LOA

Yesterday, at a particularly busy moment of the day, I received an email from our adoption agency that our LOA had arrived. This is two weeks earlier than we had predicted. This particular step in the process is very time sensitive. The letter is overnighted to us, and we must overnight it back the same day. We write one simple line, "We accept Pu Min Sheng," and sign our names. Such simplicity, and yet I want to write a thousand adverbs in front of accept, gratefully, joyfully, unhesitatingly, yet even the addition of a slew of those adverbs couldn't capture what we feel right now. We just want to bring this little boy home.

Now the paperwork picks up and we begin counting down until David will be able to travel to pick up our son. We still have 10+ weeks, but it is coming together. It was hard not to hang a stocking for him, hard to think of him so far away these holidays, hard to know he will spend Christmas and his first birthday in an orphanage. Still, we pray. We give him the only gift we can right now, prayers. We are given an opportunity to poignantly experience this season of joyful anticipation.