Timing

I have written before about the difficulty of waiting for God's timing, but today it is hitting me hard.  At the grocery store this morning I see a white woman with two small African American children.  I hope she didn't notice me staring at her because all I could think of is that will be me soon.  Then I got in the car and proceeded to cry because I want to know when soon is.  I headed for home and cried and prayed as I drove  and asked God to please help us get THE phone call today.  And.... just then the phone rang.  No, it was not my adoption agency it was Verizon wireless offering me a new phone.  Isn't that nice!  I wanted to hang up on her but instead I cried my answers to her and she got off the phone quickly.  How is that for timing?

I am so very frustrated today.  I want to reconcile in my mind why it is that there are millions of children needing homes in Ethiopia today and we have a home to give so what's the hold up?  We have prepared in every way we know how and left our hearts open for this child and we want to bring her home.

Please pray that we are united with our daughter soon!
Love,
DMM

P.S.  We are no longer #41 we moved back to #42 and I just haven't been able to change it.  

Kony 2012

Watch this video! 

If you love Ordinary Hero....

Please help us win the contest by purchasing merchandise from their store! If you find something you want to purchase please click on our name in the affiliate drop-down box (Deena Maley) and we will get credit towards our adoption! YEAH!

:)Thanks

Senator Sherrod Brown response!

Dear Mrs. Maley:

Thank you for getting in touch with my office regarding Ethiopian adoptions. I appreciate your bringing this issue to my attention.

I have passed your concerns along to the legislative assistant in my office who handles intercountry adoptions.issues. I will keep your thoughts in mind should this issue come before the Senate.

The intercountry adoption process can often be confusing and frustrating. My office has helped many Ohioans with their intercountry adoptions. If you require assistance, please contact my Cleveland Office at:

1301 East Ninth St., Suite 1710
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
(216) 522-7272

Thank you again for being in touch with me.


Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown
United States Senator

8 months waiting!

Today is our 8 Month Waitaversary. Never thought we would be saying that, but oh how things have changed over that 8 months. This marks the day that we were officially put on the waiting list which doesn't include the time we spent putting together our paperwork, homestudy, etc. Trying to keep perspective and realize that one day this will seem like a flash of time. In the meantime we will keep dreaming about..
how old will she be?
what will she look like?
will she like us?
what will be her favorite thing to do?
will she like having 4 older brothers?
and on and on and on!!!!!!!

A Step Back...

Two steps forward one step back! I just saw an updated list and a family who had previously accepted a child from the "waiting children" list has relinquished their hold on that child and has been put back on the list. UGGHH! I am sure they are devastated that they could not follow through with their adoption of that child. There were many complications due to the child's orphanage closing.
This is the nature of International Adoption. Always changing and never what you expected!
Please pray for our family that we can continue to have patience and peace while we are waiting this painfully long wait to bring our daughter home.

Feelin' Good!

I figured out through piecing together bits of information from other adopting parents from CHI that we may very likely be #1 on the list for a single girl 6 years old. We are on the list for the range 2-6 years old. As the age gets younger we are further down on the list, but as of a few months ago we were the first family on the list asking for a girl 6 years old. WOW! This news definitely brightened our spirits! There has been a lot of harsh news lately (last post). Any encouraging news helps!

We love all of your prayers and support!
-DMM

Please Read these articles!

http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-2-adoptive-parents-face-difficulty-with-us-embassy-in-ethiopia-68842
http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-1-missionary-waiting-4-years-to-bring-home-adopted-son-68146
http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-3-is-the-us-state-dept-opposed-to-inter-country-adoption--69783/

#41

We moved up a spot! A family in our agency that had been waiting 2.5 years received a referral this week for 6.5month old twins. Families waiting for siblings generally wait a long time, which they certainly did. How exciting for them. So we move up 1 spot! Woohoo! We would really love to see those referrals keep coming!

Have a great day!
DMM

Why the Wait????

Sorry for the long lapse in updates! I was waiting to hear from our Ethiopia program director when she returned from her trip. She returned last week and sent out a few updates about how her trip went.
She was surprised to find that the Ethiopian courts as well as some regional MOWCYA(Ministry of Women's, Children's, and Youth Affairs) groups were closed for meetings and training. I am assuming the training has something to do with new processes but there was no specifics about that in her update. They will be closed for 2-2.5 weeks. This does not affect referrals being given out but does affect people further in the process.
We were informed that Children's Hope is making progress in contracting with new orphanages, which was one of my hopes for her trip. CHI lost contracts with several orphanages last year do to orphanage closures. The more connections CHI has with orphanages the more quickly the referrals will come through. When referred children move to the transition home(place where they wait for their families to bring them home) then more orphans can be taken into the orphanages instead of being turned away.

Referrals (In her words)
There are children waiting to be referred in the orphanages that we work in.
For children who are abandoned, they must wait 4 months in order to give a birth
parent an opportunity to reclaim the child, or for a parent who has
relinquished, an opportunity is given as well for the relinquishing parent to
come back and claim their child; - with that being said however, the process for
international adoption can actually start after a 2 month wait if no one has
returned, however, an orphanage director can chose to wait the full 4 months
before processing a child.

Documentation on children being referred for adoption takes a while to obtain.
Some documents come from the officials in the zone where the child is from and
some from the region. Many entities have to sign their names to the necessary
documents. If an office is closed for a particular reason, i.e., meetings,
trainings, seminars, etc., which can be called at any time, some paperwork has
to wait until the individual returns to the office. It could be a couple of
days later, a week or two later or a couple of months later.

As you can see from the above information the adoption process has slowed down in many different areas. We previously thought it was mostly due to the MOWCYA only processing 5 cases per day. In reality, the U.S. Embassy's requests for information about the orphans has caused the most significant delays at this point.

Even with all of the unexpected glitches that have come down our path on our adoption journey, we are still full steam ahead. I admit there were moments of doubt, but we talked it through and know that all we really need is to find patience and trust that it is going to happen exactly when it should!

Thank you for your prayers!
Love,
DMM