Hello again! Here's a quick update. After about 3 or 4 weeks we have finally gotten some fresh "situations." Also, the baby from Alabama has found an adoptive family. Blessings to him:)
Here are the stats:
Male, 18 months
Florida
Some vision impairment, some special needs
Foster care, legally free for adoption
Male, 12 months
Florida
Some physical impairments
Foster care, legally free for adoption
Both these boys' case workers will be viewing our home study (not our profile)
Please pray that if one of these is ours that the Lord would show us and prepare us. The special needs of both are unspecified, we are trying to find out more about them. When we first began making plans to adopt, we wanted to do foster adoption, but were told that the age we were seeking was really almost impossible to find!! So it's interesting that God has brought this to our attention. Either way, these little boys have been in foster care way too long, and need to find loving homes. Please pray that they would find their way to forever homes soon!
Also, it would seem that God is telling us we most likely will end up with a boy (that's almost all we've seen come through so far!!) So, YAY!!!
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Wild Olive Tees Adoption Fundraiser
Hey Folks!
This will be brief, I just wanted to explain that new button to the right---->
This is a fundraiser for our adoption. Here's how it works. You click on that button that says Help Bring Our Child Home, and it will bring you to the Wild Olive Tees website. You will have a few different T-Shirts to choose from, and when you check out, make sure you enter our family code in the coupon code box CHURCH0715, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale will go to our adoption! They are very stylish t-shirts, and I am going to order one soon! Please let me know if you have any questions!
This will be brief, I just wanted to explain that new button to the right---->
This is a fundraiser for our adoption. Here's how it works. You click on that button that says Help Bring Our Child Home, and it will bring you to the Wild Olive Tees website. You will have a few different T-Shirts to choose from, and when you check out, make sure you enter our family code in the coupon code box CHURCH0715, and a portion of the proceeds from the sale will go to our adoption! They are very stylish t-shirts, and I am going to order one soon! Please let me know if you have any questions!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Gratitude
First off, let me take care of the essentials...I should wait and tack them on at the end, so you read this whole entry, but I realize time is a precious commodity! So here we go...there is really nothing new going on with our adoption in regards to an actual child. We're still waiting to hear a final yes or no, on both situations. We haven't had a drop of information in about a week or more, so sorry, no good or bad news on that front.
What is new, is that our home study is now officially paid off!!! There is a long, boring story about why it has been such a big ordeal...taxes, vans, government shutdowns etc...but we are very grateful to have gotten that burden off of our backs!! Because of this, I will now be able to apply for two more adoption grants and one loan! This will make a total of three grants that we will be praying about. If we just happened to get them ALL we would be done (well, almost) fundraising! I'm really beginning to loathe that word:)
Something else new...I totally re-worked our profile book. I decided I wanted it to be more visually pleasing, but had no idea how to go about "making it pretty" since I am not a "scrapbooker" and most of my photos are in electronic form anyway (I do realize it would take significantly less magic than is possessed by a fairy godmother to transform them into paper but that's beside the point.) Anyway, the problem with making a "photo book" which you can find easily, is that they cost one whole arm to make, and then if you multiply that by 20 (that's how many books we will need!!!) you quickly run out of limbs. I, being the dogged pursuer of all things cheaper, kept searching until I found a website that allows you to only order the pages...cutting the end cost in half! Now, I do not want any of you to tell me that I could have gone to any photo website to do this, I just don't want to hear that, if that is the case, which I'm sure it isn't...
So, the official, paper version of our profile book should be done soon! Whether or not we will actually need it remains to be seen.
While I'm thinking of it, thanks so much for reading these posts, and for your comments! For some reason I can't reply with a comment of my own, but I love getting your feedback. It means a lot!
Ok, now to more gratitude...
I just want to thank God, in writing, for allowing us the privilege to be in the process of adoption. It is exciting, painful, risky and worth it. You become privy to information you wouldn't otherwise get, about children, birth parents, even birth grandparents. It allows us to pray and love these folks in a more vivid, passionate way, because these are real-life events, taking place now! I love being able to make informed petitions before the great throne of Grace. Also, I want to thank those who have sacrificed to further our cause. Some of you have spent hours and hours, even days to help out with raising funds. I will never, ever forget this. It is humbling and it is precious to us and you know who you are (all of you's.) Some of you have sacrificed time in creating, for Small Steps. Thank you, you have done a beautiful job, and I do believe there is a future for Small Steps beyond our adoption!!
