More Blessings While we Wait

More time has gone by- we continue to wait for our Letter of Approval (LOA). This is the big step- after this there are 4 or 5 more small steps, but they are more predictable. Once you have LOA you usually travel 2.5-3 months later. The thing about the LOA wait is that families wait anywhere between 30 and 140 days. There is no rhyme or reason that anyone can tell on why some wait 30 days and some wait 140 days. Even people with the same agency have different lengths in waits. Lately the average seems to be 50-70 days. I was hoping we'd fall in the fast to average range, but would have been just fine with average. Well- tomorrow we hit day 70 so I guess we're looking at the longer waiter range. :( Though I can't complain because there are a few people with our agency who have had to wait 90-140 days. I pray the couple families who are still waiting and in that range get their LOA's this week. There are two other families who are with our agency and on the same day as us. Maybe all 5 of us will get it the same day and end up traveling together. That would be neat! Praying my next post will be my LOA announcement and that it will be SOON! I am not going to lie- it is wonderful to celebrate with everyone getting their LOA, but you wish you could be celebrating for your own LOA too. This wait is painfully hard!

I also wanted to thank everyone who has supported us by praying, using our Amazon link (it is working), ordering through our affiliate account with Ordinary Hero, purchasing '31' products through our 31 fundraisers, or who have donated items for our rummage sale we hope to have in May. We are blessed and so thankful!

Today was a special day though because we were blessed with some more photos of Lena, this time from a family from the Netherlands who returned to the orphanage for a visit the beginning of April. Here is what she shared with me from that day:

"Just to say that we have been visiting Nanping SWI and seen your daughter. She was asleep, but the staff woke her up, so we could take pictures. My travel companion took some photos of her - unfortunately our respective cameras and computers don't communicate with each other, so she can only transfer the pictures after we get back home on the 14th of April. I hope you can wait that long:)The guide said that she was a bright girl who already knew how to read lips.The orphanage is beautifully situated, and the director and vice director are very kind and nice people."

And today I got the pictures they were able to take of Lena. Though she was woken up and not happy about it, it made this mama's heart happy to see her! :) I would have even settled for pictures of her sleeping. Below are the 5 pictures I received. But first is a picture of Lena with the family from Canada who went back for a visit in March. They got us a cute little video clip and the picture of them with Lena even made the orphanage website: http://yanping-fuli.org/news/News_View.asp?NewsID=151