a year later…

This month marks an important milestone in our adoption. One year ago, we began this journey to adopting our little boy. One year ago, we were frantically gathering, notarizing, and FedExing stacks upon stacks of paperwork. One year ago, we had thought we would be picking our Wyatt up sometime this spring. One year later, we wait with great expectation (and all too often impatience) in our hearts.

So where are we in the process? We’re nearing the seven month mark of our dossier being in Rwanda- hanging tight toward the end of the line of waiting families but loving the fact that approvals and referrals continue to come in a steady stream out of Rwanda. Our agency caseworker returned from Rwanda this past week and was impressed with the diligence the ministry is giving to placing their orphaned children in families. While the wait time may be longer than we originally anticipated, I really do appreciate the effort Rwandan officials are making to ensure that they are thorough, ethical, and are focused on the best interest of their children.

The biggest news in recent weeks, as I have already mentioned on this blog, is that we will now need to make two separate trips to Rwanda. One of the pluses of having many families before us in line is that I am able to observe how everything goes down as they bring their children home. As we feel it out through their experiences, hopefully we’ll have a better picture of our length of stay in Rwanda and Ethiopia (where we will travel for Wyatt’s visa).

Plenty of people continue to ask where we stand now in terms of finances. Y’all have been so unbelievably generous to us, and God continues to provide in the most unexpected ways. We are so, so humbled. There have been plenty of times in which I have remarked to Matt, “I just don’t know if I can continue to accept money from these people.” To receive with little to give in return has been a growing process for me. Not to over-spiritualize here, but this has been, for me, very symbolic of my relationship with Christ. Coming empty-handed, I walk away richly blessed. To say that we’re exceedingly grateful just doesn’t seem to cut it.

All of that said, we do have plenty more adoption expenses ahead of us. For those of you who don’t know, we now have an account set up with Lifesong for Orphans and have recently been approved for an additional $500 matching grant. If you wanted to make a tax-deductible donation to our adoption via Lifesong, just let me know and I can get you the details. This would be an awesome way to allow your donation to be doubled! We are trying to come up with possibly one more big fundraiser to help us meet these expenses, though we just haven’t been inspired yet. Ideas are more than welcome.:) In the meantime, I will be picking up quite a few extra days of work this summer to help with adoption costs. I think I will dub my summer o’ work “Operation Wyatt”. It will make those long summer workdays of checkups, bug bites, and poison ivy far more enjoyable.

On a lighter note, I have been given several crash courses on African hair care. Now, this may not seem like a big deal to some, especially since we’re adopting a boy, but people, it’s intimidating to this very white girl! Thankfully, these friends have assured me that they will not leave me stranded and will fill in as Wyatt’s personal stylists as needed. For free. Okay, so I might be getting ahead of myself and putting words in their mouths, but still.

A lot has happened in this past year, and I remain confident that we will have our little boy in our arms this time next year. Heck, let’s be even more optimistic and pray for much, much sooner than that. Regardless, we are coming.

Wyatt, we are coming.