Another Roadblock

I have some discouraging news to share. I will not write much because, for one thing, I do not know much and also, if I keep writing this whole post will easily slide into one big pity party for myself. But, I do want to briefly update you all who are following along with us on our adoption tale of woes journey and maybe you can send an extra prayer our way. The Congolese government has again decided to suspend issuing exit permits to adopted children. The children cannot leave Congo and come home without this permit. The government has briefly done this before, but this time they say the exit permits will be suspended for up to one year. Also, it is unclear if adoptions will be able to proceed up until it is time for the exit permits to be issued. So, the worst case scenario is our adoption progress is completely halted for up to a year and then we pick up where we left off. A better scenario would be if we are able to continue on with our Embassy investigation waiting game while we also wait for the exit permits to be issued again. Please continue praying for us and all the adoptive families stuck in this never- ending process and especially for all the children who live day after day without the love of their parents.


 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose....What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?.....No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:28, 31, 37

Hanging out in Limbo

We received another picture of Roland today (two months in a row- WooHoo!- our agency is on a roll). He is looking remarkably well. It took me a few minutes to even recognize him. He is actually chubby now (or at least compared to how he's looked before) and he is smiling. I love that smile. He is sitting upright on the floor by himself so we have proof he can at least do that much. In all the other pictures he has been lying down or being held by somebody. It is hard to look at a picture of this adorable, happy baby who is supposedly mine, and not be able to hold him.

We also finally received a little update on the actual adoption. The process has changed slightly again (surprise, surprise). This could either be good news or not- so- good news for us. The US Embassy  now wants to fly the pertinent people in the investigations to Kinshasa for their interviews instead of travelling out to the various cities themselves. They are currently trying to locate the person who dropped off Roland at the orphanage. If they can find him they will fly him out to the Embassy for the interview and hopefully that will fulfill their investigation requirements. However, if they cannot find this person or he is unwilling to go, then we have to wait until whenever the Embassy decides to travel again to Roland's birth city, which will probably not be until early 2014. If we have to go down that route, we will not be bringing him home before the Spring {cringe}. Obviously we are fervently praying that this person is located quickly, he is willing to travel to Kinshasa for the interview, and our investigation will get wrapped up smoothly so we can bring Roland home as soon as possible. Already there is no chance of Roland being home before his 1st birthday (in Nov.) and barely any chance in time for Christmas. We are still holding out hope that he may be with us for Matt's 30th birthday in February. I have visions of celebrating Matt's big birthday in a hotel room in Congo with our first child. We'll see.

The Nursery Unveiling

Over the summer we have been working little by little on putting Roland's nursery together. It is mostly done now; we have the furniture set up and the pictures put on the walls. We are just missing curtains, storage bins and some sort of chair to read and snuggle on before bedtime. We are renting the house we live in so there is only so much we could do as far as decorating. We couldn't do any painting and we decided not to try wall decals because the walls are textured and we did not know how well they would stick. I love what we have, but it still does look a little plain. I suppose it is better for a nursery to look quiet and calm than loud and chaotic. Also, there's plenty of room to add stuff later. Here is what we have so far: