Big Step

This whole journey has been a learning process for me. Not only am I becoming very familiar with the paperwork and red tape associated with international adoption but I am learning in small ways more about God and what it looks like to trust Him daily.

We turned in a huge part of our home-study the other night. The information on this particular paper has been prayed over and discussed at length. Just turning it in was huge step of surrender for me. The paperwork I am speaking of is a special needs chart required by India concerning a waiting child adoption. The two page paper consists of a list of needs with spaces where we have to indicate which needs we feel our family can accept. Talk about heart-wrenching. Just the thought of saying no to needs makes me think of some child in India who will remain orphaned. Shew. Thankfully I have a rational half...my handsome hubby who sat down with me and helped me talk and pray through the separate needs. In the end there were some needs we had to say no to, especially considering the rural area in which we live and the resources at our disposal. Even now as I write this my heart feels heavy and every time I think of that chart I have to offer up a prayer of surrender to the Lord. In the end I know that nothing will stand in the way of what God desires for our family. This was a huge step for us and gets us even closer to bringing our daughter home.

Our small family continues to covet your prayers because behind the piles of paperwork and months of waiting there is a little girl somewhere in India who is without a family. My heart yearns for the day when I can hold her and tell her the story of how she came to us and how our great God wove this family together. There are days this mother's heart aches but praise God that he is using this period to refine my faith and  hopefully to show others the amazing love and faithfulness of a personal God. We are one more step closer to meeting our precious daughter.

Movin' Right Along

I am SO thrilled and relieved to say that we have finished the final visit of our home study. This past Monday afternoon our social worker came to our house to complete the home visit, which is basically a home inspection to show that our place is suitable for a child. Honestly this visit has had me incredibly stressed out. I knew our social worker was not coming in to see how clean my home was but I couldn't help from cleaning the house from top to bottom. It turns out that the visit was not even close to as thorough as I expected. It didn't hurt that our social worker is very laid back and continues to make us feel at ease every time we see him.

The home inspection just consisted of our social worker checking to make sure things were childproof, that we have working smoke detectors, a first aid kit, a fire extinguisher etc. He also wanted to check out the rooms of our house to make sure we had space for another child. We also sat down and answered a number of questions and went over what paperwork we have left to complete. Our worker was encouraging when he commented on how quickly we have been able to put together our paperwork. However in my mind this paperwork has seemed like a never ending process.

Now that the home visit is over and done with we only have a few more pieces of paperwork to turn in. By the end of this week we should only have two more small requirements to meet. I'm hoping and praying that we can have our paperwork complete by the end of June or beginning of July. Our social worker already told us that he is beginning to write out our home study so once those final pieces are in place we should be golden!!

Here is a short breakdown of where we go from here:
1.  Social worker writes 14 page home study.
2. The home study is then sent to AWAA to review. Once it is approved our social worker will then get the paper notarized.
3. Once the homestudy is notarized we will get it back along with numerous copies.
4.  Jon and I will then begin USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) paperwork and fingerprinting. All that paperwork is crucial because it will allow us to bring our daughter into the United States. Once the paperwork is filled out and sent in the review process takes 1.5-2.5 months.
5. During the wait for USCIS approval we will be compiling everything needed for our dossier.

Shew. Any questions?!?

Short Update

Friends and Family,

God continues to bless us far beyond anything we deserve and we are incredibly grateful. We are just past the 10% mark for our fundraising and for us that is a HUGE deal. Aside from money that Jon and I have poured into bringing our sweet daughter home, in a little less than 3 months we have raised over $4,000. Praise God!! This doesn't even count local fundraisers we hope to push in the coming months and adoption grants we can apply for once our home-study is complete.

As far as the home-study goes we are very close to completion. We have covered most of the costs associated with that portion of our journey. In the next month or two, once our home-study is written and completed, we will then have to submit a USCIS application and get our fingerprints taken. That process will cost close to $900. Yikes. Then once our dossier is complete we have over $6,000 we will need to pay to our agency for numerous expenses, including an international program fee, and second program fee. We have some money funneled away for those expenses but we don't have the full amount so I'm planning on working extra shifts in addition to praying for God's provision. He has yet to withhold anything we need so we are trusting His continued faithfulness. It's funny. I know we have some big expenses coming but God has proved himself so much in only a matter of months I can hardly find reason to doubt his love and care for our daughter as well as for our small family. Keep those prayers coming. Not every moment is filled with faith, trust and complete reliance on the Lord but we desire to honor Him through this whole process. He is growing us and I believe even now preparing us for our daughter.

Our final required meeting with our social worker takes place on Monday. Woohoo! He will come to our house for our home visit (home inspection). I'll have more to share once that takes place. Until then...you will find me frantically cleaning. ;-) More updates to come soon!

Mother's Day Thoughts

(I know this is a few days late but it took a little while to put my thoughts into words.)

As I celebrate the blessing of a godly mother in my own life I can't help but thank the Lord for the blessing of the sweet son he has granted to me and my husband. I love the craziness of our life. I love that my son runs to me when he needs a kiss or a hug to make everything better. I wouldn't trade the stress and lack of sleep for anything.

However, as I am reminded of God's great goodness through the blessing of my little boy I can't help but feel an ache in my heart on a day like Mother's Day. Our sweet family is separated from our daughter who is somewhere halfway across the world. My heart aches for her birth mother and whatever decisions and life experiences led her to surrender her daughter. Why must this world be so broken that families are torn apart? Why are there hundreds of thousands of orphans around the world? When my head begins to swirl with questions I remember that this isn't how things were intended. Although my desire for years has been to bring our daughter home from India the circumstances that led up to this point were not what God originally designed for his creation.

