Everything is Done... Except the Waiting.

   We got word on Wednesday of last week that our agency had finally made contact with the last of our references and all the paperwork was then forwarded upstream.  What that means for us I'm not exactly sure.  Does that mean that our file has not yet been sent to, and reviewed by, the folks in Columbus who will, ultimately, have to issue our new foster home license?  Is Columbus already done and now we are only waiting on our agency to dot the "i"'s and cross the "t"'s?  Does that mean we will have our license this month or a month from now?  Honestly, I am utterly clueless.  All I know is that we will continue waiting.

   When we finally decided that the time was right to begin the process of another adoption from foster care, we knew that it would require classes and training, a new homestudy and all that goes with it.  We've been down that road before and much of it is familiar territory.  The weird part of this was, and is, how messed up the whole thing became when we found out we were moving.  Don't get me wrong, this had been a great move for us.  We love where we are, the church where I serve, the school that our kids attend, and the people that we live and work with.  We just never expected that transferring our homestudy to a new house (which is what we thought was going to happen) would take as long as it has.  Here we are, eight months later, and we still don't even have our license, let alone a placement.  Heck, without the license, we can't even be too serious about looking through the listings on AdoptUSkids.org. 

    I'm not blaming anyone.  It wasn't any one person's (or agency's) fault.  I know that the delays are an accumulation of choices that we made, as well as the choices of our new county and our new agency.  Moving delayed things.  Deciding we didn't like the county agency in out new residence delayed things.  Moving to a new agency and upgrading our license delayed things.  And on top of that, we lived through the loss of our Aunt Gladys who, generously, left us an inheritance.  Her gift to us is a fabulous blessing (of that I have no doubt) but the time we have needed, and will need for the next several months, to handle her estate, home and belongings, makes it somewhere between difficult and impossible to accept a placement right now, even if one were available.

We're hoping that life will calm down toward the end of summer and we will be ready for a placement.  Will one be available?  Will our agency need us to do respite care for someone amidst the chaos that is our summer?  Will a placement be available when we're finally ready?  To these questions, and others, my only answer is, "Who knows?"  In truth, we will do as we have always done.  We will continue to lean on, and trust, the wisdom and love that God has for us.  It's our lives, but it's his plan.

Meanwhile... we wait.