I am working through a Beth Moore bible study and in it she
says, “hard does not equal bad.” Wouldn’t you know that was just what I needed
to hear, because our adoption journey is getting hard…
We received an e-mail from our adoption agency
on February 8th… and it said that the agency is filling for
bankruptcy. I know it sounds terrible, but we must remember that hard does not
equal bad. Our adoption agency explained that over the last couple of years the
adoption process has gotten more and more difficult. The more difficult the
process becomes the longer it takes. The longer it takes fewer adoptions are
able to be processed. After closing some facilities and laying off a third of their
workforce, the adoption agency just didn’t have the resources to continue. We
know the adoption agency did all they could and that our lost funds went to
continue orphan care and to help bring other children home to their families.
But for us it means that we are starting over. I just have to remind myself
again and again that hard does not equal bad. We started the search for a new
adoption agency and found one that we like. We filled out our pre-application with
All God’s Children International on the 21st of February. We hadn’t
heard back, so we called them on the 28th a week later. They had
been very busy. We learned two very important things… One, they do not allow
adoptions out of birth order (we must adopt a child younger than our son). Two,
starting March 1st (the next day) the agency would only be accepting
new families wishing to adopt children from Ethiopia over the age of four. What
this meant to us is that we had til midnight to fill out the application. We
called just in the nick of time! 