When He spoke this world into being there was no separation. There were no empty arms or aching hearts. But now everything is a mess. Sickness and death, prejudice and hate, loneliness and separation invade the cracks and crevices of this entire world and we all feel it. Aside from the fact that my children are already broken by sin they will also have to endure the brokenness of this world. One of my children already knows this reality too well. All I can think to do today is pray that the Lord can use our family to be a part of the healing process. May we in some small way live out the life giving, sin crushing, hope restoring, joy inducing, powerful reality of the Gospel.

There will be a day when the hugs and kisses won't just make the boo-boos go away so with that in mind I need to point my children to the One who brings complete healing and comfort. May this adoption journey be a reminder to those looking on that Christ came to restore a broken world. He came to undo all that sin had ravaged. Let us live lives that continually point to the One who has given everything so that we might become sons and daughters of God. Let us address the brokenness of the world head on and display the grace and love that we have been given. Let us love not with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Interviews Complete

Yesterday we met with our social worker for the second time. We handed over a stack of completed paperwork (woohoo!) and then sat down for a two hour interview process. Shew. I didn't really know what to expect with the interviews but they weren't bad at all. Jon and I recently turned in our autobiographies and our social worker just spent time clarifying a few things and asked a handful of other questions. Our next meeting will take place the second week of June, which feels painfully far away. However we have a few things we need to get in order prior to that visit.

The meeting in June will be our actual home-study. During that visit our social worker will complete a home safety inspection. He told me that visit should only take about 45 minutes. According to our social worker that meeting will be our last required meeting. How crazy is that?!? I'm assuming we may need to sit down with him one more time to discuss in detail our plans concerning special needs. We still need to talk with him and share what research we have completed and what needs we feel able to take on. Researching needs, praying and talking through what we feel God's calling for our family may be has been difficult to say the least. It's heartbreaking to know that there are needs we feel unable to meet. However we know that as we pray and seek the Lord he will lead us to the exact child he has for us. That day seems so far away!

So, as you can see we are slowly checking off our long to-do list. Honestly it feels unending. As soon as we accomplish one thing there are ten more papers we need to compile. We need continued prayers dear friends. Here are some requests you can lift up in the coming days and weeks.

Prayer Requests:

#1- Prayer for continued perseverance with trainings (we have 10 hours of Hague training to complete), paperwork and document collecting. This process is long and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. We need to continue to stay on top of this paperwork.

#2- Continued prayer for financial contributions. There are some fairly costly items we need to take care of in order to complete our home-study. Once our home-study is complete we can begin to apply for grants but until then we are on our own. Praise God that has been so faithful thus far. Pray that He will continue to provide and that we would rest in His perfect timing.

#3- Please pray that we would have discernment as we make decisions concerning special needs. We are open to quite a few things right now however there are some we still need to research and pray over. 

#4- Pray for our daughter. Pray for her safety. Pray for her heart, that deep down she would know she has a family coming to get her.

Thank you all for the continued prayers. God is moving mountains and bringing us step by step closer to our daughter. We could not be more grateful!

Words of Encouragement

 I wanted to share a short devotion from John Piper that served to bring me encouragement yesterday. Hopefully it does the same for you.

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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

God’s mercies are new every morning because each day only has enough mercy in it for that day.

This is why we tend to despair when we think that we may have to bear tomorrow’s load on today’s resources. God wants us to know: We won’t. Today’s mercies are for today’s troubles. Tomorrow’s mercies are for tomorrow’s troubles.

Sometimes we wonder if we will have the mercy to stand in terrible testing. Yes, we will. Peter says, “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14). When the reviling comes the Spirit of glory comes. It happened for Stephen as he was being stoned. It will happen for you. When the Spirit and the glory are needed they will come.

The manna in the wilderness was given one day at a time. There was no storing up. That is the way we must depend on God’s mercy. You do not receive today the strength to bear tomorrow’s burdens. You are given mercies today for today’s troubles.

Tomorrow the mercies will be new. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9).

Home-study Orientation

Well we are now officially in the midst of our home-study. For some funny reason the home-study has always made me feel a bit nervous but after meeting our social worker (sw) Monday morning I feel completely at ease. He is super personable and what was supposed to be an hour long meeting was more like an hour long conversation. We talked about our mutual love of the San Francisco Bay area as well as the all important paperwork we need to complete as part of our home-study.

Once we got down to business our sw gave us a large 3-ring binder containing more paperwork (shocker...) but also a ton of helpful information. Before I explain what this process will look like for us let me first say that home-studies will look different for each state and will even be influenced by the specific country a family is adopting from. No two home-studies are exactly alike which can be a bit frustrating when it comes to finding answers to the numerous questions a first time adoptive parent may have during this process.

Anyway, our social worker walked us through the paperwork we need to compile (copies of birth certificates, marriage license, physical exams, police clearance, financial statements, employee verification letters, autobiographies, online trainings, reading lists etc). Our next meeting with our worker will take place April 29th and will consist of a number of interviews, one with Jon, one with me and then one with the two of us together. Those interviews will count as our next two meetings. The final meeting will serve as our actual home-study where our social worker will come to our house and make sure it meets safety requirements to house a second child.

Once all of those meetings are complete our social worker will condense all of the home-study information into a 14 page document which will be submitted as part of our dossier. Apparently 20+ pages is the norm but India specified that any home-study submitted to them only be 14 pages long. There are more steps before submitting our home-study but to be quite honest I'm not entirely sure what that will look like quite yet.

All in all the meeting was incredibly encouraging. In the course of the hour and a half our worker had some nice things to say about America World. He mentioned that he has worked with numerous agencies and America World is by far one of the best he has ever worked with. We continue to hear stellar reviews and comments from people concerning their experiences with AWAA. What a beautiful reminder of God's calling and leading. He certainly brought us to the right organization.