The Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival??  Sometimes I think it's better not to ask.  I am sure they feel the same way about our President's Day or Martin Luther King Day.  But, since I mentioned it, I feel compelled to tell you about The Dragon Boat Festival.  I compared it to two of our holidays because in China, The Dragon Boat Festival is a vacation day.

This festival falls on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. Along with Dragon Boat Races, customs on this day include eating zongzi (rice wrapped in leaves) and hanging "fragrant
pouches" of cloth wrapped with colored silk threads.

The festival has its roots in ancient Chinese history. Qu Yuan,
China's first great poet, lived at a time when various parts of
China were at war with each other. Qu Yuan tried to provide advice to
help his government. But, as legend has it, the king did not appreciate
his advice, and with evil men twisting his words and making his
situation worse, Qu Yuan was exiled from his homeland. When his homeland
fell into enemy hands, his despair grew so deep that he threw himself
into the Miluo River (in today's Hunan province of China) on the 5th
day of the 5th lunar month. The people of his village raced to the
river to save him in their dragon boats, but were too late. They later
threw rice in the river as a sacrifice to him. Afraid that the fish
would eat the rice, they began wrapping it in reed leaves and wound silk
threads around the packets before dropping them into the river. Dragon
Boat Races were held each anniversary in commemoration of Qu Yuan.
Today, many cities around the world now hold Dragon Boat Races on nearby
rivers as a fun summer-time event.

You learn something new everyday!  And, if you don't, you should!

I am not sure if their holiday affected us or not, but for the sake of my sanity, I am going to say it did!  It makes me feel better!  Why?  Because today, as it has been for almost a week now, we received no news!  Zero!  Zip!! Zilch!

I am going to take the liberty of telling you about our decision.  It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right??

Last Tuesday, after receiving counsel from the CEO of our agency and a lady from our church with lots of experience with adoption (8 adopted children), we have decided to ask for a new referral.  That was an option from 'the powers that be' in China.  Our agency said it could take 1-3 months for the legal system to get the foster parents to return her to the orphanage.  The CEO then told us that that was a conservative estimate.  It would be more like 6-12 months with no guarantee of the outcome.  

We want to provide a home for a child who doesn't have one.  She is obviously loved so much that her 'parents' are willing to defy their communist government to keep her.  It is my hope and prayer,  that if that home is the best place for her, that she would be able to stay.

As hard as it was for us to make that decision, there is another part or us that has a perfect peace.  Before you think too highly of us, you should know that at least once a day, we want to hurt someone... bad!!  It usually happens between 10:30 am and noon.  It's that time frame because if we are going to hear news, that's when we will hear it.  After the anger subsides, we are back to trusting God and being so excited about the little girl he picked out for us before time began.

We were told that our referral would be expedited.  Clearly, expedited for me does not mean the same thing to them.  If it did, we would have a new picture of a beautiful little girl to show you and we would be leaving for China SOON!!

So, please pray, for the sake of our sanity, that it would be the will of the good Lord to resolve this issue.  Pray that the letter we had to write gets into the hands of the right people.  Pray that they would feel compelled to issue this referral soon.  Pray for a lady in the US who is communicating with them on behalf of us and our agency.  (She is Chinese and knows the system and the right approach.)

I'll let you know!!!