Adoption Update

Last Friday, this was our email update from our adoption agency, Christian World Adoption.

It has been a quiet summer – too quiet, in fact. After the flurry of families traveling for court appointments right before the court recess, we have settled into weeks of monotony. We have had families continuing to travel for embassy appointments, and the odd referral here and there, but nothing of the surge in referrals that we had hoped for during the lull from court in Addis. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

What is really frustrating is knowing that if we had documents for all the children in the various child care centers right now – the adoption clocks would suddenly jump ahead literally by months! Those children are sitting there, waiting for families to bring them home and love them. Countless others are outside, waiting to get in. What is holding up the process is documentation, and we can do absolutely nothing about it ourselves.

Now, perhaps as never before, we need your prayers. God has told us to pray specifically so we know when He has answered. This week our prayer focus is on Soddo where they are bursting at the seams with children and have only one social worker trying to complete documentation on all of them. They have been short-staffed for months and it is hard to find qualified social workers in such a remote location to fill the vacancies. The local Ministry of Women’s Affairs moved their office and put the process weeks behind. Officials keep adding new requirement in an effort to safeguard the process. This is good, but sometimes presents new challenges to the orphanage staff. It seems to be one challenge after another, all conspiring to slow down the process of getting children’s cases ready for court.

This past week I read “Adopted For Life” by Russell D. Moore. He reminded me afresh that there are unseen forces who labor against adoption. We feel those every day, whether we recognize it or not. Won’t you pray with me that God will defeat those forces and bring our children home?

Will you join us in praying?