DTE 19 Months

Yes, I'm behind again. And yes, somehow, it's been 19 months since our paperwork headed to Ethiopia and we "officially" joined the wait.  Wow.  Just wow. Nineteen months.

I decided, just now, to do a little investigating.  When we went DTE, the trend was 10-16 months of waiting for a boy referral. Ha!!! 

Now, we knew that was not what we would wait. We knew everything was slowing down. But I just can't even imagine a world where we would have had a referral three months ago.  God has changed and grown us and our lives are so, so different. So different even from three months ago.

All that to say: the wait is hard but it's changing us for the better.  Even in the midst of it being hard.

We officially (unofficially because it's an unofficial list) hit halfway this month. By that I mean, we started at the list at 71 and we are currently 35. So we feel like we've hit the halfway mark. That being said, we could always move back up if people change their requests. Or we could move faster from here on out. It's so hard to tell!

Sometimes it's easier for me to do updates further apart. Well, that and we've been a little busy:).

Seventeen Months: Psalm 111:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!"

Eighteen Months: Added in the Summit booklet since we went to Summit in May. I don't know if I can clearly express how much Summit meant to us but this verse isn't a bad start:

Proverbs 16:9 "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."

Nineteen Months: what backdrop could I have other than the cards and flowers that have blessed us during a hard month?

Psalm 147:11 "But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love."

We are back in action as far as our adoption is concerned. We're very prayerfully considering what God has for us in this realm. We want to be faithful to his call.

We are also restarting fundraising (we hope) and no doubt will have a fundraiser to announce soon.  And finally we will be searching for and applying for grants soon.  We're excited for God to move in our adoption and we don't know what that looks like but we feel like we've waited idly enough. It's time to re-start fundraising so when God does move mountains and we get that call, we'll be ready!

Thanks for praying with us and sticking with us on this long journey.