Sadness - Vietnam Closes Adoptions to US

Back in 2007, we had come to an agreement that we needed to pursue another or an interim adoption because China was such a slow process. We investigated Taiwan, but because we couldn't get our homestudy/China agency to agree to a concurrent adoption, we waited too long and the wait time became too long. We then began to investigate Vietnam. We decided on an agency and sent off an application to PLAN, paid an application fee and began to gather our dossier. In the meantime, we continued to petition our China agency to allow us to proceed with a concurrent adoption. We began to secure financing for the Vietnam adoption and hit a few snags that delayed our process. I remember being in South Carolina working on a project and closing a home equity loan that took way longer than it should have.

I remember during this time asking people why God was so silent on this issue. I wondered why the problems occurred with the loan and why it was delayed. By the time we finished gathering our dossier, we were told by our agency that they were waiting until March to send anymore dossiers to Vietnam. We had to make a choice to pay our agency fee (which was pretty large) and go ahead and send our dossier with the hopes that our process would be complete before May (which is when they originally thought the MOA was ending between the US and Vietnam) or to wait until March when negotiations for that process would begin. We prayed and prayed and just felt like it was not worth losing that money in case it didn't work and we would wait. In the meantime, we found Kyrgyzstan.

The rest, as they say, is history. God has led us to our daughter -- the one He chose for us. However, today I feel a great sadness for all the wonderful people I met while waiting through the Vietnam progress. Today is the day Vietnam adoptions close. And we would not have gotten a referral. I cannot imagine the pain and sorrow being experienced by so many and the thousands of dollars lost. Dreams die really hard and this dream for some parents is causing untold pain. Know that I am in prayer that God will lead you to your children. Don't lose faith. There are children out there who need families.