Re-Wind and Catch-Up

On the day we received the phone call from our adoption agency advising us that our application part one was complete and ready to move forward we had a couple of decisions to make.

On advice of the adoption agency we had decided to look into a child younger than our youngest. This meant that the sibling group from Hong Kong was out of the picture, but we had to decide from where in the world to adopt. In the course of the conversation our adviser from the agency said that everything was in order, but since we were open to any of the countries that are available through them, we should take the time to decide a place. One look at the Blushing Bride from across the room (we were on extensions) allowed me to make a quick decision on the phone. "We've been considering these children from Hong Kong; we don't really need any more time to consider it. This is the way we've been following God's direction. So we'll just say firmly that we will plan on our next child coming from Hong Kong." "Then I am happy to tell your," the worker on the line said, "that I can fully approve you're application part 1!"

{Pause a moment for the celebrations that were going on over three different receivers on two ends of the line.}

Over the next couple of weeks we began receiving newsletters from the Hong Kong offices of our adoption agency which included blurbs about other families at some stage in the process with our agency and her sister agency in Hong Kong. This was followed by a couple of email messages with possible children to adopt. Our eye was caught (nearly poked out metaphorically speaking) when we saw the description of a little boy who had recently turned 4. The best line was "He likes to play jokes." I discussed it with the Bride and we e-threw our name in the ring.

The response to this email was that a request would be made to put his case on hold for us. Quickly (within a week), we received the next message saying that our name was placed on his case with a hold. Now it was time to hit the ground running with Application, part 2.