I actually just posted a draft I had from months ago. So much has happened and been on the rocks that it sometimes never seems to be sure enough to post an update. Not sure if that sentence made sense but hopefully you understand.
We left Children of All Nations. There were a few reasons and if anyone wants more details I could try to offer them personally, but we felt a little uneasy. But probably not uneasy like you're thinking, we felt uneasy about our son and where he was, we just weren't sure we were supposed to be with CAN anymore. We started finding people using DRC Adoption Services, an independent adoption consulting service. I could also give you more information about this and why we knew we were safe and trusted them. Amazingly, they have children waiting for families, not families waiting in line for children. There are so many orphans in DRC. As one new facebook friend encouraged, "Lindsey, there are way to many orphans to wait 2 years." So, we were uneasy. Not a complete peace anymore and we researched and researched. We told DRCAS we were signing up with them and 2 days later we saw our little boy's picture. Those big brown eyes, squishy little cheeks and striped Opie (that's for you, Mom) shirt. He was the one. If we had not switched to DRCAS, he wouldn't have been in our requested age range if we stayed with CAN, not to mention he wouldn't have been available to CAN.
That Sunday we heard a sermon in church talking about taking steps of faith, and boy was this one. The nail was hit on the head when he said, "sometimes you have to roll the stone away to see the gift of your step of faith" (referring to moving the stone from Jesus' tomb-must have sounded CRAZY!)
So we did and he is ours and we will call him Jacob :)-anyone catch the Nemo reference? haha... We still appreciate your prayers as there are always things that can go wrong. We think it will be wonderful to have him home by January (we were told a general 6 month timeline, which would put us at Feb). But at this point, just knowing it is happening is amazing. Seeing his face is overwhelming.
Want to know who his biggest fan is? Julia. I have seen her multiple times go up to someone on our street and say, "mmm baby brutter!" with the reply, "oooh!? You have a baby brother?" Julia will say, "mmhmmm! be right back." Then she will run into the house, get his picture and proudly display it to whomever will look. She's also asked for my phone to show the wallpaper pic if we aren't home. It warms my heart. That little girl is just too much. My heart overflows!
Things we've learned:
adoption is hard. it rarely goes easy.
God is in control and He will show you the path in His timing, and it isn't always straight!
I must continually pray to fall in love with his timing.
Those little nudges? Listen to them.
Friday, September 28, 2012
The CAN Family
One day it hit me that there are other Children of All Nations -DR Congo families out there and there had to be a way to find out where they are in their journey and we could hopefully support and encourage each other if we had a way to communicate. I started by finding an "adopting from DRC" yahoo group and introduced myself to all 500-something of them. I told them we were adopting through CAN, requested a 1-2 year old boy and especially hoped to connect with someone from CAN as well. God surely provided and a sweet gal emailed me and told me about the CAN DRC facebook group!!! It has been such a blessing to talk to these people although the only downside is I'm checking the page WAY too much to see if anyone has any insights to how quickly the process is moving along. Keep in mind, we were told that once our dossier lands in the Congo, it would take 6-12 months to receive a referral (heartbreak). I spoke with our CAN contact and found out we were the 17th dossier sent, and there were now 11 families ahead of us waiting for a referral. So we were # 12!!! Just a day or two later, my FB pal let us know she found out 2 other families received their referrals. We're now #10!!! It is the little things that make it seem more real. Knowing it will most likely not be a year from now till we find out his name, age, and see his sweet face just makes me want to jump for joy. Can I dare but hope that we will have him by Christmas? Now that will surely be a stretch, but a momma can dream.
Is it too early to get some really cool airplanes for his room? Start picking out fabric to sew his blanket? Nah...
We also just had 2 fundraisers. One was an awesome yard sale where friends and family donated a ton of items and we got to them sell to raise money. Last weekend we had our first of 2 One Less Photo Shoot in NKY/Cincinnati. My sister in law has recently started doing photography because she is AWESOME at it and she has such a big heart for her nephew she offered to take pics of families for a small donation. They turned out wonderful!!!! Here is a sneak peak:
In a couple weeks we will have a photo shoot for Louisville and I can't wait to see what Shannon does with these sweet families and this beautiful city. If you would like to see her blog, you can go here.
Last but not least, we've had some dear friends of ours send letters out to their family in hopes of raising us some money. We did not ask them to do this. And would you believe that their family members then sent out letters as well? We've received checks from people we have never met. Every single envelope has made me cry. I don't tear up, I cry. The Lord is showing us his heart for orphans and that he will provide the funds needed to set the solitary in families. I've realized this has absolutely nothing to do with us and that we are merely tools he is using to show his GLORY and his bright light in a world of sadness and disappointments. He is so good and he alone is worthy of our praise. My heart is so humbled to be his servant, I only hope we will always say, "Yes, Lord!"
Is it too early to get some really cool airplanes for his room? Start picking out fabric to sew his blanket? Nah...
We also just had 2 fundraisers. One was an awesome yard sale where friends and family donated a ton of items and we got to them sell to raise money. Last weekend we had our first of 2 One Less Photo Shoot in NKY/Cincinnati. My sister in law has recently started doing photography because she is AWESOME at it and she has such a big heart for her nephew she offered to take pics of families for a small donation. They turned out wonderful!!!! Here is a sneak peak:
In a couple weeks we will have a photo shoot for Louisville and I can't wait to see what Shannon does with these sweet families and this beautiful city. If you would like to see her blog, you can go here.
