The Search for Peter

When Eric and Chelsea returned home, they were sent with information about all the orphans. It listed where they were from, their Chinese name, and their disabilities. Almost every child at the camp has a disability. (Peter has a cleft palate) We also had the contact information to talk to some of social workers in China. I emailed them as soon as we were sure about what avenue we were going to take. It seems like it should be a fairly easy process, doesn't it? Well, not always. This was about the 3rd week of August last year. The social workers emailed me back and told me that Peter was not adoptable. WHAT?! Um, that was not what Eric and Chelsea were told. We kept insisting on more information (my heart still hurts because I'm sure the social workers thought I was crazy!) and found out that Peter's file was with an adoption agency in Spain. What that means is this: Adoption agencies will go into certain orphanages and get the children paper ready. They must have papers to even be considered for adoption by the Chinese government. It is up to the adoption agency if they will release the papers or not. Again, I thought this was fairly easy. I would call the agency in Spain, explain the situation, they would love us and just give us Peter! WRONG! I did get in touch with them and they were on board with us adopting Peter but they wanted us to have an agency here. Ok...we can do that. So I started calling every agency I could find. I called several and just did not feel comfortable with any of them. Some were scared of our case and some did not have the passion for our case. I called my last name on the list. (and this was after searching and searching on the internet)JACKPOT!!! Lifeline was an answer to our prayers! (and still are!) I spoke with Lisa and she had such a passion for helping us. Not only did she have a passion for our case, but she had a passion for the Lord! I was thrilled! I then called the agency in Spain and informed them we had an agency. Lifeline had said what needed to happen is that the Spanish agency would need to put Peter's file back on the shared list so they could get his files or the Spanish agency could give the file directly to them. I corresponded many times with the Spanish agency and they kept repeating they wanted to talk to our agency. Lifeline said something didn't sound right with that. Finally, the Spanish agency outright asked us who was going to reimburse them for the expenses they had put into Peter so far. We asked how much and it was doable. I let our agency know and we were willing to pay it. Anything to get our boy home! Lifeline asked us to hold on while they checked on some things. That was a very frustrating 48 hours! We received an email in 48 hours stating to stop all contact with the Spanish agency. They were in violation of the CCCWA (the Chinese equivalent of our CPS is the best way to describe them) governing rules. We could go to jail if we gave them any money. Thank you Lord that Lifeline caught this! At this time, we had no idea what was going to happen. The agency in Spain was not happy with us and we were not sure they would ever hand over Peter's file. We again contacted some of our contacts in China and they did some visiting to some people for us. We found out from them that the orphanage was thrilled that we wanted to adopt Peter!(the family who ran the orphanage sent their son to camp with their orphans so he knew Eric and Chelsea) This was good news! They told our contacts they would ask for Peter's file to be released. Our agency heard from their contacts that his file would also be released to the shared list (the list of adoptable children) around October. We were very excited to hear this. We officially applied with Lifeline, were matched with our case worker Logan, (LOVE HER!!) started our education that was needed and started to prepare for our homestudy. October rolled around, nothing. December, January..nothing. But Lifeline told us to keep praying because He had a big plan for our family Then on February 12th we received this email: Hi Eric and Aimee, I am so excited to send this to you. Attached you will find Peter’s file. Take your time to review his file. I will touch base with you this afternoon to talk about next steps. Praying for you! YES!!!!