A Little Girl Named "Christabel"

November 2011.  I traveled for work that week, and returned to parent-teacher conferences.  I decided to work from home, and while waiting to jump on a conference call, I jumped on www.rainbowkids.com.  I don’t know what possessed me to look at waiting children.  I rarely looked at the site, and honestly, had completely forgotten that this site even existed.  By the time November rolled around, we had been officially waiting in WACAP’s Ethiopia program for 4 months, but our dossier had been submitted before our official USCIS approval date.

I logged on, and began a quick search for “African” children under 6 years of age.  I couldn’t believe it.  There, on a waiting child list, sat two beautiful 2-3 year old girls, and several 3-5 year old boys.  I yelled to Doug, “you gotta see her!”  I kind of put my conference call on hold while I hurriedly phoned the agency listed on the site.  The children were from on orphanage in the Lake Volta region of Ghana.  Ghana.  The country that we had considered, and weighed, and decided against. 

We had to act fast.  They were getting a lot of calls about the children, and we knew we had to move quickly.  We went out to eat as a family and discuss.  By 10pm that night, we had scanned a copy of our application fee check, and emailed the application.  The next day, we were matched with the young girl.  She had personality.  She had spunk. You could see it in her picture, and in the pictures that followed when we requested her information.  The process was, well, rather unconventional.  Even though we were “matched,” we were still waiting for her medical report. 

Months passed, and we waited.

To be continued….