Okay, so this journey that's supposed to take years is looking like it will take less than one year.   What a beast all this paperwork is!  I have so much to share since my last update, but alas, I can't move my status beyond "Paperwork in Progress."  I don't mean that things haven't been exciting-- sometimes I cry, bite my nails, or fall asleep with the computer on my lap.  I have become pretty tight with the people at the Postal Annex and with my notary-- that’s right, I have my very own notary (She’s awesome, and I can give you her card if you’d like).

The usual order of things (abridged) when people adopt is:

-Application Process: it's like a college application and a home loan application have a baby, and it's got colic.  

-Home Study: the college application/home loan baby is now a big, hungry teenager who got a degree in child psychology and wants to interview your house.  

-Matching: it's like finally getting to see ultrasound pictures of your baby, but there are several babies, and they have health portfolios, and you have to chose just one-- so then the whole thing kind of turns into some moral philosophy dilemma.

-Dossier: it's like being pregnant, but instead of heartburn, you get paper cuts; the nurse is a notary; and you have no idea how many months you'll be pregnant-- also, you're still getting fat from stress eating, but you can't really blame it on the baby the same way.

-Travel: not sure yet, but it sounds like we'll be those people on the 12-hour flight with the baby who won't stop crying.

We did things a little differently, so our journey has been in this order:

-Applications (done)

-Matching (done)

-Home Study (paperwork is done, but we have two more interviews scheduled for February 24 and March 10)

-Dossier (working on it while doing home study, but some things can’t be completed until home study is completed, then the rest is up to the US and Chinese governments)

-Travel (absolutely no idea when we’re going.  Maybe April? July?)

In other words, we have been doing a lot of paperwork, paying fees, taking child development classes, taking cultural education classes, going to the Postal Annex, paying fees, hanging out with our notary, doing interviews, going to doctors’ offices, paying fees, making copies, scanning copies, signing things, and writing essays --maybe some of this is just karma for assigning homework and essays for over a decade.  

Well, the silver lining on the cloud of all this busy work is that we have been matched with a child in China!  We signed an agreement that we would not discuss details of our adoption online, but I can tell you that we have seen the face of our newest family member, and we have a few video clips of him smiling, crawling toward the camera, and chewing on a rubber duckie.  Because he was recovered at a hospital, and his parents could not be found, he has the Chinese equivalent of the name, John Doe.  Because there is a lot of negativity associated with his name, we will be renaming him when he is officially adopted.  After perusing the name-meaning websites, we decided to name him Asher because it means “happy and blessed” (the tribe of Asher in the Bible was among the most blessed and prosperous).   Because Samuel’s middle name is the Herndon family name, Orin, we decided to give our new kiddo the middle name that is the Jonker family name, Johnathan (don’t worry, we checked with my brother and Sahra first).

To our friends and family who have cared enough to caution us about the darker sides of the adoption experiences, thank you.  We are doing our best to be well-read, and we have consulted with as many people as we can regarding attachment disorders, sensory processing disorder, autism, depression, and other issues associated with the traumatic parts of adoption. We will be doing everything we can to make sure he is well adjusted and that our eyes are wide open to warning signs.  We know that the paperwork and files we have been shown may be a misrepresentation of what is really going on with this little guy, but as Seth says, we are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.

That being said, we are confident that no matter what obstacles are in front of us, things are going to be good.  I know they won’t always be happy, but they will always be good.  This whole thing was God’s idea, so He’s going to take care of us, our new kiddo, and everything in between.  There has already been so much evidence of God’s providence in all of this, we can’t help but have increased faith and hope, and our hope is not at all ignorant or naive.  We are confident that our future happiness will not be in perfect circumstances, whatever that means.  Life is complicated.  Kids are complicated humans, whether they are biological, step, or adopted.  Things will definitely be hard, but we’re going to take it one step at a time because we can’t handle more than that.  If we can’t trust God beyond each step, we shouldn’t be doing any of this.

In addition to numerous scheduling coincidences that we can only attribute to the intervention of a Higher Power (please ask me about these some other time), there has been the issue of funding.  We have a bank account set up for all of our adoption transactions where I have been depositing proceeds from selling odds and ends online in a sort of virtual garage sale, selling shirts, substituting at the school, babysitting for friends and family, and collecting money in any odd way I can think of.  After charging only one fee to our credit card, there has been enough money in the account every other time we have needed to make a payment to our agencies.  Let me be very clear about this not being a product of my good planning and budgeting.  I have been frustrated that even though we’re more than half way through the adoption process, we cannot yet apply for a low-interest adoption loan because we have not yet completed our home study, and no one will let us apply for an adoption loan without a completed home study (the unknown side effect of being matched before completing the home study).  But every time I would tell God that I had exhausted my resources, and I didn’t know where He was going to scrape up more support for this crazy idea of His, he would show me another deposit on the AdoptTogether website that has been collecting donations for us.  The organization will write us grants from your donations to pay for agency fees and other expenses, and our most recent fee was covered using your donations! We have seen support in amounts we never could have asked for. I have been so giddy seeing each donation come in, that sometimes I call Seth at work because I just have to tell someone over the age of 3.  So, THANK YOU, everyone who has sent us an encouraging text or a donation.  Thank you for being the encouragement we’ve needed on those days you might not have known we were holding on to hope.  Thank you for being what God used that day to give us more hope and more faith.  

Someone asked us why we didn’t just adopt from the system in the US, and that is a good question.  We were actually going to do that, but our minds were changed.  It’s hard to explain because I don’t know that there’s a “good explanation” outside of just knowing.  When you’re doing what you are supposed to be doing, you just know it.  And in that way, it just feels easy.  It’s like when you’re cooking something; you know when things start to go bad because you can see, smell, and taste the catastrophe.  If you’re doing it right, you can keep watching, smelling, and tasting it along the way to make sure you’re still doing it right.  And so far, things still taste, smell, and look good.  Difficult has nothing to do with it.  Sometimes the difficult recipes make the best stuff.  

The last six months has been more difficult yet more easy at the same time.  It’s like when you’ve been working out a lot, and your routines get more difficult because you can handle more weight, or you have more endurance, but things don’t always feel hard because you’re conditioning yourself to it. Our faith and hope is getting quite a workout, and I imagine we still have a quite a bit to lift and a distance still to run. But this journey has made me more aware of the presence of Someone bigger than me who knows more than me and loves people more entirely than me.  We read together as a family last night in the book of Matthew that Jesus was adopted by Joseph, and we paused because we hadn’t really listened to that part before.  Jesus chose to know what it felt like to be looked down on in a society that did not value orphans, fatherless adoptees, the poor, or widows.  It’s very likely that Jesus grew up in exactly that social bracket.  But he chose it.  It’s amazing what he did to show humility and empathy and love for us.  No matter what we are going through, God hears our pain, and it’s always nice to talk to someone who empathizes with us.  Sorry if this all seems religious; it’s not meant to be at all.  We have seen all of this so vividly lately that this is the truth that we are experiencing and want to share.  We love you all so much, and we value your support and prayers so much.  I hope this update is more satisfying than the last few.  Hopefully our next one will be even more evolved.

Love, the Herndon Family