I have thought many times about how to write this post. Can I google for a blog post template for adopting families that have switched countries? It even crossed my mind to start a completely new blog as not to be confusing. In the end, we keep up this blog to be able to share with our friends and family our entire adoption journey, including the really awesome and encouraging times and the hard discouraging times.
So, first, the most wonderful news: we are adopting from Ethiopia!! Our hearts are full and a new excitement has taken over that makes our adoption journey alive. We have chosen a new agency and absolutely love them! From the bottom of my soul, I feel that Ethiopia was where we were supposed to adopt from all along and those years that it has taken for us to get here were just where God wanted us (especially me!) to be. We were being chiseled into the parents and people God needed us to be (of course he is still working on that, I doubt it will ever end!). I feel so at peace it is unbelievable. I have often wondered how I would know if I am going in a direction that God wants. I think one answer to this is peace. A peace that is so strong it overrides the deep fear inside of experiencing the same pain. A peace that allows dreams to be formed again! We are submitting our dossier (note timeline) requesting 1 child or 2 siblings, either gender, aged 3 or under. I don't know the exact wait time....I am not even going to go there! I believe we will have our child or children home in 2014 and we will leave it at that. My arms are aching badly to hold our next child, but I have grown a lot in the past few years and I am bravely waiting.
The much harder news is that we are no longer adopting from Colombia right now. After almost three years of waiting and dreaming it was time to make a change. There have been many tears and questions, such as, is it giving up to move in another direction and how do you know when it is time to walk away from something? We felt continuing to wait in Colombia would be futile persistence....us and the child we wanted to adopt were lost and stuck in the system. Months and months were passing with discouraging news and well, my spirit was getting very weary. We are leaving Colombia now with grace and courage. Though some things in-country have changed since we started the process and I don't know that anyone knows the final direction that will be taken, we still have deep respect for those in Colombia trying to make decisions that would best benefit their process and provide the best homes for orphans. We are leaving Colombia now still thinking about those little faces we saw over and over again on the facebook page of our orphanage and praying for those babies and children living in our orphanage, they are truly the ones who are hurting much worse than we are. They have already experienced an enormous loss and are missing out on the hugs and kisses and love from their forever families. I pray that solutions are found soon for them.
I am ending this post with the fact we are not walking away from our dream of adoption, just our dream of growing our family through adoption from Colombia. Through all of the tears and discussion, it was never a question of should we just stop trying to adopt all together, it was a very easy question of where? The answer took about 1 second because it had always been in our hearts: Ethiopia....Back in 2010, when we mailed in our paperwork for Colombia, we questioned our decision because it was a hard one, Ethiopia kept coming up in our thoughts and words. Through the past 3 years, we talked many times about proceeding with another adoption after Colombia...from Ethiopia! We even "warned" our home study provider that we would need her again to provide us a home study for Ethiopia. It has been a flame burning that has never left our hearts. We are excited to continue along in our journey to Africa.
MELISSA