And some of you have sacrificed in the form of dollars. The Lord has chosen to use people who are wealthy in love and kindness, not necessarily in a material way, to fuel this adoption, and we are so grateful. Another one of those ways in which God amazes us...I mean, seriously, aren't there enough rich people in the world, couldn't one of them just cover the cost easily in one fell swoop? But God has taken threads, small and large, thick and thin, to weave this tapestry of love. He is still weaving, and taking His time about it, but who are we that we should question our great and merciful Weaver? He alone knows the pattern, and perhaps the most precious and beautiful material is that which was gathered from the smallest store.
I love that God doesn't just take one of us that He's finished with and make photocopies of that one original. He takes the time to whittle away each rough edge, lovingly refining and sometimes replacing, to perfect each human "thrift store find." Taking each imperfect, highly flawed and sometimes contrary find, and transforming them into pure, Christ-like perfection. He adopts us into His family, and then raises us up to be and "look" just like His Son...Jesus. What a great God we serve, for He has not "left us as orphans" (John 13:18.) And let me just quote one more verse, because this really sums up where most of us that are Christ-followers, are "Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14.
So, I/we continue to prayerfully run the race, to answer that upward call. Interspersed in this long marathon are many smaller races, one of which is this adoption. It's not easy, practical or predictable. But each day God has given me the strength to pull through a few more miles. With His grace, we will continue to the happy end of adoption, which is new baby Church. May He bless you in your race, wherever you are. "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle." I am surrounded by warriors. I'm praying for you friends.
And mama is praying for you, baby Church. We miss you, even though we've never met you. We love you more than words can say. XOXOXO to infinity, you precious child.
P.S. Lu is much better this week...eating, speaking and smiling. It's nice to have "her" back!
**Recent News**
We just heard from our case worker that the FL situation is pretty much finished. The birth mom is refusing the make an adoption plan (really, after all this??) but she will not be granted custody of the child, so he could end up in foster care. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us, but we have to accept what is.
What is new, is that our home study is now officially paid off!!! There is a long, boring story about why it has been such a big ordeal...taxes, vans, government shutdowns etc...but we are very grateful to have gotten that burden off of our backs!! Because of this, I will now be able to apply for two more adoption grants and one loan! This will make a total of three grants that we will be praying about. If we just happened to get them ALL we would be done (well, almost) fundraising! I'm really beginning to loathe that word:)
Something else new...I totally re-worked our profile book. I decided I wanted it to be more visually pleasing, but had no idea how to go about "making it pretty" since I am not a "scrapbooker" and most of my photos are in electronic form anyway (I do realize it would take significantly less magic than is possessed by a fairy godmother to transform them into paper but that's beside the point.) Anyway, the problem with making a "photo book" which you can find easily, is that they cost one whole arm to make, and then if you multiply that by 20 (that's how many books we will need!!!) you quickly run out of limbs. I, being the dogged pursuer of all things cheaper, kept searching until I found a website that allows you to only order the pages...cutting the end cost in half! Now, I do not want any of you to tell me that I could have gone to any photo website to do this, I just don't want to hear that, if that is the case, which I'm sure it isn't...
So, the official, paper version of our profile book should be done soon! Whether or not we will actually need it remains to be seen.
While I'm thinking of it, thanks so much for reading these posts, and for your comments! For some reason I can't reply with a comment of my own, but I love getting your feedback. It means a lot!
Ok, now to more gratitude...
I just want to thank God, in writing, for allowing us the privilege to be in the process of adoption. It is exciting, painful, risky and worth it. You become privy to information you wouldn't otherwise get, about children, birth parents, even birth grandparents. It allows us to pray and love these folks in a more vivid, passionate way, because these are real-life events, taking place now! I love being able to make informed petitions before the great throne of Grace. Also, I want to thank those who have sacrificed to further our cause. Some of you have spent hours and hours, even days to help out with raising funds. I will never, ever forget this. It is humbling and it is precious to us and you know who you are (all of you's.) Some of you have sacrificed time in creating, for Small Steps. Thank you, you have done a beautiful job, and I do believe there is a future for Small Steps beyond our adoption!!
