DRC Update

This is not a big update, but I wanted to write it anyway. The State Department has issued another alert suggesting that even the grandfathered-in cases will proceed slowly because people have been forging documents. The emotionally violent part of me wants to go BEAT some sense into these people! I know you're desperate to bring your child home and I don't blame you for your feelings, but give a single moment's thought to the hundreds or thousands of families you're affecting by further damaging the United States' relationship with the Congo.

Flag of the Democratic Republic of the Congo

It is possible that, because of you, we won't be able to bring H home. It's horribly selfish, which is a terrible way to start your parenting of a hurt child. It also makes you look just like a trafficker. Just fyi. </disdain> </rant>

Termites.

Okay, I'm not talking to them any longer. Frankly, their selfishness will incur wrath more frightening than my own, for who loves orphans more than the Most Holy God? Who placed in mothers the fierceness of protection? Children are literally dying every day in the Congo for want of aid and protection, and these people are making it worse. It will be a dreadful thing on that day.

Honestly, I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do whatever it took to get H here. But then I think about having to tell her, eventually, that she was smuggled here. That she was, essentially, trafficked. It's no good. Besides, H isn't the only child in the DRC who needs a family. How could I live with myself if my actions caused a country to close down its international adoption program? I sure hope anyone realizes this, and I desperately hope they feel the same way.

Katanga region. Rainy season. Beautiful.

In the same alert, the DRC also warned that the suspension of issuing exit visas may last past the original term of one year, so things aren't looking any better for us. But hope does not disappoint, and I believe steadfastly that the Lord will use our adoption to advance the Gospel, just like He used Paul's imprisonment, from where he wrote the epistle of Philippians.