The End of One hope

This day, THE day that held such significance for all of us in the Vietnam prospective adopting world has come and gone so quietly. Many of us are holding broken hearts for the dream of the Vietnamese child we have dreamed of for so long, for us, well over 750 days. We are left to pursue other avenues if possible and those whose only hope was the Vietman program are at the mercy of two governments to reach a new agreement and reopen the program. It was stated today that the program has been suspended indefinitely. Such an open ended time frame. Many of us will grieve the loss of the child we had already adopted in our hearts and renew our strength to start over a whole new process with another country. There are families who have been left today wondering what it will mean for them to not have obtained their official referral letter and have grown to love the face of the child they have been provided to be faced with the possibility of their child being assigned to someone else. There are families celebrating the fact that they were the "lucky ones" to have received all the proper paperwork to be able to proceed with the adoption. There are even families who have brought their children home, who in light of all the corruption exposure may pause to wonder if their child was truly an orphan as reports of their child's province or orphange is brough under scrutiny.
My heart is very quiet tonight as I reflect on the dreams we held so dear of the child from Vietnam that we had no doubt we were going to bring into our family. As I have watched families before and after us become families, the joy becomes bittersweet. My mind fills with questions of "what ifs " and" if we only" to the point of craziness. There is no sense in asking these questions because what is is what is. Trusting wholly in God is the absolute only sense in this whole mess. I don't feel in my heart that we are never getting a child. There is just going to have to be a new focus and new set of strength to come from this whole terrible mess. That is what I really feel this has been. We were given so much hope that this Vietnam adoption was going to be a sure thing. We were told we would get a referral, they just didn't know when. And here we are, no hope of a referral from Vietnam, thousands of dollars sunk into this adoption, months and months of fruitless waiting, totally at the bottom of the valley. I am asking God to reach down and bring us out of this storm, praising Him for whatever it is we are to learn from this experience. I know it is certainly easy to praise God when you are standing on the top of the mountain, looking at all you have accomplished, but when you are in the valley looking up to the mountain, your heart cries out to God to show you what you are to learn and then you thank Him for bringing you to this place so that when you do reach the top of the mountain, you will know that HE is the only one that could have brought you to that place. His mercies are wonderful and His ways are not always for us to understand. I do know that God NEVER makes any mistakes, He never forsakes us or forgets about us, He will never leave His children. He only asks us to TRUST in Him, even though our own understanding cannot comprehend His ways. I am trusting God to bring us to the top of the mountain, to bring us to our daughter. It is very hard starting over somewhere else but at this point, we have to endure the changes and press on to a new goal. The months ahead will show us where to go. Those updates are posted on the password protected blog.

Thank you to everyone who is praying for us to find our daughter. If I had never started this blog, I would not have the support today that I have. You all are very special to us and we hope that someday soon it will be our moment and our day that we share with you the news of a daughter that God has led us to. Keep praying for us that we find our direction. You are all truely awesome and wonderful friends.