seriously, even $5 makes a difference. and if you'd like to help the umlaufs in another way, let me know and i will put you in touch with them.

11 months

for history's sake, i wanted to write a little about being 11 months into waiting for a referral.

i realized the other day that our adoption has now spanned 3 different years -- 2009, 2010, 2011. two years ago this month, i was sitting in a religions of africa class taught by a sweet little man named dr. mugabe from zimbabwe (no relation to the awful dictator). and, at the time, i was completely closed to the idea of adoption from africa.

"what will people think of white people raising black kids?" i often said to jamie.

now, 2 years later, i'm on the edge of my seat. for almost a year, we have been sitting on a waiting list for 2 kids from africa. i never could've guessed in a million years we'd be here. but honestly, we'd really like not to be here anymore. we really, really, really want our referral. we thought maybe this was our week.

my parents told me on sunday, "don't be disappointed if it's not tomorrow." and i assured them that what i would feel if we didn't get our referral was the same feeling i've felt every day for the last 11 months -- a sadness, an aching, a numbness in my heart that just longs to know my kids. that feeling is always there. but perhaps what has worsened in the last bit is a feeling of hopelessness, a feeling of not knowing how much longer we'll have to wait, a feeling of wondering if our referral will ever come. the darkness of uncertainty looms heavy. jamie told me tonight he's been having trouble focusing at work because he's so distracted by the waiting. i feel that too.

and, to be honest, it's very tempting to look at God and quote him everything the bible says about his care for the fatherless and those who are vulnerable and those who are in need...only to then ask him why he hasn't hurried up. sometimes it just doesn't feel like God cares all that much.

but i'll risk sounding cliche and say that things are coming together in ways we can't imagine, for reasons we can't understand. and when i think God has not heard our crying, has not heard our frustration, has not heard the prayers of so many on our behalf...i am reminded that scripture tells us he is listening:

"then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, 'i cannot watch the boy die.' and as she sat there, she began to sob. God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to hagar from heaven and said to hear, 'what is the matter, hagar? do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there...'" (genesis 21:16-17)

"during that long period, the king of egypt died. the israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with abraham, with isaac and with jacob. so God looked on the israelites and was concerned about them." (exodus 2:23-25)

"my soul is in deep anguish. how long, Lord, how long?...i am worn out from my groaning. all night long i flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears...the Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer." (psalm 6:3,6,9)