Prayers, Progress, Procrastination

After a long last week of holding our collective breath, several families from our Ethiopian adoption Internet group had successful court dates in Ethiopia. Some had been waiting so long for referrals, then court dates, and then had their court dates rescheduled for two weeks later. Last week at small group I felt I must speak my prayer for these families waiting for court, and my eyes could not stay dry. And truly this time it was not for me—not for the factor that we will probably not get a referral until some families get through court and set to travel but truly for the ache of waiting these friends across the country are feeling. This is a purer prayer, but not an easier one. Some of them have waited so, so long already. How much longer? How long, O Lord?

Oh, when we started it was all so fast, it was all such a breeze. Woe to those adopting from slow countries, we thought! We must not rush things or we’ll end up traveling smack during the school year. Now wait times are skyrocketing and complications are being added and though we are hopeful that the floodgates of referrals will open soon, we hover between optimism and resignation and despair that we will hold our child before the fall. We survive only on solidarity and stories of the kids who are home already.

And ice cream. I have been enjoying lots of ice cream lately. And pickles. But I have yet to combine them.

Today I spoke with two clinics about travel shots ($305 each just for consult and yellow fever shot?!). Left a message with adoption pediatrician in Portland. Sent updated information and still more sappy, shameless paragraphs to a grant ministry that in my opinion already knows far too much about us. My big project is to start slathering delicious yellow paint all over our upstairs so we can move my office up there and I can slather delicious green paint down here. However, I was apparently feeling the nesting urge much more strongly when standing in front of the glorious rainbow display of paint samples Saturday much stronger than I am feeling it now that I’m faced with the dirty work. Why do today what you can put off until you have ten thousand things to do before traveling?