*A Timeframe and A Dilemna

Yesterday we got a packet in the mail from the U.S. Immigration Service, and we got our hopes up that it was the approval we're waiting for - several weeks early. We were disappointed to find that it was only a letter notifying us that they received the form we submitted, and included legal info on adoption into the US. But for a few minutes before the envelope was unsealed, we were praising God for a miracle. Oh well, we will learn to praise Him in the wait.

I talked to our agency today, and our case worker says the wait for the Immigration Approval should only be about 4 weeks, instead of the 7-10 we were expecting. I guess that's good news, but what if it takes 7 weeks, and now I'm expecting 4?

Within the next few weeks of waiting for that approval, we have a "Letter of Intent to Adopt" to write, and a few pictures to send in, and we're finished with our paperwork. Then, when the approval form is sent to our agency, they pack up our whole dossier (portfolio of adoption paperwork) and send it to the Vietnamese Embassy in San Diego to get it authenticated and translated. She said this part only takes about 7-10 days (I thought more like a month!). The embassy sends it back to our agency, and they send it off to their partners in Vietnam. The day they mail it to Vietnam is the first day of our official "WAIT." She said to expect 10-12 months from that day. Yuck! So, that puts us on a time frame of getting a referral next August to October, and then traveling hopefully by Christmas 2008 to get our daughter. We were hoping for spring.

I also learned that to adopt from the 3 provinces in the north that our agency is partnered with, we need to pay an extra $3,000 than from the south. The advantages of adopting from the north, are that the quality of care and health of the children are generally better, and the wait time between referral and travel to get our child is shorter by several months (a good reason in itself). This will be a hard thing for us to decide. We don't have money for any of this really, but are trusting God to provide. Do we trust Him to provide even more just to reduce our torture in the wait, or do we trust Him to carry us through the wait and care for our child in the south? We need to pray He guides us to the area that our daughter is living in. I guess He lead us to Vietnam, so he can lead us to a more specific part of Vietnam.