I kept in touch with the director at the Orphanage over the
summer. When I left he was going to
attempt to contact her sister to ask permission for us to adopt Our Girl. The last I heard from him was August. He wanted us to be in prayer over the matter. He also told us how difficult it would be to
contact the sister and that he wanted some time to pass before he contacted
her. There were many obstacles to
overcome before we would know anything.
So. We. Waited.
A lot of the adoption process is about hurrying up… then
waiting. You wait a lot. You wait for everything. It is not like having a baby. I know I’ve done both. Even if each were to only take 9 months, it’s
not the same. Not at all. You see, when you are adopting, your child is
out there, being raised by someone else – or no one at all. You are acutely aware that every moment spent
waiting is a moment of your child’s life that you will never get back, a moment
they will never get to have with you.
And. We. Waited.
The hardest part was not hearing anything. And I mean ANYTHING. I would email every 2-3 weeks to make sure the
director knew we still wanted her. To
make sure he didn’t think we had given up on him or given up on her. We heard nothing for over 4 months.
And. We. Waited.
The morning of December 9, we were in church. It was a very typical Sunday, and we were
planning to go to lunch with the pastor’s family after the service. I found myself during the service composing in
my mind my next email to the Director that I would send out that afternoon.
We headed to Pei Wei for lunch (one of my favorites, can
anyone say lettuce wraps?). Typically
when we go there, especially on a Sunday afternoon we have 4-6 people, which
can be sat down fairly easily. This day,
however, we had our four, the pastor’s four, and two others from our
church. If you added that correctly, you
got 10. This is a really large group for
Pei Wei. So we waited and waited for a
table, maybe 25 minutes or so (which is really long when you normally don’t
wait at all).
Toward the end of the waiting I got out my phone to waste
some time. I saw I had a few emails. I noticed the name of the Director of the
Orphanage. My heart was pounding, pounding in my throat. What was in the
email? We hadn’t heard from him in over
4 months… was this the email we had been waiting for? I opened the email…
This was it! It was what we had been waiting to hear. Her sister was granting us her permission,
provided that we would commit to remaining in contact via mail, phone, and
visits back to Ethiopia. I think I read
it through three or four times before I could breathe again. I thanked God and showed Jeff.
The rest of the meal was a blur. I felt completely distracted from any further
conversation. The afternoon and evening were much the same, complete and utter distraction - and all this in the middle of trying to make final exams for my five classes to be given the following four days. I think I sent about 10 text messages during lunch, and then I posted a facebook message. It was the day we had been waiting for!
So, then what? I knew the next step:
Find an agency. But how?
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