And some of you have sacrificed in the form of dollars. The Lord has chosen to use people who are wealthy in love and kindness, not necessarily in a material way, to fuel this adoption, and we are so grateful. Another one of those ways in which God amazes us...I mean, seriously, aren't there enough rich people in the world, couldn't one of them just cover the cost easily in one fell swoop? But God has taken threads, small and large, thick and thin, to weave this tapestry of love. He is still weaving, and taking His time about it, but who are we that we should question our great and merciful Weaver? He alone knows the pattern, and perhaps the most precious and beautiful material is that which was gathered from the smallest store.
I love that God doesn't just take one of us that He's finished with and make photocopies of that one original. He takes the time to whittle away each rough edge, lovingly refining and sometimes replacing, to perfect each human "thrift store find." Taking each imperfect, highly flawed and sometimes contrary find, and transforming them into pure, Christ-like perfection. He adopts us into His family, and then raises us up to be and "look" just like His Son...Jesus. What a great God we serve, for He has not "left us as orphans" (John 13:18.) And let me just quote one more verse, because this really sums up where most of us that are Christ-followers, are "Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14.
So, I/we continue to prayerfully run the race, to answer that upward call. Interspersed in this long marathon are many smaller races, one of which is this adoption. It's not easy, practical or predictable. But each day God has given me the strength to pull through a few more miles. With His grace, we will continue to the happy end of adoption, which is new baby Church. May He bless you in your race, wherever you are. "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle." I am surrounded by warriors. I'm praying for you friends.
And mama is praying for you, baby Church. We miss you, even though we've never met you. We love you more than words can say. XOXOXO to infinity, you precious child.
P.S. Lu is much better this week...eating, speaking and smiling. It's nice to have "her" back!
**Recent News**
We just heard from our case worker that the FL situation is pretty much finished. The birth mom is refusing the make an adoption plan (really, after all this??) but she will not be granted custody of the child, so he could end up in foster care. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us, but we have to accept what is.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Disappointment
This is a concept that we don't grasp early on in life. At least, I didn't. Life was exciting, fresh and new! The possibilities were endless and everything was interesting and thrilling. But as the years passed, and the tenderness of youth became hardened by many new experiences, where the build-up to an event didn't always match the event itself. And pretty soon, some things just weren't exciting anymore, because of the expected outcome of disappointment.
You would think that I would take these lessons and apply them to all aspects of adulthood. But, as a hopeful adoptive parent, I can't help but let my heart and imagination soar upon receiving an email saying that a particular agency wants to show our profile to a birth mom. We imagine what it would be like to have that child or children in the family, what all the kids would be like playing together, or smooshed in the back of the car, in their various car seats. The little faces, chubby, dimpled hands, voices...all a sweet dream. And then, in another electronically delivered message, spanning a few words or sentences, that dream is smashed like a bug on a window. And sometimes it takes a bit of "scrubbing" before I can get it off my mind, and off of my heart. No one means to hurt adoptive parents, and what really matters, in any of these situations, is the child and that he or she goes to the right home. However, there is pain, there is disappointment. And often, these feelings unexpressed or inexpressible, as it is so unique to the world of adoptive parents.
This has been a hard week for us. A dear friend was severely injured on Sunday evening. It is so hard to see this family we know and love suffer so immensely. It makes life uncomfortable, for everyone involved. Then, on Monday, my precious little girl suffered her own injury. It's painful, bloody and makes life very awkward and difficult for her. There again, as her mom, I have that uncomfortable feeling...all is not right, not even close, in our world. You know the feeling when you see an open wound? Slightly nauseated, your muscles get tense, and sore. Well, that's how I've felt all week. And I hate to sound like I'm having a pity party for myself, but other strands of difficulty and hardship are woven through what I have just mentioned that make these trials just a bit more difficult to bear. And now today, I have gotten word from my case worker that the FL birth mom has still not decided whether to place or not, but wants to see other family's profiles. We are still not officially out of the running, but this unexpected turn of events, in a situation that has been fraught with the unexpected, shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. Now we add rejection to all the other negative emotions, to land us in a pretty tough place. At this point, a definite no would be better. We're still chasing that dangling carrot, albeit quite a bit slower, and with faint hearts.
We, as humans, organize information is a finite way, meaning we have a limited means of understanding what is happening to us and around us. We can only hold, store and process a certain amount of the vastness that is out there in our world. I most likely will never know or understand all of the purpose behind disappointment. But I don't think it's to render us emotionless, so we never get excited or feel expectant joy! But perhaps, it's to re-direct us to the most exciting, most thrilling and fulfilling event that will ever happen. Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." Pain ends, sorrow ends, crying is no more. We will be united with our Heavenly Father forever and He will be everything we needed, wanted and expected Him to be and infinitely more. Those who know Him long for this glorious family reunion!
