With a heavy heart, here is, more or less, what we wrote to our people at AGCI tonight...
"Jon and I have been doing a lot of talking, praying, thinking, and talking some more and have decided that we no longer want to do a concurrent adoption with the Ethiopia program. We withdrew our placement in the Ethiopia program and transferred some of the money to help with our dossier payment for the Philippines.
I feel there is no real win-win at this point, but overall that this is probably the best "solution" for us. We are so very excited to bring Little C home from the Philippines, but there is a sense of loss for all of the months we had been praying and thinking about our Ethiopian children. We do plan to adopt again, but feel led to seek either a second child from the Philippines, or look into domestic adoption a while after Little C is home."
In a way, I feel a weight lifted off of our shoulders, as it is one less thing to worry about and wait for. On the other hand, I mourn the thought of our children: the many days we dreamed about Ethiopia, the culture, flying there, meeting them, bringing them home, transition time, and everything else that was part of the dream.
But, new dreams lay ahead! Little C will be here before we know it (keep praying it is sooner than later!!!) and we will be parents of two young boys - yikes! :)
And then, who knows where our path will lead. We pray the answer is more children, but we will give the answer to that time and prayer.
Speaking of Little C updates - we received an email on Friday that our USCIS stuff is in the mail telling us everything is good to go! Our fingerprints passed! We will get the letter this week, notarize it, then send it to join the dossier at our agency. When they have it all together, it will be sent on to the Philippines. We are hopefully within a couple weeks of ALL the paperwork at the ICAB (the gov. agency that will look at our paperwork in the Philippines). Yey!
I would like to leave you tonight with a couple prayer requests:
- for those seeking to adopt children from Ethiopia, that positive decisions are made sooner than later in Ethiopia adoption processes, and their children continue to find forever homes in a timely manner
- that the paperwork for Little C continues to move along so that we can bring him home some time this summer while I am home for summer break
- for Little C that he have comfort and a belief that his family will come and bring him home soon
Thanks to all of you - you are such blessings in our lives!
In Christ,
Mara
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