Well that was unexpected.

Ahhh, the adoption roller coaster ride. It's captivating really. It's filled with climbs, sudden drops, and twists and turns that are completed unexpected.

True to a real roller coaster ride sometimes it's thrilling, and sometimes you want to spew all over the person in front of you.

Yesterday I was minding my own business on another agency's Yaho* group. Ok, since it's not actually our agency I guess I was minding their business

but I digress..

This is the same agency that just returned from Joey's orphanage.

Well on this agency's site there was some chatter about a different agency that had also just returned from Joey's orphanage holding a camp of their own.

A little background for you. All orphans in Ch*na are now listed on what is called the shared list. This list is accessible to every accredited agency and no one child is assigned to a specific agency. Thus, when you find your child, your agency can log on and submit your application/information for that child. (This is obviously the easy explanation of this process, it's obviously more involved but you get the picture.)

This new system of having all of the children on the shared list is a new one. It used to be(until about 3 months ago) that the Ch*na Center for Adoption Affairs(CCdoubleA) used to assign a group of kids to each agency for them to advocate for and find homes for them. They divied them up if you will.

This agency specific old way of doing things had it's good points but it also had it drawbacks. If you found a child that you fell in love with on a different agency's site other than your own, you were either forced to switch agencies(lots of $$ lost) or more than likely, move on to find a different child. Which is sad not only for the parents, but also is another missed opportunity for that child to have a family.

With the new system in place everyone has equal access to all children so in that respect, it's better.

The only exception to this, "every kid is on the shared list" rule is when an agency travels to Ch*na and conducts a "camp" at a specific orphanage. These camps are fantastic. The staff is given the opportunity over a few days to meet each of the children that are part of their camp, interview them, video tape them, take gazzillions of photos, etc. They then come home armed with so much more info on these kiddos than a typical referral file would give you. As you can well imagine, this makes it much easier to find families for them. The more info a prospective adoptive couple has on a child, the more likely they are to move forward.

And now the rest of the story...

As I mentioned before, a different agency other than our own had just conducted a camp at Joey's orphanage and as it turned out so did another agency(again not ours) directly after them. Each of these two agencies now have a list of children from Joey's orphanage that they are advocating for.

So yesterday when I was minding their business I heard about agency #2. An agency I had never even heard of. I goggled them. And up pops their blog from the trip with more photos of Joey's orphanage.

And a link.

A link to their group of kiddos from the camp. There was a group of about 10 kids, mostly boys ages 5-8.

I was clicking through each of the names listed where a photo would come up and a brief description on each child.

So there I was. Sitting there wondering how I could figure out a way to bring them all home

I was about 3/4 of the way down the list

and then it happened.

I clicked on a name

and there

he

was

Kiddo #2 that we had fallen in love with months ago now listed under a different American name.

The same one that disappeared from the shared list.

The same one that we thought and were told had found a home.

Can I tell ya, I almost fell off of my chair when I saw that sweet face staring back at me.

He was pulled off of the shared list because he is now assigned specifically to this agency because he was part of their camp they held last week. He does not yet have a family.

In his small description next to his photo they described him as funny, friendly and easy going and that

he

is

best

friends

with

his

foster

brother.

Ummm. Hello.

I immediately sent an email to that agency asking for more information and asking if they could tell me the name of his foster brother.

And they did. And it's Joey.

Ok, just kidding. That is actually what happened in my dream.

In reality, I sent that email late Friday afternoon not expecting to hear back until next week but they did reply with some more info about him but saying that they did not have any information on his foster brother because his brother was not part of the camp.

Further, on his "interview notes" that they sent me with his information...and I'm not making this up..this is a direct quote...the staff person that talked to him made the following notations on his form:

-swimming pool
-best friends with foster brother
-fishing
-wants a brother
-toys
-likes math
-in foster care with foster siblings


Wow.

Speechless really. This is more info than we had about him months ago when all we knew is that he is the same age as Joey and is in the same orphanage also living in foster care.

What are the odds? Well I don't know. He is indeed a needle in a very, very VERY large haystack. Could they be together? Yes. Could they not be together and his foster brother is someone else? Absolutely.

Is God up to something one way or another? Bet your booty He is. And boy oh boy I can't wait to find out how this ride ends.

*In case you were wondering, I am still trying to find out who Joey lives with and I am hopeful that answer will come sometime next week. If it is indeed this child that has found us again, then we do have some options as far as getting his file transferred into our agency. Both agency's and the CCdoubleA would have to agree, it'd be more time, more $$, more unknown but He never said it would be easy.

He just promised He would be faithful to see us through.

And that, my friends, is enough for me.