Waiting

I have to be the most selfish woman ever! Here I am, complaining about the wait to go pick up my own children and now there is an extended wait for families still on the list anticipating a referral. We forget so quickly, how blessed we are to be waiting to travel, regardless of how long that wait may be.
When we were put on the wait in January, the wait was said to be 6-9 months for any families interested in a single infant referral. That wait has recently been extended to 12 months.
For those of you inexperienced on matters of adoption, at 6-9 months you have really already been waiting more like a year. It takes the average family at least 3-4 months just to get their home study completed. That is required prior to being placed on any agencies list. You can imagine after just a 6 month wait, the frustration of hearing it could be 9, but to receive the news that it could be as long as a year, is agony. For these families it means that with all the combined steps they have had to take, they will have waited over a year and half just to hold their children in their arms.
Again, this is not due to a lack of children needing care. This is due, most likely to a lack of staffing in the courts. There are more adoption agencies coming into Ethiopia every day, and with each of them, the paperwork pile grows taller. If the government doesn't have the staffing to process it, it simply sits there and backs up. Meanwhile, the children remain in orphanages and care centers and the families longing for them, are left waiting on this side of the world.
With all my heart, I wish I could do more, send more, give more to Ethiopia and it's people that so long to give their children a better life. It is not for lack of love that these children are waiting to be placed. Please have Ethiopia and it's need for government workers in your thoughts and prayers. There are thousands of families that are waiting to be brought together.
To those amazingly strong families in wait..... my heart is with you. My prayers are with you. It has been and will be a long and difficult number of months for you, for the staff working with our children (they want to see them with you too!), the children's families, and of course, the children themselves. Be diligent in action, prayer and hope. They will be in your arms soon!