Last but not least, we've had some dear friends of ours send letters out to their family in hopes of raising us some money. We did not ask them to do this. And would you believe that their family members then sent out letters as well? We've received checks from people we have never met. Every single envelope has made me cry. I don't tear up, I cry. The Lord is showing us his heart for orphans and that he will provide the funds needed to set the solitary in families. I've realized this has absolutely nothing to do with us and that we are merely tools he is using to show his GLORY and his bright light in a world of sadness and disappointments. He is so good and he alone is worthy of our praise. My heart is so humbled to be his servant, I only hope we will always say, "Yes, Lord!"
Friday, May 4, 2012
There is so much to update on. My thoughts have been on all of these things I'm going to tell you, unless it is 12am, I don't have the time to write everything down! You should see my daily list of things to do... shoowee.
Our Dossier is supposed to be completed. This may change, because it has twice already. This has been such a frustrating part of the adoption-the sigh of relief that we are finished and only have to wait on others, then learning (or realizing) we are still. not. finished. Yeah, there are times in your life where things like this will happen, and the feeling is always frustration, but when it concerns your family, or, more specifically, one of your children coming home, it is enough to bring a momma to tears. Our most recent experience: all of our documents had been collected and sent to the agency. Our agency fees included the ability to send the dossier to CAN, then they send it to county/state governments to get sealed (this apparently is not common, a family must drive to get this done). Our adoption counselor sent everything off to be sealed and wrote us saying our birth certificates were rejected because the notary "expired." These certificates were only a couple months old!! But no worries, I had just ordered new ones and they already came in the mail. The next email, not even 10 minutes later, stated that we ordered incorrect wedding certificates. This was not our fault, but Ohio's fault because they just changed the law saying that the certificates must be signed by the judge, not just the deputy clerk. grrrrrrr. This and a reminder that the wait for a referral takes up to 12 months brought me to tears. There is nothing like going from the top of your game, getting shot twice then kicked in the gut. Maybe that is a little extreme but it is exactly how I felt that day. Since then we've sent in all the new documents and haven't heard anything. I'll take silence as a positive.
But God is taking care of us. A good friend reminded me that I would not get this time with "just Julia" back, so soak it all in. And that makes everything better. I love that little girl. She is my heart.
A week or so ago we had a mommy-daughter day at the zoo. We go to the zoo alot but I don't think we've ever gone just the two of us. I loved it. It was easily my favorite trip to date.
Doesn't she just melt your heart? I can't imagine having 2 babies to love this much. It will surely be a blessing.
We've also been overwhelmed by people that have come together to support us in our adoption. One of the biggest things that have happened lately is I've become a jeweler for Premier Designs. Can I just say I've secretly wanted to work for this company for a long time? I remember telling someone about that desire before Julia was born. I would used to go to shows with my mom and be so excited to be surrounded by the gorgeous pieces! Such a girly girl. So anyways, one day I approached a girl from church who is a consultant about ordering a piece for my mom's birthday (I look at it like supporting a local business or entrepreneur?) Now Christy and her husband adopted their sweet little boy so she has a huge heart for adoption. That girl offered to give us 100% of her profit. I was overwhelmed! This is one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for us. So I said yes. She also told me a little bit about the business opportunity but I wasn't too interested. I ended up going to a meeting where you listen to the business side of Premier and as a reward, you can order whatever you would like for 50% off. BINGO! Mom's gift. So I go, still not interested but I look at all the gorgeous pieces and start dreaming about having them for myself-yes, I took a purchase that was supposed to be about a gift for someone else and made it about me. haha! Well, I was enamored by all the beautiful jewels and couldn't help but think how FUN it would be to sell this product to raise money to bring our son home. One thing lead to another, details, details, God whispering, me questioning, Joe agreeing, and we signed up. I had an amazing debut show where Christy rocked and so many beautiful ladies showed up to support! God has been so good and the business has done very well! I'm so thankful for this opportunity, not only for the obvious reasons, but because I'm able to force myself to come out of my shell-in front of people! Yikes! Little by little, the Lord is helping me grow.
To be continued...
Our Dossier is supposed to be completed. This may change, because it has twice already. This has been such a frustrating part of the adoption-the sigh of relief that we are finished and only have to wait on others, then learning (or realizing) we are still. not. finished. Yeah, there are times in your life where things like this will happen, and the feeling is always frustration, but when it concerns your family, or, more specifically, one of your children coming home, it is enough to bring a momma to tears. Our most recent experience: all of our documents had been collected and sent to the agency. Our agency fees included the ability to send the dossier to CAN, then they send it to county/state governments to get sealed (this apparently is not common, a family must drive to get this done). Our adoption counselor sent everything off to be sealed and wrote us saying our birth certificates were rejected because the notary "expired." These certificates were only a couple months old!! But no worries, I had just ordered new ones and they already came in the mail. The next email, not even 10 minutes later, stated that we ordered incorrect wedding certificates. This was not our fault, but Ohio's fault because they just changed the law saying that the certificates must be signed by the judge, not just the deputy clerk. grrrrrrr. This and a reminder that the wait for a referral takes up to 12 months brought me to tears. There is nothing like going from the top of your game, getting shot twice then kicked in the gut. Maybe that is a little extreme but it is exactly how I felt that day. Since then we've sent in all the new documents and haven't heard anything. I'll take silence as a positive.
