Where we are now...

Guess what came in the mail yesterday??  Our totally complete and notarized home study!!  Yay!  In my last post I mentioned that we were at the end of that and were having our in-home visits with our social worker.  Those visits went so well, and now we are DONE with that portion.  We have also completed our Psychological Evaluations and have only a few more forms to complete our dossier that will be translated into French and sent to Haiti.  Just a refresher for those of you who don't know what a dossier is--it is a compilation of MANY documents that show who we are and reveal just about everything about us to a foreign government so that we can be cleared to adopt from that particular country.  Our dossier requirements include things like medical forms/tests; marriage/birth certificates; bank statements; tax forms; fingerprinting; government clearances (federal ones); verification of employment/income; letters that state our motivation to adopt (written by us to the head of the foreign gov't); personal reference letters; etc....  It is daunting, to say the least!  And everything has to be done just right--with the proper notarizations/authentications, or it might have to be done all over again!  Our new agency that we chose, All About Adoptions, Inc., has a dossier specialist on staff, so hopefully everything will get her stamp of approval!

We are growing more and more excited as we get closer to being done with our portion.  Then we just wait on the orphanage (we did go with GLA --see previous post) to refer us to the child/ren that they have for us, and we wait for our documents to make it through the Haitian courts.  People ask me often about how long this will take.  I wish I knew for sure!  If we get our documents there in the next month or so, we could have a referral by the end of this year, or early January.  Then, it's up to the courts on how long it all takes to process.  We did just hear a few weeks ago that files are making it through in about 8 months right now--that is WAY faster than before the earthquake!  The Lord knows the timing, and we are trusting that He also knows how we are going to pay for this, because I am still a little in the dark on that one!  We know that this is what He has called us to do, so we will trust that He will provide. 

Along with trying to gather the last documents we need, I am also beginning another school year!  I have 22 first grade students this year, and our first week went swimmingly!  Aside from the heat that makes my room almost unbearable by the last couple of hours, the kids did great.  Each year I find that I have just a few more tricks up my sleeve to get the results I am looking for in performance and behavior.  The keys that work best for me are extreme organization (everything in it's place and no extra clutter), and taking the time to really TEACH and practice all of our routines.  There might not be a whole lot of actual lesson teaching at first, but taking the time to show the class what is expected at school will pay off all year long.  I know that even though I have to watch where I step so that I don't trip over all of the MANY bodies in my little room, we are going to have a great year of learning together.

The first two months of school also bring volleyball season for the 2 big girls!  With Alli being a senior **sniff, sniff!**, we are trying to go to many of her games.  Thankfully, this year Alli and Erica's games aren't always on the same days like last year.  That was crazy!  So, I will be jetting out of school as early as possible to drive LONG distances (seriously--some are 3 hours away!) to watch my kiddos play.  I love it! 

God is doing great things!  Can't wait to share more...

So close!

So we are almost sure about the agency we will use to help us complete our Haitian adoption!  We will know for sure in a few more days, but after talking with them it sounds like just what we are looking for....

Here is a link to the orphanage they work with (and the main reason we are choosing them!)

http://www.glahaiti.org/home

If you go to this site, scroll down on the left-hand side to Blogs and click.

The orphanage director, Dixie, writes the "Life Goes On" blog, which is amazing reading.  We have been reading this blog for over a year, and just really believe that our kids are here!

They were closed to new adoptive families until just this last spring, so now we see one possible reason that the Lord was slowing us down....

Just look at those beautiful faces!  Anyone want to join us on this journey??  It would be amazing to do this alongside dear friends and family....:-)  (seriously!!)

Back on track

So this post might seem strange after my last one, but now here we are.  It is 18 months after we first knew that God was calling us to adopt from Haiti.  We haven't made many steps toward that happening.  After stopping everything while we considered whether God was leading us to adopt the little guy in the previous post, we now have officially started it up again.  We still have unknowns with his situation, but at this point, we feel that it is unlikely to lead to us getting to adopt him.  We will still continue our weekends with him, and we will trust God with the rest.

Anyone familiar with adoption knows that one of the first things that needs to happen is that there must be a Homestudy done by a licensed social worker.  Basically, our whole lives get investigated to make sure that we aren't crazy people that want to adopt kids.  We write entire histories of our lives that include what our families were like growing up (grandparent relationships, parental relationships, sibling relationships...) and what our own family is like now.  We have to have fingerprinting done, medical tests done, references written, tons of forms filled out, taxes copied, financial questions answered, guardianship chosen for our kids, and the lists go on....

Anyway....we have done all of that!  And now our assigned case worker is visiting us to document that what we wrote is true, and to walk us through the first approval process towards adopting internationally.  I am thrilled to say that we have an awesome case worker!  She lives in our town, and was a delight to meet.  She has completed our first in-home visit, and we will have our second meeting next week.  After that visit, she will write up our completed homestudy that will be the basis of our adoption approval.  Now our new job will be to finalize exactly what agency we will use to complete our international adoption.  The agency doing our homestudy only does domestic adoptions, but they are licensed to complete Int'l homestudies as well.  Some of you that have read from the time that I started this blog will remember that we did choose an agency a long time ago.  However, they seem to be pretty inactive right now.  Nothing has changed on their website in over a year.  We aren't receiving email updates at all.  Needless to say, this has us worried about continuing with them.  We are actively looking for a new path.  We need to find it soon since the clock is ticking once our homestudy is complete.  We would like to have this plan in place in the next two weeks.  But I am learning that what I think is a good plan may not be what the Lord thinks is a good plan!  We are asking Him to lead us to the path that He has for us to take.  Maybe the original agency?  Maybe a new one?  Maybe a direct adoption through an established orphanage that we know about?  We will keep on following His lead. 

