no news = good news?

We feel like four year olds impatiently waiting for Christmas… and it’s September. When you measure time in episodes from the Disney channel, weeks might as well be decades. That’s how we feel, trying to not to squirm and complain as we wait for an incredible gift that seems an eternity away.


The first week of August we sent off our dossier to somewhere. It was either DC or Never-Never-Land. The difference escapes me. Now it’s mid-September and it’s still lodged at the US Dept of State. It has literally been sitting in the same place for weeks. No movement. No news. And even worse, it’s partially my [Chris'] fault.


In August, we had two options before us: the faster/more expensive option of hiring a courier to push it through, or the slower/cheaper route of snail mail. If you know me at all, you know that “cheap” and “slow” are like middle names to me. Two core values. So, I opted for that choice. Adoptions will nickel and dime and two-hundred-dollar you to death. Plus, we had heard from no grants and I hoped that this option may give us a few more weeks for money to come in. Good plan, huh?


Well, so much for that. It’s been six weeks, the paperwork is in some nameless secretary’s inbox, still not stamped and prepared for another undetermined amount of time at the Chinese consulate… and there’s been no news from any grants. Plus the new batch of kids is landing on the CCAA list tonight. And our paperwork is buried.


In short, the past six weeks have been adoption purgatory.


However, we haven’t lost faith, though my sarcasm may sound otherwise. We are doing ok. The waiting is harder on Anne than it is me (see above: middle names of “cheap” and “slow”). Anne has the motherly instincts kicking in and is ready to see that cute little face, yet she knows it’s many more weeks away. But we trust God and His timing because He has chosen the precise son for us, and that son is not on the list posting tonight.


No news can only be good news if God is good. And we believe He is. We hold to the promise that God works all things for our good and His glory. So we can have faith that stuck paperwork isn’t stuck by accident. This is part of His plan, His very good plan. So this waiting is very good because God is in it.


We’ll likely be able to pay a courier to ram it the rest of the way through the Dept of State and to the Consulate. I hope he is 6’6”, 280, tattooed, and a bouncer on the weekends. That dude would move some paperwork. After Murda (my name for my bouncer) gets the paperwork done, then it’ll be heading to China. We’ll get a log-in date soon after and a picture of our boy in hopefully October or November, and will likely be traveling to China early 2011. That’s the plan.


But if we’ve learned anything, our plans often don’t equal reality. The timing is in God’s hands. His very good hands. And we’ll trust His very good timing, not ours. And I trust that He will redeem this time and this waiting for our good and His glory.