Searching and searching....

Searching and searching and searching and... that is what we have been doing - searching for our next little girl - and waiting. There is A LOT of waiting (and did I mention searching?) during an adoption. For weeks now we have been waiting for China to release a new list of children to the shared list so that either our agency could refer us a little girl or so we could find one ourselves. Nothing. Nilch. In the past we had asked about many little girls, but they had already been put on hold with another family - that's good though because I know that even though I don't know who our daughter will be yet - God does - and He will have the perfect one for us... at the perfect time!

It's hard looking at all of the children. Really hard. At the age of 14 children in China are no longer able to be adopted into a family. When I look at the children on the lists, it's really hard not to let myself think about those boys and girls who won't have a mom or dad to call their own. And then there are the children with the medical issues. Money and some good doctors could help so many of them physically. A mom and dad to call their own could help even more. We'll take one!

We never did send in our dossier - even though it is finished. We decided to hold onto it for a little bit so we could look at the children on other agency websites. The dossier is burning a hole in my pocket :) I want to be able to send it in so much! China allows certain agencies to advocate for children who, for a short time, are only assigned to their agency, so we may actually find our next daughter through another agency other than the one we are working with now. There is also a great website at www.rainbowkids.com where agencies post children who are available for adoption from all over the world. It's a great site - and I'm on there often :)

We made great strides in the puzzle piece fundraiser. If you look at the picture here and at the Christmas-framed one you can see that a lot of pieces were added to it. Yeah! I love the panda bears in the picture and how it looks like they are climbing out of the frame. You will be able to see it more clearly once we get it all put together. If you would like to help with that (putting it together) we would love a donation :0 Every $5.00 that is donated gets one puzzle piece added to the puzzle. We are going to write the names of those who donated on the back of the puzzle, glue it all together, and hang it in our daughter's bedroom. It takes a lot of people to make an adoption come together. All the pieces have to fit together exactly in order to make it work. I know that years from now, when I look at the puzzle hanging on the wall, I will remember all of the people (friends and strangers) who helped to put it all together. Thanks everyone!

In His name,

The Burgess Family

P.S. One of the gifts given to me for Christmas was new photography software - and I love it! It is Adobe Photoshop, and I was able to figure out how to do the picture above with it. Thanks Kevin! (He bought me the software).