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....;-)