Hurry Up and Wait.

Well, we're learning that when it comes to adoption, everything takes time!  After exploring various options, we decided to pursue international adoption in... CHINA!  Our goal is to adopt a boy younger than Zuri.  Most experts suggest maintaining the birth order of your family, so the new addition is also the youngest.  Lifeline, the adoption agency we've chosen, has a special relationship with an orphanage in MaoMing, Guangdong, China.  We don't know if our son will come from MaoMing, but only Lifeline works with the orphanage, so it's a good chance.  We also think that having his Chinese-American cousins Caleigh and Corey will be a great advantage!  So, to bring everyone up to speed, on Sept. 15 we went to DHR to get fingerprints and start our background check.  Then we filled out a stack of papers and turned everything in.  We had our first homestudy meeting on Oct 12.  There will be 4 homestudy meetings culminating in our social worker, Mallory, visiting the house and meeting the kids.  Zoe asked why she can't just tell them we're good parents so we can get our boy!  Please pray for us through this journey.  We have a lot of reading and writing ahead of us right now.  The kids are excited and want him here for Christmas!  It has become real to us that our son is in China and we have to leave it in God's hands that he is being taken care of in the orphanage.  We wish we could speed up the process, but this is how it works.  On a related note, we met Katie Davis today at church.  She is a missionary in Uganda and has adopted 13 girls!  Don't worry, we're not competing!  It was so moving to hear her story.  http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/  The next step is writing our autobiographies from childhood to present.  That should be fun!  We are so eager to be matched with our little boy that it's hard to be still.  We'll keep you posted!  Love you all, DeAnna and Ken.