But God is taking care of us. A good friend reminded me that I would not get this time with "just Julia" back, so soak it all in. And that makes everything better. I love that little girl. She is my heart.
A week or so ago we had a mommy-daughter day at the zoo. We go to the zoo alot but I don't think we've ever gone just the two of us. I loved it. It was easily my favorite trip to date.
Doesn't she just melt your heart? I can't imagine having 2 babies to love this much. It will surely be a blessing.
We've also been overwhelmed by people that have come together to support us in our adoption. One of the biggest things that have happened lately is I've become a jeweler for Premier Designs. Can I just say I've secretly wanted to work for this company for a long time? I remember telling someone about that desire before Julia was born. I would used to go to shows with my mom and be so excited to be surrounded by the gorgeous pieces! Such a girly girl. So anyways, one day I approached a girl from church who is a consultant about ordering a piece for my mom's birthday (I look at it like supporting a local business or entrepreneur?) Now Christy and her husband adopted their sweet little boy so she has a huge heart for adoption. That girl offered to give us 100% of her profit. I was overwhelmed! This is one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for us. So I said yes. She also told me a little bit about the business opportunity but I wasn't too interested. I ended up going to a meeting where you listen to the business side of Premier and as a reward, you can order whatever you would like for 50% off. BINGO! Mom's gift. So I go, still not interested but I look at all the gorgeous pieces and start dreaming about having them for myself-yes, I took a purchase that was supposed to be about a gift for someone else and made it about me. haha! Well, I was enamored by all the beautiful jewels and couldn't help but think how FUN it would be to sell this product to raise money to bring our son home. One thing lead to another, details, details, God whispering, me questioning, Joe agreeing, and we signed up. I had an amazing debut show where Christy rocked and so many beautiful ladies showed up to support! God has been so good and the business has done very well! I'm so thankful for this opportunity, not only for the obvious reasons, but because I'm able to force myself to come out of my shell-in front of people! Yikes! Little by little, the Lord is helping me grow.
To be continued...
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Dossier and Julia Shmulia
We're right in the middle of the Dossier! We sent off our first of three mailers at the end of December (signed documents and agreements-notarized) and then received information for our second mailer.
By this time I was seriously wondering what more they could possibly want from us. We had given them so much information with our homestudy, which is included in the dossier. By the way, our awesome social worker finished our homestudy and it has been sent off to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) along with our I600A-petition to bring an orphan to the US from overseas. Once that has been accepted, the petition becomes a I171 or something of the sort, and travels to the DRC along with our dossier. This takes about 40-50 days. Somewhere in there we also receive instruction to get FBI fingerprints which are included in our dossier.
This second mailer consists of quite a few documents that you can do quickly and in your spare time (or at 5 in the morning because you can't sleep). We had to put together a letter about our family and why we want to adopt from the Congo, letter about our home, another about Joe, Julia and my personalities, etc. We also fill out our millionth financial record which is becoming a bit redundant--you have to make sure everything is the same, so however much was in our bank account when we first started our homestudy in August, must also be on our dossier and sent to USCIS in their future package (there is another). Anyhoo--it is all worth it. And our agency has made it so easy for us: detailed descriptions of the mailers, a packet on each specific document and how it should be worded, headers and footers, notarization, etc. Children of All Nations is amazing. I've emailed our international help there sometimes 5 times a day with picky questions and she always responds so quickly and kindly. So back to the dossier! We need to send out our Police background checks that we requested for our homestudy so this was easy--they were in our Adoption Assistance folder. We also send out our notarized marriage license, and birth certificates (all three of us). I need a notarized letter stating that I am unemployed, and Joe needs one stating that he is employed. His poor boss, this will be his second letter. We need a letter (on official company letterhead) from the insurance company stating that they will cover an adopted child. This letter has to be signed. Yesterday I called the official branch for insurance from Joe's work and they sent me to the official insurance office. They sent me back to my first call. Nobody will write us a letter. Instead they want to send us all the documentation included in our benefits packets but we don't get the letterhead and signature. This is a little frustrating. That is something we will tackle next week, 8am on Monday!
CAN sent out an email to all Congo parents, letting us know that they are looking to hire more employees that can be on the ground at their orphanages and set up referrals. This is awesome because hopefully the 9-12 month wait for a referral will go back down to 2-6, or whatever it was!
