Where We Are Now

First of all, thank you all who left encouraging words and Scriptures both here and via private emails. Your prayers and support have been priceless to us - I've shared them off and on through the week with The Boss & the kids and we feel so uplifted and covered.

Here's where we are now: apparently, there was some mistakes made in the SN offices at the CCAA that resulted in the failure of this referral being definitively matched to our family. When pressed by our beloved director at Living Hope to make things right (we thank God for him!), they agreed to hand-pick a child for us based on our Special Needs application that Miss Ashley has on file. That app has been sent to the SN office of the CCAA (Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs). We were initially hoping that this meant the process might be expedited to help us through this painful transition.

However, it seems that the next steps may be a few weeks coming. From our conversations with LH, we gather that the child will be picked for us from the upcoming Waiting Child list. That list won't be finalized for another week or two. I got the impression that the SN office will be picking a referral for us before the list gets published to the participating agencies. Our initial concern with that was "what if there are no younger baby girls with our checklist of needs on the new list." But The Boss was assured that the recent lists have been far more inclusive of younger ages and more minor needs that the first couple lists were. (The first few lists were mainly older children and some heart-breaking-ly severe needs.) It would seem that we have a good shot at seeing a referral come from this process soon.

Please pray for us, still. We need wisdom and discernment - we don't want to jump at the first referral offered just because we're afraid that it will be "all we get." We want to be very sure this time that it is indeed our Aidan.

I took down Xiao Yun's photos finally Tuesday and it was bittersweet. I am happy for her, that she apparently will be placed with her forever family (as far as we know) soon. But those eyes still capture my heart and I find myself praying for her and her new life quite often. The Boss and the gang have said the same.

Sorry this is so long. But thank you again. We so appreciate the love and support. I'll continue to post updates as we get them. Until then, we proceed with our summer plans. Which today, include long, lazy hours by the pool after I write the church bulletin.