Prayers Needed

Please Pray for Our Adoption of Ellie This has been a week full of disappointments in our adoption journey to Ellie. First, we were informed on Tuesday that the CCAA had requested a letter from us regarding my being a stay-at-home mom. I knew I had already submitted the letter to our agency back in January with the rest of our documents for our dossier. I was shocked to find out that the letter was not included in our dossier. The notarized letter was not sent to China but instead sat in the agency's office. Now our adoption is on hold until this letter can be authenticated and sent to the CCAA. As far as we know, the letter should be on its way back from Washington D.C. to the agency. The agency assures us that it will be sent out on Monday for China. Please pray for this document to reach the CCAA by the end of next week and that the CCAA officials would promptly issue our LOA upon receiving this required document. The director of the agency will be in China next week, and we also pray that she would be a strong advocate for us as she will be at the CCAA on Monday. We also are still waiting on the update on Ellie that we were suppossed to receive a month ago. Again we ask for prayer that the agency director will receive some encouraging news regarding the update.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." Lamentations 3:22-26

"Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him." Isaiah 30:18

The commentary in my Bible explains this verse: "What does it mean to wait for the Lord? It means to trust him when a situation looks hopeless- even when it seems he is gone."

Others seem to have such trouble free adoption journeys and sometimes I am tempted to wonder "why?". Why did our LID take 33 days? Why have we never received an update on our child? Why are we still waiting for LOA at day 75? And why oh why did our agency not include the notarized letter that I sent months ago? Yes, I would like to know the answers to those questions, but I can have hope and assurance knowing that my Heavenly Father does know and that His plans are always perfect. This is not the way I would have planned our adoption journey, but He is omnipotent and omnicient and so my faith rests in Him. My God is bigger than any orphanage director, any adoption agency, and the CCAA. As much as I want to have Ellie in my arms today, it is simply not time yet. God led us to this adoption, and I trust that He will lead us through it.

Thanks for praying!