Not concerning the adoption, our baby Julia is not so much a baby anymore. I think we only have a few more months where she will have those babyish qualities and then will turn into a 'kid.' This beaks my heart! I have been proof over the last 2 years that it is hard to leave stages behind and move to the next, but that it is worth it and only becomes more exciting, but I'm not sure I can handle this one! This is a whole other era of her life! Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but she is my heart. It is happening so fast. I take every opportunity I can get to hold her and have her fall asleep in my arms at night before I put her in her crib, and every time she comes to me, reaches for my hand and takes me to her toys and pats the floor to sit down, I do it. Of course if my hands are covered in raw chicken I don't, but I have a hard time worrying that she thinks mommy cooks and cleans too much. And our house definitely doesn't show that I clean too much! Ha! Do any other mommies out there struggle with this? She will be 2 in April and I am so, so, so thankful for the time we've spent together. I wouldn't trade any day of tantrums and time outs for ANYTHING. I look forward to learning more about the personality God gave her before she was even created, but please pray for me as we leave a stage behind and move to another!
By this time I was seriously wondering what more they could possibly want from us. We had given them so much information with our homestudy, which is included in the dossier. By the way, our awesome social worker finished our homestudy and it has been sent off to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) along with our I600A-petition to bring an orphan to the US from overseas. Once that has been accepted, the petition becomes a I171 or something of the sort, and travels to the DRC along with our dossier. This takes about 40-50 days. Somewhere in there we also receive instruction to get FBI fingerprints which are included in our dossier.
This second mailer consists of quite a few documents that you can do quickly and in your spare time (or at 5 in the morning because you can't sleep). We had to put together a letter about our family and why we want to adopt from the Congo, letter about our home, another about Joe, Julia and my personalities, etc. We also fill out our millionth financial record which is becoming a bit redundant--you have to make sure everything is the same, so however much was in our bank account when we first started our homestudy in August, must also be on our dossier and sent to USCIS in their future package (there is another). Anyhoo--it is all worth it. And our agency has made it so easy for us: detailed descriptions of the mailers, a packet on each specific document and how it should be worded, headers and footers, notarization, etc. Children of All Nations is amazing. I've emailed our international help there sometimes 5 times a day with picky questions and she always responds so quickly and kindly. So back to the dossier! We need to send out our Police background checks that we requested for our homestudy so this was easy--they were in our Adoption Assistance folder. We also send out our notarized marriage license, and birth certificates (all three of us). I need a notarized letter stating that I am unemployed, and Joe needs one stating that he is employed. His poor boss, this will be his second letter. We need a letter (on official company letterhead) from the insurance company stating that they will cover an adopted child. This letter has to be signed. Yesterday I called the official branch for insurance from Joe's work and they sent me to the official insurance office. They sent me back to my first call. Nobody will write us a letter. Instead they want to send us all the documentation included in our benefits packets but we don't get the letterhead and signature. This is a little frustrating. That is something we will tackle next week, 8am on Monday!
CAN sent out an email to all Congo parents, letting us know that they are looking to hire more employees that can be on the ground at their orphanages and set up referrals. This is awesome because hopefully the 9-12 month wait for a referral will go back down to 2-6, or whatever it was!
Not concerning the adoption, our baby Julia is not so much a baby anymore. I think we only have a few more months where she will have those babyish qualities and then will turn into a 'kid.' This beaks my heart! I have been proof over the last 2 years that it is hard to leave stages behind and move to the next, but that it is worth it and only becomes more exciting, but I'm not sure I can handle this one! This is a whole other era of her life! Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but she is my heart. It is happening so fast. I take every opportunity I can get to hold her and have her fall asleep in my arms at night before I put her in her crib, and every time she comes to me, reaches for my hand and takes me to her toys and pats the floor to sit down, I do it. Of course if my hands are covered in raw chicken I don't, but I have a hard time worrying that she thinks mommy cooks and cleans too much. And our house definitely doesn't show that I clean too much! Ha! Do any other mommies out there struggle with this? She will be 2 in April and I am so, so, so thankful for the time we've spent together. I wouldn't trade any day of tantrums and time outs for ANYTHING. I look forward to learning more about the personality God gave her before she was even created, but please pray for me as we leave a stage behind and move to another!
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| 6 months |
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| Julia's first birthday |
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Drum Roll... The Congo!
It seems like we've been walking in figure 8s these past couple months. Just because one thing makes sense to us, as a reason to or not to go through a certain country, doesn't mean the Lord won't lead us right back to that country to start our journey. That is certainly what He has done.
Joe found out that he can take off of work 5-6 weeks so we immediately told our agency that we were set to go through Uganda. I was so excited to be in the same country as JMCM and possibly meet the boys and see this ministry that has become so dear to our hearts. A week or so later we learn we are not able to adopt from Uganda because I am on a medication that Uganda does not approve of, and this is something 1/2 of the USA is on. Oh well. I'm on the phone with our social worker and she is telling me about Ghana's wonderful program and all I keep thinking is, "It takes 2 years!" I tell her I will talk to Joe because we might as well consider waiting until July when we've been married 5 years to apply to the Congo. Then she tells me we don't have to wait, we can start now! I asked her the same question 3 different ways, 3 times to clarify that our being married for only 4.5 years won't slow us down. Basically she told me she doesn't know what the other agency was doing. We've been together for 8 years and that is enough. There is something we could do to prove we've been together for so long. And that is... our prom picture! YES. LOL.
