Adoption Update

((sigh))

There. I'll just get that out of the way right off the bat so that we can get down to what's real. Wait ... I feel one more coming.

((sigh))

O.k., I'm good now.

This week's news is that our agency--which is not so much an agency, per se, as a ministry--is experiencing some major staffing shortages and growing pains. This has been ongoing, but has finally reached crisis proportions and is affecting their ability to make placements.

The good news is that, rather than shutting down the entire process and putting families in a holding pattern until they are fully staffed, they have made arrangements to transfer those that they can to a larger, established Christian agency.

We are, praise God, one of those families.

Some families will not be so fortunate; the ability to slide over to this other facilitator depends on whether your foster license was granted through the state or through this third-party Christian agency. Praise God, ours is privately issued. What seemed like a happy little convenience a year ago ("Oh, we don't have to work directly with the state at all? Yipee!") has clearly shown itself to be the fingerprint of Yahweh.

I don't know exactly what this will mean for us. The family advocate I spoke to through our original agency has suggested that seven months is a completely unacceptable wait time for a family open to siblings and feels that we will begin getting calls almost immediately. The placement coordinator at the new agency seems to be saying the same thing. I will call her Monday and play the "Getting to Know You" game, and pray that this woman is the person God has preordained to bring our child or children home to us.