It seems that these past few years have been ones of learning patience. I tend to be one who takes a long time to make decisions. However, once I make them I am ready to move! God has definitely been teaching me patience. A little over 4 years ago we decided to adopt from China. Never did I think it would be such a long journey. We started our paperwork in September of 2005. Our dossier was logged in on May3oth, 2006. We continue to wait. I know that God has an amazing plan for us with this process. I look forward to seeing the little girl He has waiting for us.
For those of you who are wondering when we will be going to China, I will try to explain the process. Each month CCAA (the Chinese side of things) sends out a batch of referrals. This tells us how far along they have gotten. Currently they are on March 24th 2006. This leaves about 67 days until our log in date. It sounds like we are so close, but we really have a ways to go. Lately, the CCAA has been averaging 3 .5 days per month. If they continue to stay that slow we would not be seeing a referral for two years. I highly doubt that it will continue to go this slow. After March 06, there are less dossiers logged in. Hopefully things will speed up. I am fairly optimistic that we would have a picture of our little girl before Christmas 2010. It could be even sooner! We are praying that the CCAA would start to get through the referrals a bit quicker.There are so many reasons for the slow down. I can't even begin to explain them all. We just know that in the end we will have a little girl to love on. I know that five years from now I won't care that it took so long. God has the perfect little one waiting for us.
A couple things that I am doing during the wait:
The first is that I decided to grow out my hair until we have our referral. I know that is such a silly thing to do. I never thought that it would be this long. At this point I can't back out and just cut it. It really is too long, but I am going to try and make it all the way. When we started my hair was to my chin. Here's a picture showing the length-
This picture is a little old, so it is even a bit longer.Another thing that we are doing is kind of like that paper chain you make in elementary school to count down the days until Christmas. I put 67 glass decorative beads into a small canning jar. Each time the CCAA completes the log in dates that are before us, we take out that many beads. I am hoping that this visual aide will help the boys to process the wait. Hopefully we will be taking out some beads in the next few days.