Well wouldn't you know once we signed up for the congo and paid a hefty amount of money for them to take us seriously, Congo had a botched election. With all this drama, a process that takes 9-12 months after dossier submission is now suspected to take 12-18 months. This means the referral timeline is generally expected to be 6-12 months now. What a bummer. But the weird thing is, although I'm upset, I feel a peace about it. Because I know that God could make it happen in 2 days if he wanted. I also know that if it takes 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, it will be because he wills it. One thing this adoption has shown me is the Lord's heart. I haven't seen all of it, but I've seen glimpses of it. There are orphans in the Congo (and our state, country, Asia, Latin America, etc.) that do not have parents, proper medical care, someone to love on them. How can we be so oblivious to this? How in the world can we know this information and not feel led to be an ambassador for these children? Have our hearts grown so cold that we can even forget this for one minute? Yes. And I pray that mine will warm up and he will use Joe and I. I've said it before, we can't change this crisis, but maybe someone else's heart will change from what we're learning. And that could save another life.
When we talked to our social worker in our last homestudy meeting (yay!) she told us that she hasn't heard of many Congolese children coming home. They can be matched with a family, but she knows of more than 1 or 2 that haven't made it to their homecoming because of disease, malnutrition. What in the world are we doing.
She also told us that if we bring a child home who is a bit older (and the older you adopt, the worse this scenario), the child may go crazy at being held because they never were. These aren't just horror stories, they are stories our own social worker has experienced. I kiss Julia all over her little face countless times a day. Hold her and squeeze her against her will more than I can guess. I cannot imagine our son not experiencing this while we are apart. Any child missing out on this kind of love. And that doesn't only happen to orphans, let me remind you. I have a sweet friend named Brooke who adopted their son from Ethiopia. Their story is much different, the caregiver for their son loved Bennett and they still keep in contact with her. I hope this will be our story.
Please pray for the Congolese orphans. For the families who are further through the process of their adoptions and they are still waiting on things to wrap up quickly. That God will be glorified in their stories and in ours.
Well wouldn't you know once we signed up for the congo and paid a hefty amount of money for them to take us seriously, Congo had a botched election. With all this drama, a process that takes 9-12 months after dossier submission is now suspected to take 12-18 months. This means the referral timeline is generally expected to be 6-12 months now. What a bummer. But the weird thing is, although I'm upset, I feel a peace about it. Because I know that God could make it happen in 2 days if he wanted. I also know that if it takes 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, it will be because he wills it. One thing this adoption has shown me is the Lord's heart. I haven't seen all of it, but I've seen glimpses of it. There are orphans in the Congo (and our state, country, Asia, Latin America, etc.) that do not have parents, proper medical care, someone to love on them. How can we be so oblivious to this? How in the world can we know this information and not feel led to be an ambassador for these children? Have our hearts grown so cold that we can even forget this for one minute? Yes. And I pray that mine will warm up and he will use Joe and I. I've said it before, we can't change this crisis, but maybe someone else's heart will change from what we're learning. And that could save another life.
When we talked to our social worker in our last homestudy meeting (yay!) she told us that she hasn't heard of many Congolese children coming home. They can be matched with a family, but she knows of more than 1 or 2 that haven't made it to their homecoming because of disease, malnutrition. What in the world are we doing.
She also told us that if we bring a child home who is a bit older (and the older you adopt, the worse this scenario), the child may go crazy at being held because they never were. These aren't just horror stories, they are stories our own social worker has experienced. I kiss Julia all over her little face countless times a day. Hold her and squeeze her against her will more than I can guess. I cannot imagine our son not experiencing this while we are apart. Any child missing out on this kind of love. And that doesn't only happen to orphans, let me remind you. I have a sweet friend named Brooke who adopted their son from Ethiopia. Their story is much different, the caregiver for their son loved Bennett and they still keep in contact with her. I hope this will be our story.
Please pray for the Congolese orphans. For the families who are further through the process of their adoptions and they are still waiting on things to wrap up quickly. That God will be glorified in their stories and in ours.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The Congo, Uganda and Ghana
Well, we can't adopt the little boy.
It was probably 2 weeks ago that we learned he would not be our son. It was just a weird way to find out. The social worker from the agency wrote us and said, "Well, I have good news, the orphanage wants to work with you!" We were floored! It seemed unreal that this would actually be happening, that we had already seen the face of our son and that we knew his name. We wrote the worker and asked her for clearer details. Since he is in the Congo we knew we had to wait until we were married 5 years (July '12) and so we asked her if we would be able to travel to get him, say, in August. She wrote us back and said that we actually wouldn't be able to do anything but submit our dossier until the end of July (so the 8-9 month process would start then) and the orphanage didn't want to make him wait that long so we wouldn't be allowed to adopt P. This is totally understandable, and so good for him. This means that he will have a family much sooner than he would if we were to proceed with adopting him. That is what I truly wanted, was for him to have parents. But in reality, the orphanage doesn't want to work with us early, and I sincerely wish she would have told us everything first. Kind of felt like we were being strung along. Oh well. What are you going to do?
We decided we need to start the Uganda or Ghana program through a different agency. This is a longer process but we can start it now so it will probably end up being about the same length of time as it would be if we adopted through the Congo. The only thing holding us back is that both countries require a 5-6 week travel time. We need to know if UPS will allow this length of absence. Need to know soon! Please pray with us.
