I sent an e-mail to my mom to tell her we’d finally
begun the process to adopt an international child. Knowing the desire God put
on my heart many years earlier, she responded, “It’s about time!”
I couldn’t agree more with her. I dreamed of the day
I’d meet my princess, my daughter, in El Salvador.
Soon after applying, though, we found out the process would
actually take at least two full years, if not more. The El Salvador program was
a new program, still in the works, with several test families still in their
own process. The longer wait time didn’t bother us since it gave us more time
to save money for all of the expenses involved. Expenses we couldn’t even
fathom at the time.
Oh, did we have a lot to learn about international
adoption! We didn’t have a clue. We took our time gathering all the necessary
paperwork for our home study, the first step in a long, tedious, overwhelming
process.
Several months passed while the piles of paperwork
grew higher. We wrote our testimonies and our desires to adopt. We recorded
every detail of our finances on paper. Several friends and family members answered
questionnaires about us. Meanwhile we saved money like crazy to pay for this
first step.
Finally, after about six months, we saved enough money
to turn it all in to our agency. A social worker could now arrange our first of
three required visits to complete our home study.
Throughout those six months, I researched the present orphan crisis in
El Salvador, and I joined several online adoption groups. I wanted to know more
about the process from others who either walked this road in the past or
currently walked it with us. I loved reading everyone’s stories, their reasons
for wanting to adopt and specifically why they chose El Salvador. They inspired
me.
I soon connected closely with another member of the group and formed an
instant bond with her. We shared several things in common, including our
teaching experience in the bilingual/ESL field and our study-abroad experiences
in college. We both desired to bring up bilingual children. Mike and I never
desired to look into fertility options because we always felt called to adopt
someday. She and her husband felt called to pursue adoption first before ever
finding out if they could have biological children.
So thankful to find this friendship, we both encouraged and prayed for
one another via e-mail. We never actually met because we lived on opposite
sides of the country, but that instant connection grew into a friendship I
still cherish to this day, several years later.
However, following the online group actually left me more discouraged
every day. I quickly learned the program with El Salvador never truly
established itself the way the agency hoped and expected. By reading online how
other couples struggled and how long they’d already been in the program, I
realized this process could last for years. Bitterness already took root among
those who began their process more than two years earlier with still no
progress in sight.
Did God truly call us to this program and this
country? Did our child already await us there? These questions weighed heavily
on my heart, but we continued to collect the necessary paperwork and funds to
continue.
Our social worker soon contacted us to set up our
first of three meetings with her. In two weeks, we’d meet up at a local coffee
shop. Things progressed, despite my change of heart and the new uncertainties
about this decision.
One morning during those two weeks, I spent a long morning alone with
God out on my front porch. I cherish that luxury of time during the summer
while my husband works and my son sleeps the morning away. Those questions
burdened my heart and mind that morning as I tearfully poured out my concerns
to God. I’d lost all sense of peace over this being His direction. Adopting a
child from El Salvador looked more impossible every day. We felt so sure God
led us to that specific agency and country, but I now felt almost foolish to
even consider continuing in that direction.
“Father, if our child truly awaits us in El Salvador, then we will
plunge ourselves into this process and pour out every penny necessary until you
choose to unite us with her.” (We’d requested a girl between the ages of three
and seven, close in age to David). “But if our child waits somewhere else,
please show us.” I waited expectantly for more guidance.