Three weeks

Three long long weeks and still no news.

We fully expected to know a travel date by now because we have already completed the orphan investigation portion of our adoption. However it appears that the swift response we had expected is not to be and so.. I have to try to re-wire my expectations.

The proverb that tells us "do not compare yourselves to others lest you become vain and conceited or discouraged" keeps coming to mind. This is one of the areas that is hard to balance in the adoption process. We are always looking to other's experiences to help us navigate the current place we are in. We scan the blogs, the yahoo sites and the faceboooks hopeful that the next wave of progress will contain news that we too can share. We imagine how we will feel once the email come through saying that WE have finally exited IBESR or MOI or have passports or....We can only begin to guess how it will feel packing to head to our children to bring them finally home!

Personally I find this last step almost imposable to imagine. I can "see" the boys in their cribs here at home.. I can see them in the orphanage.. but getting them from their to here... not one clue. I imagine it will involve a lot of screaming and the thought of having to deal with the explosive digestive system issues (theirs not ours :0) ) is a little over whelming. But I really can't imagine coming home no matter how much I prepare for it. I think there are some aspects of this adoption journey that defy my vivid brain process.

Getting news is always a double edged sword. We recently experienced this is full Technicolor. Peter exited the Ministry of Interior with a group of other children but Wadley didn't. Every day we waited hopeful that it was a mistake and that Wadley had indeed got through but no.. no mistake. We were joined in MOI with another family we have been praying for. When we heard that Wadley was out of MOI our heart leapt, only to fall again as Vensley remained.

We don't  feel pride at having made progress, we are not vain and conceited..we rejoice because it is right to rejoice but we ache with an ache that can't be put into words that children we have come to know and love are not one step closer to their loving families. We ache because we have come to know many of these families. We ache because, as we pray through each family name, our hearts expand with a family love for them.

This adoption journey has been so much more than simply offering our home and loving our children, it has been a glimpse of heaven. A glimpse of families joining together to pray each in their own way, their own tongue, their own style. A glimpse of heaven as we yearn each child homeward to their father's or mother's arms. A glimpse of heaven as we grieve for children still not yet called by a family name..waiting for that adoption to be announced.

And for one more weekend we will pray, yearn, wait and hope that maybe..maybe next week we will hear! not just of our own visa process but of other families joy as they move one step forward to homecoming.