Daniel Adoption Update – May

Little brother…. we’re on our way!

Hello!

Well, we started this adoption process on Christmas day, 2016. It’s been 4 1/2 months and we have completed enough of the process to be granted permission to meet him in person and accept his referral! (His country of birth requires in-person visits before accepting his referral) I am really excited and nervous about this development. And we are making great time! Trip one will be May 12-21 (that includes all the many hours of flying) and Brian, Anna and I are going. That both Brian and I get to go is a testament to the support from my parents and the willingness of a college helper, Madison. It means a lot to us. Thank you.

So there will still be three kids, Madison and my parents holding down the fort while we’re gone. The travel takes roughly 24 hours until we are on the ground. We’ll stay overnight and then go on a six hour, cross-country drive to get to Daniel’s city of birth. We will visit him 1-2 times a day for several hours Monday-Friday and then fly home on Saturday. The trip will be grueling physically and emotionally. It will be beautiful and terrible too. It is unnatural and difficult to have a son, to hold him and meet him and then to let him go.

After we accept his referral, the adoption process has a few last steps to go through before he is legally ours. 3-6 months from now, Daniel should be in our home!

Over the last month, I’ve spoken with a number of mothers who have adopted children from this same orphanage. Until Daniel’s adoption is complete, I will not be sharing any negative details publicly. Certainly, we all know that institutional care has its weaknesses. And we know that those are compounded when special needs are present. All I will say here is that our suppositions of Jordan’s early life experiences were confirmed in these conversations and that Daniel needs prayer every day until we adopt him and then prayer for some time afterwards.

On this trip, I have several main goals:
– To get to know Daniel – his level of understanding, his speech, his physical needs, his size, and just as much as possible as I possibly can to help us when it’s time to make him ours.
– To support my oldest daughter as her world gets bigger.
– To experience Bulgarian culture and country.

I don’t know if I have any greater or more spiritual goals, but these seem to me to be a mouthful already. 🙂 Thank you for praying for us!

Leaving on trip one in 2011 to meet Jordan.