Anyhow! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas season and New Year! Our family has been busy the last 2 months. We're all settled back home, after our 6 month commuting adventure in Sioux Falls! The kids are back in school, and we're back to a normal routine! Ahhhh, the wonderful consistency of a routine is so refreshing!!
We've had a lot of inquiries regarding our little guy, and unfortunately haven't had a lot of information provided to us the last 2 months, but I will share what we have. Since my last blog, we haven't received any updates on Seong. In Korea they do monthly well checks for baby's, but don't provide those to parents unless there is something they'd like to bring to our attention that may have surfaced at a well-check. We received his 8 month well check in October, because he had a small birthmark on his back they wanted us to be aware of, which is nothing of concern. We were just excited to get a peek at our baby's update! So, since we've gotten no updates since, means there's nothing to report. In this case, no news is good news.
We're also getting asked often when we will be able to travel to pick him up. To be honest, we have no idea yet. See, in Korea there is a limit on the number of Visa's and immigration clearances that they allow each year for children leaving the country to be adopted internationally. This was not always the case. Unfortunately, a small - but loud minority group of Korean adoptees, who have strong feelings against international adoption, and feel the Korean children should be left in Korea - have lobbied the government to try to stop Korean adoptions all together. To appease the protesters, the government decided to put a yearly cap on the number of children leaving the country each year. This may have been a wise decision, if adopting orphaned children was something common in Korean culture, but unfortunately it's not. In Korean culture, if someone is interested in adopting one of these children, it is done in secret and often the mother will fake a pregnancy to give the impression that the child is her biological child. So, you see - there are so many children in Korea that need homes, and they're simply not getting adopted through the Korean system, by Korean families. Which is why the children are being opened up for international adoption. This may be much longer of an explanation that anyone would care to read, but we've had so many ask us, "Why is the wait so long, if you have matched families that are ready and willing to take the children?" The reason is political and it's extremely unfortunate for families like ours, and children like Seong. We're ready for him, he's ready for us - yet we wait.
In 2010, the number of allowed Korean adoption visa's reached it's cap in April. So, anyone who was matched with a child after April would not be allowed to travel to pick up the child until after the new calendar year, 2011. This would include us, since we were matched in September. Now, what we don't know is how many families are ahead of us to be granted travel papers. We know we're 6 months down the list, but that doesn't mean it will be a 6 month wait. What we're hoping, praying for is that we travel in 2011. This should be the case, but our agency will be able to give us a better idea by the end of February.
In the meantime, we wait and pray for our precious baby daily. We're so excited for him to be here. It was especially hard at Christmas, knowing that he's across the world and we so desperately want him here with us now. We are continuing to trust God daily for protection, as tensions are rising between North & South Korea. We're praying for peace between the nations, and trusting God to keep our little guy out of harms way and completely protected.
We were able to mail our first care package to Seong in December. We are allowed to send 2 total. The care packages we send are in gallon sized ziplock bags, so we found that not much fits! We sent him a blanket (that I'd been sleeping with for a couple weeks), 2 disposable cameras for Mrs. Gong to take pics with, and a little chewable photo book of the 4 of us. I'd love to send him a package every week, if I could - which is probably why they put a limit on it! We'll wait a few months before sending the next one - I can hardly wait already!
We'll continue to keep everyone updated on our travel timeline. The sooner the better for us, but we also know that God is lining everything up and it will all work out in his perfect timing!
Thanks for taking the time to read this LONG entry, hopefully it gives a little more insight into the process we're in and the need for prayer!
