6 months waiting... and HUGE SURPRISE!

It has been 6 months now since we sent all our paperwork (dossier) to Ethiopia. Each week for these past few months we continue to hear of more delays in the adoption process. The section of government in Ethiopia that handles adoptions has significantly slowed down in their proceedings. There is hope that things could change back to a somewhat quicker pace but if things continue at this rate, it was stated that the impact could add years to the wait. Years... yes, I wrote years... but we hope not! We have unofficial word that we are #5 in line within our agency waiting for a child 12months+ and #24 for a child under 12months. I have been hesitant to post these numbers because I think it is hard to explain but here goes... There is a yahoo group online of families within our agency. We all tell each other the dates of our DTE (Dossier to Ethiopia) and somebody on there keeps track of how the families are moving up in line whenever another family on the list receives their referral. So this is completely unofficial and separate of our agency and there may be more families that are not a part of the online group ahead of us on the list. Anyway, onto the surprise part of the title of this post....

A few weeks ago the financial director from our church contacted us about a check that was issued to us that we had not cashed. We were confused and had not idea what she was referring to. It turns out somebody had sent us a check through our church over a year ago. Maybe they had our previous address or it just got lost in the mail but we never knew of it! So, the check was reissued to us again. We were so encouraged just learning of an anonymous person who had wanted to support our adoption. Then, we got the check in the mail and opened the envelope and saw....4,000! WOW! We were shocked, surprised, humbled and wondering who was this generous person. We were so encouraged in the midst of the negative adoption news lately and also practically as we are now almost there to the 30k goal of saving to complete our adoption fund. God has truly provided for this adoption and we are so blessed to have experienced His provision in this way. In the beginning this seemed impossible, and here we are today with almost all the funds needed to complete this adoption. Now all we need is a referral! We long to learn the name of our child, see his face for the first time, learn how old he is and what his story is... Thank you for following along with us!

Love,
The Fishers