Are we still adopting?

I've asked myself this question several times over the past year. We desired to adopt again several years ago while still living in Indiana. We knew, though, that we would be moving so postponed beginning the process until we were situated in our new home (where ever that might be.) So once we relocated to CA, I was ready to begin the process again. Korea was on my heart, so that was the assumption that I made, that we would go with Korea. However, once we arrived we were made aware of another possibility through the California Foster System. Sounds scary, but we learned about a private agency where we would have personal care, and more protection. They won't do high risk placements, meaning a higher risk of the child going back to birth family. So we investigated this process and through a lot of talking and prayer felt this was the way to go. That was two years ago. The homestudy process was a bit rough, a lot more paperwork than we had experienced with adopting Drew, we also had to take about 3 months off for family reasons. But we stuck with it and began child search in October of 2008. The weeks dragged on waiting to hear about a placement, then the months began to drag on. We were told about a few possibilities, our hopes were up to only find out that the child was placed with someone else. During this whole process the question continued in our minds, aren't there thousands of foster children in the system? Where are they? Why aren't we hearing about them? Unfortunately, the answer was timing. The economy is bad, California is bankrupt. What does that have to do with the children? Well the counties are cutting down resources, social workers are being laid off, things are moving slower, counties aren't spending the money to place children far from their location. Frustrating because most of the counties our agency worked with were around 3 hours away. Sad, because there are children, and they still need homes. And we are a home waiting for them. But after more talking and more praying, we have come to realize that we are on a dead end street. Spinning our wheels. After talking to our social worker several months ago, it was suggested to look into leaving the agency and work directly with our county.

We knew about our county's program in the beginning, but did not choose that way because of the risk. We could possibly have several children come and go to be reunited with the birth family. I didn't think I could handle it. After dragging my feet (Jathan was willing to switch a while ago) I have been reminded that when God calls us to something it isn't always easy. We both believe we are called to adopt, now we have to be willing to obey even though this road could result in heartache. We do know that even if children come and go, we will have the unique opportunity to be a family to them for a period of time. During that time we can love them, care for them and teach them things of the Lord.

So here we are ready to begin the process. Last week we closed our file with our adoption agency. I have to say there was sinking feeling in my heart when we did that. We have our appointment today with the county to get fingerprinted and turn in our application. We are specifying that we would like to adopt. With this they will try to place children that it looks like there will be a strong possibility to adopt. Of course, with many there are a lot of unknowns as far as the amount of risk. That is where faith comes in. We have to believe that we are doing what God has called us to do. We will pray and ask you to pray for protection on our family, especially our kids. We are proceeding with the attitude that we are taking care of children for a short period of time, if God opens the door to adopt one of them, we will be grateful and proceed.

So that is the story of where we are at right now. I will try to post later today to update on the fingerprinting and what the rest of the process is.

Please pray as we begin our new adoption journey. I want so bad to be an advocate of adoption and how special it is to God's heart. But I fear that when I share the heartaches and problems we have gone through, it will scare people off. It is hard, if you asked 100 people who have adopted about the process you will get many varying stories, some will be smooth processes where everything fell right into place, others will tell of the long wait as looked at the picture of their child on the fridge and longed for the phone call to bring them home, others have had matches to have them only fall through in the end. So many stories, but I would bet that of those 100 people you ask, not matter what their story was about the process, they will tell you they wouldn't have traded it for the world, because they now have that child, or children that God placed in their family. I have learned with adopting, it is so much more than helping a child, for me it is all part of God's sanctifying process in my life. Lord willing through it I am becoming more like him. All that to say, I hope that any of my adoption talk will not scare you off if you are thinking about adopting. Look back a few posts in my blog about our journey to get Drew. I know it is worth it. Hard, but so worth it.