Little Bag O'Love

This morning, we sent our agency our "gallon-sized ziploc bag" of goodies to deliver to our Diamond. It contained a little plastic photo album full of pictures of our family, a little "lovey" blankie embroidered with her Ethiopian name, a couple of little toys for her crib, and lots of love.

We hope Diamond will look at the pictures in the album from time to time and that when we show up at Hannah's Hope and disrupt her little life once again, perhaps she'll recognize something familiar about our faces and we won't seem as strange or frightening to her (don't worry, we didn't include any of the crazy dinosaur mouth pictures!).

We've been sleeping with the little blanket for the past week or so, so it will have the scent of "us" when she receives it. Perhaps when we snuggle with her and bring her home, the scent of us and our home will not seem quite so foreign. As she waits for us, our scent will fade from the blankie and it will pick up the scent of her little bed at the orphanage. That scent and her familiar lovey might then be comforting to her when she leaves the orphanage and embarks on a new adventure as a member of the B family.

Some of the items we sent:

Last week, lots of families from our agency received court dates for this week and the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, our file was inadvertently not taken to court by our agency's representative. We are lifting the other families up in prayer and look forward to celebrating news of their successful court dates, but we are anxious to receive confirmation of our own court date and are hoping that the mix-up doesn't result in a significant delay. The families that are passing court now are anticipating travel dates in early December. It seems that if we don't get a court date soon, our hope of having Diamond home by Christmas might not be realistic. We feel like someone is missing from our home. We can't stand the thought of missing out on much more of her little life. We want her in our arms. We are continuing to remind ourselves that God is in control, not us, and that everything will happen in His time, not ours.

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait
I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I'm waiting, I will serve You
While I'm waiting, I will worship
While I'm waiting, I will not faint
I'll be running the race
Even while I wait.

I'm waiting
I'm waiting on You, Lord
And I am peaceful
I'm waiting on You, Lord
Though it's not easy
But faithfully, I will wait.
--John Waller, While I'm Waiting