Adoption

Our Adoption Timeline and Process:

July 6, 2016  Received Application and Information Packet from CCAI
July 9, 2016  Submitted Application to CCAI and New Beginnings
July 12, 2016  Application Approved from CCAI
August 8, 2016  First Home Study Visit
August 23, 2016  Second/Third Home Study Visit Interviews
September 14, 2016  Fourth Home Study Visit
September 14, 2016 HIV and Drug Testing
November 30, 2016 Received Draft of Home Study
December 16, 2016 Received Completed Home Study
December 16, 2016 Mailed 1800A
*a bunch of details happened that I didn't record*
August 20, 2017  Dossier translated and mailed to China
August 24, 2017  Dossier Logged In to China
March 2018  Updated Home Study

We get asked by lots of people where we are in this process.  Currently we are just waiting to be matched.  We submitted our MCC in September 2016 and were told about a year ago that given the conditions we requested that it would take about two to two and a half years to be matched to our daughter.  We were told right before Christmas (2018) that this now may be three to three and a half years or longer.  So we are discouraged, and we wait.  We wait on His timing, for He knows best.

We ask for prayer for this process, for our little girl that will someday be joined into the Dickerson family.  We ask for prayers in our time of waiting that our hearts will be prepared and that we will wait not on our own strength but His.

Isaiah 40:31 -"but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint."

"You can do more in my waiting than in my doing I could do."  "To Those Who Wait," Bethany Dillon

God rerouted our plans and led us away from China to adopt since they aren't happening now anyway.  Covid hit that country first in 2019 and adoption has been closed since.  In 2020, God opened another door that we did not foresee.  We ended up doing something I would have never chosen on my own because of my mom's career. On July 20, 2020, we began fostering a little girl that was a kinship placement.  We are now two and a half years in that process and we are still unsure the future here, but we desire to be obedient and follow what the Lord desires for her and our family.