holding pattern

We are really moving along! Please continue to pray for our paperwork to move quickly. We are about a week away from having our homestudy complete, and then everything goes off into the hands of the government for approval. It is so exciting to see everything wrapping up but now we enter into a weird governmental holding pattern. I am just trusting God and his timing. The story of my life, right? :)

And in the midst of all of our paperwork coming together, my heart still breaks for Danil. It seems I am in a holding pattern here too -- I can't stop thinking about him and weeping for him and begging God to intervene and give him a family. He is about a month away from being transferred to a mental institution for the rest of his life. It is beyond my realm of understanding to think that this would happen to him when he is only four years old. He should have the rest of his life ahead of him -- Christmas presents, birthday cakes, first days of school, bike rides, tree forts, all the things that you have when you are a little boy with a family that loves you. Danil should have all of that.

Now let me make it clear that the paperwork and fundraising do NOT have to be complete in a month in order to adopt him. He just needs to have a family step up and decide to adopt him and the orphanage will hold him -- hold him in their arms until you can.

I can't wait to hold Vlad in my arms for the first time. To put him in a pair of jeans and a Notre Dame jersey. To see him come running down our driveway when I come home from musical rehearsal. To hear him playing in his room with Syrus. To rock him to sleep at night. To just be his mom and hold him. That's the kind of holding pattern I long for....

And I am hoping that out there, somewhere, someone with just a little bit of faith in a big God will hold Danil too.