Board Approval

Well, so far everything has moved according to clockwork...on a broken clock that is!! The referral that should have come in 9-11 months actually made it in a speedy 16 months...almost to the day. The board approval, which should come quickly upon receiving our letter of acceptance back in Sept., so maybe Oct. or Nov., was completed in 4 months! An entire process that should take 18 - 24 months tops has already passed 26 months, and travel is still out there. But today is good nonetheless, the final, rubber stamp has been stamped and preparation for travel can begin. Max's passport picture is being collected, and his birth certificate is being created. The CAB generates the Article 16 which tells the American government that we actually have permission to adopt Tankhun! Once that letter is received, all of our application for his immigration is reviewed and approved, barring any unforeseen circumstances, but basically we are finished now and really just waiting. Waiting for the article 16 to be mailed, then waiting for the USCIS office to approve his immigration, and then waiting to travel. In a perfect world the letter would come quickly and we would travel in the next 2-3 months, in the world of Thai adoptions we are hopeful the letter (article 16) comes by the end of March and we can travel in May or June. In our world we are probably looking at travel in the summer! Who really knows, but there's nothing else to cause us to bite our fingernails or wonder if maybe something will come up and we won't be approved.

To state the absolute obvious this has been a most difficult wait! I will never be able to express what it has cost each of us individually or our family as a whole. There are no words that can share what a heart feels to watch a child you have grown to love grow up without you on the other side of the world. There's no way for anyone to know how deeply it hurt for friends to question the wisdom of waiting, question our road, and this child to whom we have already given our hearts. But as I have said since the time things began to feel out of control with this process...had I never lived it I would never know. Had we not waited for 16 months I would have never understood the pain or the overwhelming feeling of being in a continual free fall emotionally. Had we not watched Max grow older before our eyes, and go for months without any word about him, I would have not truly understood a mother's heart who wants her child as much as she wants her next breath. Had we not walked this road it would be easy to look at others, who are waiting, and wonder at their weakness and silliness. But having walked this road for this long, I understand the complete and total despair that adoptive parents feel when the process stalls. Having said this it is worth reminding myself that I must not to look at others, who are not waiting for long periods, and minimize their struggle. I read very few blogs these days but jumped on one a few weeks ago. The parents found a little girl with SN in China last fall, they completed their HS and have sent their paperwork to China, it seems she will be theirs. Over Christmas the momma blogged about the missing child, their little girl in China. I seriously wanted to roll my eyes...well I probably did...and I was compelled to think "o brother you've waited what 3 months? we've missed 2 Christmases with our little boy", but how unfair would that be for me to feel that way? She may never know or understand my wait, but I do understand hers and even a short wait is time away from a child you have given your heart to. So God will have to continue to work on my mercy, although I think I have picked up a little more over the past 2+ years!

My biggest struggle right now is understanding God's plan in all of this. Of course, I have no right to question, as Job did not. And I certainly don't want God to address me and tell me to stand up like a man and answer His questions. God has the whole picture in sight. He understands it all, and I must trust that. I have thought every thought though, and to be honest the most consistent has been to wonder what I have done to cause God to do this to us, but that's just my humanity, my sinful humanity, speaking. I must trust that God is true to Himself always and everything done will be for His glory and that He will not harm us. Not that we won't suffer, not that life isn't hard, not that there won't be long waits for little boys, but that this will bring Him glory and will bring us no harm spiritually, it will not break our faith or drive us away from Him. It will not cause us to lose our salvation, our faith will be stretched and then strengthened in a very long painful process that can only be accomplished in this manner. So my heart knows I have done nothing to offend God, at least my head always knows it and my heart is learning to believe it. God has ultimate good in mind because He is good, and I must always and therefore will always trust that.

We can sigh a breath of relief for a little bit now. In a few weeks...maybe even days...my heart will begin to look for the article 16. I will probably even be frustrated again, but for a few days we can just rejoice!