The Big Change

We went in for our first one on one meeting and after talking to the director there we decided to change from an international adoption to a local one. The process is so much more simple and after explaining that our reason for wanting to adopt was to provide a home for a child that does not have one and the fact that there are 100,000 children in foster care in California. we decided to go that direction. We are so excited! Right now we are still working on paper work but we are close to being done already, then we have a few classes to attend and some meetings with a social worker. Then they put together our homestudy and we get certified to be foster parents. At that point they can start placing us with a child. We can still say yes or no at this point and when we decided to say yes the child comes to live with us right away. Then there is a small period of time where we will be fostering and then the adoption will be finalized and we will have a new addition to our family. We think that it would be around Febuary that we could start getting placed with a child but we are not sure yet. It is still to early to really be able to put dates on it. We have been busy writing what they call a self study. It is about 9 pages long and it is a bunch of questions about us. I think that both of us are about maybe a third of the way through. It has been a real realization that we are "having a baby". We have to think that way, like thinking of names, getting clothes and stuff but at the same time we do not know how old the baby will be yet so we have to wait on some things. It is a very different feeling and we are all just still getting used to the whole thing ourselves.

The kids understand

The other day my daughter said that she is going to play peek-a-boo with the new baby. And my son said to me " when we get a baby that means that we are going to have a two year old again" He said that it would be okey because the baby would not like Dora because it will be a boy. I cannot believe that they understand the whole thing so well. I know that it will be an adjustment when the baby actually lives with us but for now they are very excited and looking forward to having a new baby in our family.

First Class

We went the other night to our first class. The man teaching the class has 13 children. More then half of them are adopted. We got a lot of information, we met a couple that did a lot in YWAM, and we discovered that the paperwork that we thought we were getting a handle on just got a lot more complicated. We have to just take it one thing at a time and we will get through it. Today my daughter said that she is going to play peek a boo with our new baby. We are so excited and trying not to be to excited at the same time because it is going to be a long time before we have our baby home. God give us patience and the endurance to get through all the work.

The Beginning

I want to have a place where I can document our journey as we adopt our next child. I want to be able to look back and see how God as taken us through this and answered our prayers because I know there will be a lot of that.

After a lot of prayer and conversations Levi and I decided to start the adoption process. It is something that we have talked about a lot since getting married and I have thought of it even before I was married. We felt like we have more to give and that there are a lot of kids without a home or anybody to love them.

So, on July 28th of 2006 we sent off our application to Carolina Hope Adoption Agency. Since then we have been gathering paperwork and getting everything together that we need. We are still working on that and have a lot more to get together. Tonight is our first class for the homestudy where they are going to check us out and make sure that we are fit to adopt. It is also a long process and we are excited to get it started. I think we will have a lot more information after this meeting.

Our prayer is that the Lord will make it very clear when it comes time to pick our child and that it will just be the perfect timeing and all of that. It is all in His hands and we can only wait and trust him right now.