Special Needs Conference Call and Exciting News!

Today Howie and I took half of a personal day from work in order to attend a Waiting Child conference call with Cindy, our adoption specialist, and Elisabeth, the woman at the regional Bethany branch who will do our matching with a child from China.  What a wonderful experience this is!  We were fully prepared for the types of questions that we would be asked, thanks to Howie's brother and our sister-in-law who have three adopted children (not from China).

Here is the official information:

We are open to adopting a child of either gender, ages 0-18 months with the following special needs:  a missing arm or hand, missing digits (fingers and toes), limb difference (deformity of the arm, or a shortened arm), club feet, and a hernia. 

After thoroughly discussing the special needs and stating what we would accept together, we were given a little bit of exciting news.  Elisabeth told us that they are currently working with nine families who are adopting from China and that we are the tenth family (not that we are really numbered).  Out of those, so far, we are the only family that is open to either gender, so we will most likely receive a match with a boy.  That means that when they see a boy, ages 0-18 months with one of the orthopedic needs we have described, they are going to rush to lock him in for us.  She even gave us an estimated time frame!  She said that she thought it was pretty likely that we would receive a match within six months-- and definitely within a year.  That's so exciting!!!!!  It's nice to have at least a timeframe to look at now.  Now it's up to God to do the rest.  We can't wait to see what He has in store.  :)

Please continue to keep us in prayer, as we are now officially "in waiting" and will also soon be trying to raise funds for all things China-related: the airfare, hotel and food expense for two weeks, orphanage fee, and so forth. 

This is definitely an exciting journey we've been on so far, and it's about to get even more exciting hopefully in the not-so-distant future.  :)

Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Many blessings,

Jenn and Howie