Hope deferred......

is making our hearts sick!

All four of us are feeling the pain of having to continue to wait for our baby girl. Personally the wait for me would be more bearable if I didn't have days like yesterday when I went to my mail box to find another large package of paperwork. Our home study is due to expire, and needs to be updated. This is the second time we've had to update, and not only does it take a lot of work, it also requires money. Yuck!!!

Today Hud came up to me with a handful of pennies, "Mom, look at all my money!!! Is this enough for me to go get my baby sister?" How I wish it had been enough!!

There have been many speculations about why the wait time to adopt from China is continuing to get longer by the month. China says it's because the supply (of babies - an estimated 1.3 million orphans) is not meeting the demand (of adoptive parents). Most of us find that extremely hard to believe.

The likely explanation is that China is making changes to somehow improve their image, or "save face." They've become known as the largest exporter of human life... in an effort to be seen as a world power instead of a third world country who allows it's children to be adopted internationally, they're decreasing the number of adoptions.

Rumor has it (from a believable source) that China might be putting an end to adoptions all together. Instead of doing this outright, and raising human rights eyebrows, they're going to make the wait time so long that people won't adopt from there. It is speculated (again a reliable rumor) that people submitting paperwork to China now will not receive their children until 2015.

Where does that put us? Well... still waiting!! The good news is that we are slowly but surely moving up in line. We're keeping our hopes up, and praying for our referral to come this year. I know that someday I will look at my little Asian beauty and say, "You were worth the wait, you were worth the work, you were worth the money, and thank you Jesus that You rescued her from an orphaned life and a bleak future before China closed it's doors!"