We hope and pray for better times soon. The Lord is teaching us to rely more fully and joyfully on Him. Apparently, we're not very fast learners. We seem to rocket from one trial to the next, most so personal, no one but us would ever know. We are tempted to question and get bitter. That's when we need to bury ourselves in God. Thinking, reading and learning about who He is erases our need for relief from earthly sorrows, because it makes them seem so temporary, like vapors.
As far as any other prospective situations for us, there is one. A baby boy, due in August in Alabama. We had to cap what we could do as far as placement fee, so they may reject that. We'll see what doors God closes or opens in this matter. If you would, please pray for this baby too. There is risk in this situation medically as well as from a sketchy birth father.
And to my little dream baby out there...Mama sends her love to you!!
"I hear the Savior say 'Thy strength indeed is small
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.'"
~From the hymn "Jesus Paid It All"
You would think that I would take these lessons and apply them to all aspects of adulthood. But, as a hopeful adoptive parent, I can't help but let my heart and imagination soar upon receiving an email saying that a particular agency wants to show our profile to a birth mom. We imagine what it would be like to have that child or children in the family, what all the kids would be like playing together, or smooshed in the back of the car, in their various car seats. The little faces, chubby, dimpled hands, voices...all a sweet dream. And then, in another electronically delivered message, spanning a few words or sentences, that dream is smashed like a bug on a window. And sometimes it takes a bit of "scrubbing" before I can get it off my mind, and off of my heart. No one means to hurt adoptive parents, and what really matters, in any of these situations, is the child and that he or she goes to the right home. However, there is pain, there is disappointment. And often, these feelings unexpressed or inexpressible, as it is so unique to the world of adoptive parents.
This has been a hard week for us. A dear friend was severely injured on Sunday evening. It is so hard to see this family we know and love suffer so immensely. It makes life uncomfortable, for everyone involved. Then, on Monday, my precious little girl suffered her own injury. It's painful, bloody and makes life very awkward and difficult for her. There again, as her mom, I have that uncomfortable feeling...all is not right, not even close, in our world. You know the feeling when you see an open wound? Slightly nauseated, your muscles get tense, and sore. Well, that's how I've felt all week. And I hate to sound like I'm having a pity party for myself, but other strands of difficulty and hardship are woven through what I have just mentioned that make these trials just a bit more difficult to bear. And now today, I have gotten word from my case worker that the FL birth mom has still not decided whether to place or not, but wants to see other family's profiles. We are still not officially out of the running, but this unexpected turn of events, in a situation that has been fraught with the unexpected, shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. Now we add rejection to all the other negative emotions, to land us in a pretty tough place. At this point, a definite no would be better. We're still chasing that dangling carrot, albeit quite a bit slower, and with faint hearts.
We, as humans, organize information is a finite way, meaning we have a limited means of understanding what is happening to us and around us. We can only hold, store and process a certain amount of the vastness that is out there in our world. I most likely will never know or understand all of the purpose behind disappointment. But I don't think it's to render us emotionless, so we never get excited or feel expectant joy! But perhaps, it's to re-direct us to the most exciting, most thrilling and fulfilling event that will ever happen. Revelation 21:4 "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." Pain ends, sorrow ends, crying is no more. We will be united with our Heavenly Father forever and He will be everything we needed, wanted and expected Him to be and infinitely more. Those who know Him long for this glorious family reunion!
We hope and pray for better times soon. The Lord is teaching us to rely more fully and joyfully on Him. Apparently, we're not very fast learners. We seem to rocket from one trial to the next, most so personal, no one but us would ever know. We are tempted to question and get bitter. That's when we need to bury ourselves in God. Thinking, reading and learning about who He is erases our need for relief from earthly sorrows, because it makes them seem so temporary, like vapors.
As far as any other prospective situations for us, there is one. A baby boy, due in August in Alabama. We had to cap what we could do as far as placement fee, so they may reject that. We'll see what doors God closes or opens in this matter. If you would, please pray for this baby too. There is risk in this situation medically as well as from a sketchy birth father.
And to my little dream baby out there...Mama sends her love to you!!
"I hear the Savior say 'Thy strength indeed is small
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.'"
~From the hymn "Jesus Paid It All"
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