An Unexpected Delay

Our expectation was to receive a referral and then travel to Ethiopia fairly soon to begin the court process. If all went well, we were hoping to have our little boy home by the new year. That being said, we were not expecting the news that came out of Ethiopia yesterday.

The Ethiopian government has made a decision which requires adoptive families to complete a Pre-Adoption Immigration Review (PAIR). Completing an international adoption through Ethiopia requires legal actions by both the Ethiopian and the American governments. Sadly, on a few occasions, adoptive children were cleared by the Ethiopian court (thus granting the adoptive family official parental rights) only to have difficulty being approved for immigration by the United States Embassy. From the best I can understand, the soon-to-be implemented PAIR process adds a pre-approval step to the process of US immigration, which practically guarantees for the Ethiopian government that once an American couple is declared by them to be the legal parents of an Ethiopian child, that the adoption will indeed be completed from an American perspective as well.

The bottom line is that we were informed by our adoption agency that this new policy will certainly delay our adoption plans at least 3-4 months. Naturally, we are disappointed. Nevertheless, I had just preached 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 to our church this past Sunday morning (recording here). During this sermon, I told our congregation: "If you are a Christian, there is nothing that can happen in your life that does not flow from and is not attached to the good purpose of God." But living according to that truth requires that we walk by faith, not by sight –– focusing our attention on the truth that God has revealed and not on the circumstances before us. The same faith that we are trying, albeit imperfectly, to put into action by adopting a child — this faith is now being tested by God as our adoption plans have been substantially delayed. We want to maintain a big view of God's sovereignty in the midst of this delay. It is a joy, then, for Emiley and me to consider the following:

• God has graciously seen fit to keep Ethiopia open for international adoption. As far as we know, our plans have been delayed for a few months, not cancelled altogether. 

• God is for us. He proved that when He gave up His own Son for our forgiveness of sins and adoption into His family (Romans 8:31-32). 

• God is for orphans and for adoption. He cares more about the fatherless than we ever could! So we rest in the care that He has for our little one, even if we cannot personally care for him as quickly as we would like to (Psalm 68:5). 

• God's timing is always better than ours, so we rejoice that this situation is in God's complete control and is intended by God for our good. This delay, then, is intended at least in part to draw us closer to our God and to deepen our trust in Him (Romans 8:28-29). 

• This delay allows us the opportunity to keep the topics of physical and spiritual adoption at the forefront of our conversations with others –– perhaps in a direct answer to our prayers that God would use us to encourage other Christians to adopt as well as to communicate the gospel to those non-Christians who have not yet been adopted into God's family. 

• From a practical perspective, this delay will allow us more time to get our adoption finances in order. 

And these are just the things that can we see God doing in the midst of this disappointing circumstance. But as John Piper has often said, "When God is doing one thing, he is doing a million things." In many situations we do not see even one thing that God is accomplishing, so by the same faith, we must trust that He is working a countless billion things for our good and for His glory. However, in this situation, we can see several things that God is working for our good; it only thrills our hearts further to consider by faith that He is always doing so much more!