On another note, I started a prayer jar at home. It sits on our kitchen table so each time we sit down to eat and say Grace, we pull out a strip of paper that has a prayer request on it! We've done this for about a week now and we enjoy it because it reminds us of things that we may not always think of, but we should definitely remember from time to time. We even have one that says "don't ask for anything, but thank God for 5 things!" When I first started out I think I had 10 strips of paper and thought this would be plenty. Then the Lord reminded me of so many families, ministries, illnesses, etc. and 5 minutes later I was finished writing :)
It was probably 2 weeks ago that we learned he would not be our son. It was just a weird way to find out. The social worker from the agency wrote us and said, "Well, I have good news, the orphanage wants to work with you!" We were floored! It seemed unreal that this would actually be happening, that we had already seen the face of our son and that we knew his name. We wrote the worker and asked her for clearer details. Since he is in the Congo we knew we had to wait until we were married 5 years (July '12) and so we asked her if we would be able to travel to get him, say, in August. She wrote us back and said that we actually wouldn't be able to do anything but submit our dossier until the end of July (so the 8-9 month process would start then) and the orphanage didn't want to make him wait that long so we wouldn't be allowed to adopt P. This is totally understandable, and so good for him. This means that he will have a family much sooner than he would if we were to proceed with adopting him. That is what I truly wanted, was for him to have parents. But in reality, the orphanage doesn't want to work with us early, and I sincerely wish she would have told us everything first. Kind of felt like we were being strung along. Oh well. What are you going to do?
We decided we need to start the Uganda or Ghana program through a different agency. This is a longer process but we can start it now so it will probably end up being about the same length of time as it would be if we adopted through the Congo. The only thing holding us back is that both countries require a 5-6 week travel time. We need to know if UPS will allow this length of absence. Need to know soon! Please pray with us.
On another note, I started a prayer jar at home. It sits on our kitchen table so each time we sit down to eat and say Grace, we pull out a strip of paper that has a prayer request on it! We've done this for about a week now and we enjoy it because it reminds us of things that we may not always think of, but we should definitely remember from time to time. We even have one that says "don't ask for anything, but thank God for 5 things!" When I first started out I think I had 10 strips of paper and thought this would be plenty. Then the Lord reminded me of so many families, ministries, illnesses, etc. and 5 minutes later I was finished writing :)
Monday, October 10, 2011
Homestudy, Attorneys, Orphanages and God's Perfect Timing
So much to catch up on!
I've realized I never even talked about our first homestudy meeting which took place the first week of August. We were so stinkin nervous. What if our social worker thought we were totally lame? We tend to have a lot of lame jokes... I even gave Joe a briefing about how much of our humor we should actually share with her-we aren't normal. Our worker is named Rebecca, she was hilarious and immediately put us at ease, well, after telling us to relax the 3rd time I think we finally thought it was safe :). She asked us all kinds of questions ranging from, "Lindsey, why were you first attracted to Joe?" to "Joe, what does your brother do for a career?" Details, details details. We were there I think 2.5 hours and she gave us so much information to go on concerning different countries (we hadn't yet decided) and options such as waiting child vs. referral program. Which I can cover a bit later.
So at this meeting she told us we needed to pick our placing agency (the agency that would say, "this is your child" and help us through the process-referral program) then we could meet again and have our meeting at our home (make sure there aren't any meth labs in the basement kind of thing). It is now nearly mid October and we haven't chosen our agency. Very good reasons, this you will also soon see.
After the meeting I confessed to Joe that I felt the Lord was leading me to a specific continent. I told him I didn't think I should tell him, and he agreed, that he should see where he felt he was being lead. About a week later we both had the discussion and Joe told me he felt God was leading us to Africa-and I as well. This was huge. In the beginning of our journey we researched fostering to adopt, domestic adoption and international adoption. We had no idea where to go. Once we decided on international we both voiced that we certainly felt like Africa was not in our radar. I continuously told Joe I thought we were being lead to a hispanic or asian country, but it was definitely not Africa. And there we were... months later and the Lord used his perfect ways to direct our hearts to His plan, our son. Now when Joe and I were dating we always talked about Africa, visiting, living, we didn't know. Years later we thought that had passed, and now in His perfect timing, He has shown us why Africa was on our hearts so long ago (I say "so long ago" but in reality it's more like 8 years). God is good. I can't sit here and say that it has been easy wondering why in the world we felt that so long ago, I questioned it every single day and still do. If you want me to dive deeper into this issue I will but it will have to be through personal email, I can't share all of this with the blog world-lol. But it is satisfying to look back and HONESTLY say that I am joyful with His timing. And it hasn't even happened yet. This is so big. So, so big. It's been rough.
