How long will the wait be?

I was just asked how long the wait will be once our paperwork is sent to China. I can only make a guess based on watching other families with our agency. It looks like we should expect to be in China about 5 months after our dossier is sent, so I have told people 4-6 months. When will our paper work be sent to China? Well, according to US Immigration, they should have processed our application (the one I hand delivered August 19), by yesterday. We tried to call yesterday and they weren't answering the phone. We left a message hoping they would call back. We had been hopeful that they were making efforts to reduce their backlog, but it appears to be getting worse. This would be a great thing for people to pray about, not just for our family, but for every family hoping to adopt from a Hague Convention country. Once we get that piece of paper, it will probably take 2-3 more weeks to get our dossier to China. At this point, we are thinking we might be in China in May or June. In the midst of all of this, however, I have been reminded that God has had a plan from the beginning and His timing is always perfect. Last week, I was thinking about when this little guy entered the orphanage at age three. I started wondering what we were doing that day. When I looked back at the dates, I was truly amazed at God's timing. The same week that he began his journey into the orphanage and into our hearts was the same week God first opened our eyes to the possibility of adopting from China. Many of those reading this blog already know the story of Anna. This is a very brief recap of that week. On October 12, 2005, I heard a prayer request for a little girl in China that needed a family. Many amazing and miraculous things happened that week to confirm that we should pursue that adoption. We had not previously even been talking about adoption, so it was a huge leap of faith for us. We were in contact with the family that had shared the prayer request for that little girl throughout the week. They were new acquaintances for us. On October 18, 2005, they had us to their home for dinner. They shared their adoption stories and we spent time praying for that little girl (Anna!) and for the other orphaned children in the world. That is the same day Li Meng entered the orphanage. With the time difference, as we were praying together, he would have been waking up the first morning in the orphanage. We didn't know about him until we spotted him in pictures with Anna over a year later, but God had a plan in motion. On April 9 of this year, the same family we had prayed with happened to mention a picture of a little girl that was posted on an adoption website. Someone had snapped pictures at a birthday party that had included a little girl they had just learned was referred to them. After looking at her picture, I noticed the agency had a list of China waiting children. When I looked at it, I found a description of a little boy that sounded like he could be Li Meng. After almost a year and a half of watching various agencies for him, we were amazed to see he had just been referred to that same agency! The girl in the party pictures came home last Friday. We had originally hoped our little guy would be home by Christmas. Now we are hoping our paperwork will be to China by Christmas. We had hoped Immigration would process our application by Thanksgiving. Now we are hoping they will return our calls by Thanksgiving. We don't understand why it has taken this long and will continue to do everything in our power to bring him home as soon as possible. However, through all of that, we know we can trust that God has had is eyes on this boy from the beginning and has plan for his life and the timing will be perfect. Have a blessed Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year!