This post is over a month overdue, but neither Tamara or I have had the heart to write it yet.
As of that time, our Armenian adoption was placed on an indefinite hold, and has subsequently been ended.
The program we were using is a very small program. There is only one person in the country who handles the logistics and representation of the agency, when dealing in person with the Armenian government. Unfortunately, that person has had to cease her work due to health-related issues. Because of her unfortunate circumstances, our agency made the decision to place the Armenian program on indefinite hold.
We hold no ill will towards the agency or our situation. We pray for the lady in Armenia, and hope that her health problems are resolved. Our hearts go out to the other families in the program, particularly the family that was farther ahead of us.
After much prayer, discussion, research, and more prayer, we have decided to pursue a domestic adoption through the local agency who performed our home study. The other agencies who adopt through Armenia either didn't feel right, or would have placed us into a much longer waiting period than we were willing to accept at this point. Our new plan, God willing, is to adopt domestically, and then re-initiate an Armenian adoption through one of these other programs. But for the time being, our Armenian Adoption adventure is at an unfortunate and unhappy end.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we pursue this new path. This will likely be my last post on this blog, for at least a while. Please don't take this as a condemnation of or argument against international adoption. In our case, it did not work this time, but it has resulted in a successful growth of a family in so many cases. And who knows, in three to five years, we may still be traveling to Armenia to complete our -temporarily paused- Armenian Adoption adventure.