We began researching countries. Ethiopia has dramatically reduced their adoptions due to corruption (like Guatemala), Uganda has extreme need, DRC Congo requires a 5 year marriage. I started researching agencies that places children in Uganda with families, and attorneys and orphanages in Uganda. Our social worker had mentioned that if you skip the agency and go straight to an attorney (and they have their orphanage they work with) the timeline is considerably faster and it is even thousands cheaper. It didn't hurt to research. I emailed probably 10 Ugandan attorneys that listed "adoption" in their specifics and heard from maybe 3 that said they could help us. I then remembered Gwen Oatsvall from 147 Million Orphans and thought surely she could suggest someone to talk to about this attorney process. It was obviously risky to take this initiative without an agency to back you up and "protect" you. She sent me to a lady named Tosha who was actually in Uganda with her adopted little girl at that very moment, and she had used her own private attorney. I contacted Tosha and yada yada yada, wasn't too sure. I went back to Gwen (I know, this is getting long) and she said they adopted their children straight from an orphanage. Wow! More research... that night I stayed up to midnight researching lists of Ugandan orphanages and emailed around 45 of them. I think to this day I've only heard from maybe 15 of them. There was one that stuck out, Jesus and Me Children's Ministries. David Knowlton, the director, was on facebook. I have no pride, I requested friendship. David is such an encouraging man of God. We began emailing him with questions about adopting through JMCM and we have been so blessed in the short 2 weeks that we've "known" him to see his heart for orphans and, more importantly, his obedience and faith in Jesus Christ. Every email starts something like one of Paul's letters, "Greetings through our Lord Jesus Christ..." He has no doubt that a thousand dollars will be provided when they need the money asap to rent a larger house to provide living quarters for volunteers and children. And guess what-it happens. Why? Because honestly, in our life of abundant material things, we do not first go to God as our provider. If we need a thousand dollars, we call a family member, get a credit card, take out a loan. Why wouldn't we first go to the one that created us, said He will provide and sustain us? Why do we not give Him the opportunity to even show us what he can do? This saddens me. That is another blog post. Anyways, we finally contacted David and specifically asked him if he had any boys under 2. There are boys that JMCM provides for but they may still have living family members. He did not suggest we try to independently adopt a child who wasn't completely orphaned-he had seen people lose their adoption and their money because caregivers had protested at the last minute. However, he offered to consult with a local baby home, get to know the organization and children, choose a child for us, adopt him, then proceed with us adopting him through JMCM. How can you not be touched by his generosity and willingness to find an orphan a family? We declined his offer but thanked him for his offer. It just didn't feel right, although we had become somewhat attached to JMCM and their endeavors for orphans, we quickly knew that this wasn't the route for our adoption. That was okay-we are thankful to have gained a friend in David, and to have the honor of praying for this noble ministry. It feels like a small detour, like driving from Kentucky to California with the redwood trees as your goal but you see a sign along the way visit an awesome restaurant full of people you know you will see someday again. Because we will-they are our family in Christ and our hearts now think of the JMCM children.
The next day we planned to call the agency we've considered all along they way. But God had yet another plan.
A week prior to our decision I would still search the web for waiting African children (the waiting child route). We found a little boy who is 2 months younger than Julia (so 15 months). We inquired on him and the agency he is through wrote back and said he is still available and to look at the details. He is in the Congo. I told the social worker we were saddened that we wouldn't be able to proceed; we've only been married 4 years. Now is the day we're supposed to call the agency-she writes me and tells me sometimes they make exceptions. We were very excited and wrote her back immediately. They wanted to know if we lived together before we were married or at least how long we dated. Well, we didn't live together, but we dated 4.5 years. We've also known each other for 13 years! It has been nearly a week and a half but she hasn't heard back from the orphanage yet. Apparently the facilitator is traveling and hard to reach!
This little boy may be ours. He has a name, age, face, a story. But this may also be another detour we're for some reason being taken on. Honestly, if we don't bring this specific little boy home I will be okay just as long as he does end up going home to someone. He needs a mommy and a daddy. But I love him. It is up to the Lord if I ever get to show him that love.
As always, please pray for us and this little boy we will call "P". I would like to know things quickly so that we can proceed with whatever route we need to take. I know this is a lot to ask especially since I've seen God prove himself as the perfect timer, but my heart is so frail and all I want is immediacy!!!!
Thank you for reading all of this, if anyone does :)
I've realized I never even talked about our first homestudy meeting which took place the first week of August. We were so stinkin nervous. What if our social worker thought we were totally lame? We tend to have a lot of lame jokes... I even gave Joe a briefing about how much of our humor we should actually share with her-we aren't normal. Our worker is named Rebecca, she was hilarious and immediately put us at ease, well, after telling us to relax the 3rd time I think we finally thought it was safe :). She asked us all kinds of questions ranging from, "Lindsey, why were you first attracted to Joe?" to "Joe, what does your brother do for a career?" Details, details details. We were there I think 2.5 hours and she gave us so much information to go on concerning different countries (we hadn't yet decided) and options such as waiting child vs. referral program. Which I can cover a bit later.
So at this meeting she told us we needed to pick our placing agency (the agency that would say, "this is your child" and help us through the process-referral program) then we could meet again and have our meeting at our home (make sure there aren't any meth labs in the basement kind of thing). It is now nearly mid October and we haven't chosen our agency. Very good reasons, this you will also soon see.