On a side note, while I seem to rarely write here anymore, I do LOVE reading other blogs!  I especially love the ones that post a variety of topics.  So, I may diverge from the topic of adoption and our family occasionally to write about something fairly random.  Like how awesome the fresh raspberries are in my MIL's yard, or how excited I am to be almost finished writing my Unit Guides for my 19 unit math curriculum!  You never know, it could happen....;-)

Sweet Boy

He came into the classroom with huge eyes that looked to be filled with apprehension and possibly even fear. All of this was new to him.  His Kindergarten year had been disrupted by a very scary event that resulted in him now living with Grandpa and Grandma, and this was really his first foray into a real classroom and real learning.  I welcomed him warmly and made sure that he met some of the other boys who would become his best buds for this school year.  He slowly relaxed.  Our first days as a class are always a bit "out of the norm" as I focus strongly on teaching routines, rules and respect, but soon we settled into our normal daily schedule of reading, writing, math, etc...

Fast forward a couple of months....

I look over during our seatwork time as I am running through reading groups, and I see huge, silent tears streaming down his face.  This isn't the first time he has cried, but it is different in that it doesn't seem to be prompted by anything.  No one was mean to him.  Nothing happened that I can see.  I dismiss my reading group and call him over to my desk.  "What's wrong, Honey?"  I ask.  As I reach to hug him (a huge benefit of teaching in a Christian school), he lays his head on my shoulder and says, "I miss my mom.  I WANT a mom!"  I try and pretty much fail at holding it together myself.  This precious boy wants a mommy (and a daddy), and while his grandparents have been amazing in their love and care for him, he is realizing that everyone else in the class has something that he doesn't have.

It is now January, and grandma is calling me frequently to ask questions about school, about his emotional health and about how to minister in the best possible way to her grandson.  In one of our conversations, I offer to have him come stay with us on the weekends to help give them a break--caring for a seven year old boy is busy work!--and to help meet his need for "family".  And so begin our weekends for the next several months.  We are still in this ministry mode.  We typically pick him up on Friday afternoons and keep him until Sunday evening.  To say that he loves coming here, is probably an understatement.  I don't say this to sound like we are some kind of amazing family, I say this because children are wired to need a family.  Grandma and Grandpa are vital and healthy and amazing care givers, but they are supposed to be filling a different role.  They should be doing the spoiling, the sleepovers, the games, the sharing of family history.  Not the discipline, homework, chores, etc...

What does this mean for our adoption pursuits?  Well, this is why there has been a significant delay in our process.  We thought maybe the Lord had led us down the path of adoption so that when this little guy came into our lives, we would be open to adopting him (we are, by the way).  However, there is a mom in this boy's life.  She has rights that she is unwilling to give up.  I don't even know that she should give them up.  We pray constantly about this situation and at this point we feel the Lord saying that we are here to "stand in the gap" while mom is getting her life together.  We pray that she will be fit to care for him once again.

In the meantime, we love, we care, we read bedtime stories, we snuggle, we play, we teach, and we wipe away tears and tell him of God's immense love and plan for him.  We don't know what the future holds, but we trust the One who does.

Next time---Homestudy, Part 1!

We are alive! (I know this is probably a repeat title!)

Yes, folks.  We are still on the face of the earth!  We are still adopting, but nothing about the timeline or process is going quite like we thought or planned.  However, I am finally really okay with that.  I am loving seeing how God is directing things and knowing that He knows how all this will turn out.  I can honestly say that right now...I rest fully in that. 

There are exciting things going on in our home that are really doing a great job of preparing us more for this grand adventure.  I would love to share, but this blog is not private, so I can't give details yet.  We are all working on "not growing weary as we do good".  Our family has been serving in a particular way in the last several weeks, and we are pooped!  However, the One that we serve is faithful to give us what we need just when we need it. 

Since my last post many, many moons ago, we have been enjoying some fun things as a family.  3 of us have had birthday celebrations and the 4th one (Alli) is on Wednesday!  She is going to be 17--which she thinks is kind of a "bummer" birthday sandwiched between 2 milestone birthdays.  I told her it's my year to rest and begin to wrap my brain around the few days that remain before the big 18.  I can't believe it....  McKenna will be our last birthday in our one-birthday-a-month extravaganza that begins in December and goes through April!  My baby will be 10!!

In other news, we are looking into possibly visiting Haiti in the next few months to serve at a mission there.  They also have an orphanage (not the one we are adopting from), so that would be a great way to begin to see what God has in store for us as well.  We don't know details yet, but please pray.  Based on the information that I am seeing about this particular orphanage, it looks like adoptions in Haiti are becoming a much more rapid process!  This is great news for those of us in the middle of it.  There is also a vote happening in March in Haiti that could possibly lighten some of the restrictions on adoptions so that more people will qualify.  Right now the biggest obstacles are that couples have to be married for 10 years, have NO children (but can possibly get a Presidential waiver for bio children), and you must be over 35 years old.  Our agency says that the one about previous children is usually waived, but the others are hard to overcome.

I will try to be better about posting, but no promises!  :-)