After the meeting I confessed to Joe that I felt the Lord was leading me to a specific continent. I told him I didn't think I should tell him, and he agreed, that he should see where he felt he was being lead. About a week later we both had the discussion and Joe told me he felt God was leading us to Africa-and I as well. This was huge. In the beginning of our journey we researched fostering to adopt, domestic adoption and international adoption. We had no idea where to go. Once we decided on international we both voiced that we certainly felt like Africa was not in our radar. I continuously told Joe I thought we were being lead to a hispanic or asian country, but it was definitely not Africa. And there we were... months later and the Lord used his perfect ways to direct our hearts to His plan, our son. Now when Joe and I were dating we always talked about Africa, visiting, living, we didn't know. Years later we thought that had passed, and now in His perfect timing, He has shown us why Africa was on our hearts so long ago (I say "so long ago" but in reality it's more like 8 years). God is good. I can't sit here and say that it has been easy wondering why in the world we felt that so long ago, I questioned it every single day and still do. If you want me to dive deeper into this issue I will but it will have to be through personal email, I can't share all of this with the blog world-lol. But it is satisfying to look back and HONESTLY say that I am joyful with His timing. And it hasn't even happened yet. This is so big. So, so big. It's been rough.
We began researching countries. Ethiopia has dramatically reduced their adoptions due to corruption (like Guatemala), Uganda has extreme need, DRC Congo requires a 5 year marriage. I started researching agencies that places children in Uganda with families, and attorneys and orphanages in Uganda. Our social worker had mentioned that if you skip the agency and go straight to an attorney (and they have their orphanage they work with) the timeline is considerably faster and it is even thousands cheaper. It didn't hurt to research. I emailed probably 10 Ugandan attorneys that listed "adoption" in their specifics and heard from maybe 3 that said they could help us. I then remembered Gwen Oatsvall from 147 Million Orphans and thought surely she could suggest someone to talk to about this attorney process. It was obviously risky to take this initiative without an agency to back you up and "protect" you. She sent me to a lady named Tosha who was actually in Uganda with her adopted little girl at that very moment, and she had used her own private attorney. I contacted Tosha and yada yada yada, wasn't too sure. I went back to Gwen (I know, this is getting long) and she said they adopted their children straight from an orphanage. Wow! More research... that night I stayed up to midnight researching lists of Ugandan orphanages and emailed around 45 of them. I think to this day I've only heard from maybe 15 of them. There was one that stuck out, Jesus and Me Children's Ministries. David Knowlton, the director, was on facebook. I have no pride, I requested friendship. David is such an encouraging man of God. We began emailing him with questions about adopting through JMCM and we have been so blessed in the short 2 weeks that we've "known" him to see his heart for orphans and, more importantly, his obedience and faith in Jesus Christ. Every email starts something like one of Paul's letters, "Greetings through our Lord Jesus Christ..." He has no doubt that a thousand dollars will be provided when they need the money asap to rent a larger house to provide living quarters for volunteers and children. And guess what-it happens. Why? Because honestly, in our life of abundant material things, we do not first go to God as our provider. If we need a thousand dollars, we call a family member, get a credit card, take out a loan. Why wouldn't we first go to the one that created us, said He will provide and sustain us? Why do we not give Him the opportunity to even show us what he can do? This saddens me. That is another blog post. Anyways, we finally contacted David and specifically asked him if he had any boys under 2. There are boys that JMCM provides for but they may still have living family members. He did not suggest we try to independently adopt a child who wasn't completely orphaned-he had seen people lose their adoption and their money because caregivers had protested at the last minute. However, he offered to consult with a local baby home, get to know the organization and children, choose a child for us, adopt him, then proceed with us adopting him through JMCM. How can you not be touched by his generosity and willingness to find an orphan a family? We declined his offer but thanked him for his offer. It just didn't feel right, although we had become somewhat attached to JMCM and their endeavors for orphans, we quickly knew that this wasn't the route for our adoption. That was okay-we are thankful to have gained a friend in David, and to have the honor of praying for this noble ministry. It feels like a small detour, like driving from Kentucky to California with the redwood trees as your goal but you see a sign along the way visit an awesome restaurant full of people you know you will see someday again. Because we will-they are our family in Christ and our hearts now think of the JMCM children.
The next day we planned to call the agency we've considered all along they way. But God had yet another plan.
A week prior to our decision I would still search the web for waiting African children (the waiting child route). We found a little boy who is 2 months younger than Julia (so 15 months). We inquired on him and the agency he is through wrote back and said he is still available and to look at the details. He is in the Congo. I told the social worker we were saddened that we wouldn't be able to proceed; we've only been married 4 years. Now is the day we're supposed to call the agency-she writes me and tells me sometimes they make exceptions. We were very excited and wrote her back immediately. They wanted to know if we lived together before we were married or at least how long we dated. Well, we didn't live together, but we dated 4.5 years. We've also known each other for 13 years! It has been nearly a week and a half but she hasn't heard back from the orphanage yet. Apparently the facilitator is traveling and hard to reach!
This little boy may be ours. He has a name, age, face, a story. But this may also be another detour we're for some reason being taken on. Honestly, if we don't bring this specific little boy home I will be okay just as long as he does end up going home to someone. He needs a mommy and a daddy. But I love him. It is up to the Lord if I ever get to show him that love.
As always, please pray for us and this little boy we will call "P". I would like to know things quickly so that we can proceed with whatever route we need to take. I know this is a lot to ask especially since I've seen God prove himself as the perfect timer, but my heart is so frail and all I want is immediacy!!!!
Thank you for reading all of this, if anyone does :)
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