JSC Foundation Grant!

So back in December/January we began the process of applying for several adoption grants. We asked for your prayers, that God would move mountains to provide for our our little one. We are so excited share with you how God has been working over the last few months. We ended up receiving a total of 3 grants!I will be writing a separate post about each grant in case some readers are looking for information on adoption grants as they go through the same process. The very first grant we received was through the JSC Foundation. For those of you researching adoption grants, JSC was amazing! One thing we found neat about JSC was their requirement to meet with your pastor. This ended up being such a great part of the process. We really enjoyed meeting with our Pastor and his wife and sharing with them about our adoption. They prayed for us before we left and we really felt blessed by our time together. We felt every step of the application process with JSC was efficient and went very smoothly. We submitted our application by the January 15th deadline, and on February 11th we received an e-mail from the JSC Foundation awarding us a generous grant (they prefer the amount not be shared publicly and we will respect their wishes.) We honestly could not believe it! We were so excited and so humbled to be chosen. We can not even imagine how much work, time, and sacrificial giving went into JSC being able to offer our family such a gift. Not only did we receive a grant but soon after we received a book and workbook on adoption called, "The Connected Child" in the mail from them. We feel loved, cared for and prayed for by this foundation. What a gift from God! Thank you JSC Foundation.

Waiting

I saw a quote on Facebook the other day so I thought I would share,

"It's not that I love waiting,
It's that I love the person I am waiting for."

It resonated with with me.We are officially in the waiting period for our adoption. We have only officially been a"waiting family" for a few months, but of course it seems much longer as the process to adopt began about 9 months ago, not to mention the 3 years before that spent thinking, praying and hoping for another child. Waiting is definitely not easy, especially when there is not a defined timeline as to how long this wait will be. It is a hard balance to find, on the one hand looking forward to the day when we can hold our little one and welcome him/her into our family and then on the other hand to be present in the here and now and just enjoy the season of life we are in. Some of our friends are also adopting and it was so interesting to read her blog and see some of the same feelings I have been having reflected in her words. I guess we are in good company with others who are going through a similar process! I am putting a link to her post here. Please take the time to read it, it is well worth your time (Lisa's post on waiting)!

Even though we have been "waiting" we have been extremely busy. The girls always keep us on our toes and homeschooling takes up the majority of my time. We have also been working at a steady pace on grant writing and adoption training for our agency. We are so thankful for organizations that recognize that the costs of adoption often prevent families who would otherwise love to adopt from doing so. There are so many deserving families applying for these grants and unfortunately there are just not enough funds for most families to receive a grant. Would you pray with us as we apply for these grants that God would move mountains? That he would provide for this adoption in only the way that he can?

Would you also pray with us for our sweet little one as well as his or her birth parents? As you pray for the birth mother, please pray not only for her physical health but also her emotional, and spiritual health. These women are not "abandoning" their children. They are choosing life, and trying to make the best choice for their child under a variety of potentially challenging circumstances.

A few pics of the two sweeties who keep us so busy....

Exciting News!

We are excited to announce that we are officially a "waiting family!" For us its similar to the feeling we had when we found out we were pregnant. This just got a lot more "real" for us! So a "waiting family" what does that mean anyway? For us, that means our profile book can be shown to expectant (birth) parents for a potential "match." We are not "in line" behind other families. We are all in the same "pool." An expectant parent could choose us to parent their child at any point. It could happen quickly or it could take a few years. So now....we wait.

This also means that we got a bill for $5,000 dollars today. Yikes! Thanks so much to those of you who have already given to help provide a family for our future little one, we could not do it without you! If you were thinking/praying about giving, now would be a great time! You can even give online through the link on the top right of our main page, with the picture of the elephant that says "Give Now." Now that our homestudy is approved, we can start applying for Grants/Loans. So, I will be doing that in our spare time! We are also hoping to do a few fundraisers before Christmas.

We are so excited, and can't wait to see how God continues to unfold our adoption journey! Thank you so much for your continued prayers and support!

Cover of our profile book :)

Final Home Visit and Transracial Adoption

We had our home visit a few weeks ago. I felt a lot of pressure to make sure everything in the house looked nice. I cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned a bit more just for good measure. No worries, the house is messy again, in fact it was messy about 30 minutes after the social worker left and the girls started dragging out their toys.

So for those who don't know what a home visit looks like, it is basically when your social worker comes over and does a walk through of your house to make sure its a good and safe environment for a child to be brought into. She also met with the girls and asked them questions and let them ask any questions they had. We took some time to put our service plan together and it looks like we should be approved and a waiting family sometime around the beginning of October if that process goes smooth. The next step is to put our profile book together so we can have that ready to go. As soon as our home study is approved, we will also be able to apply for grants and loans which we are excited about.

There are a lot of things you have to look at when you are adopting domestically and one of those areas is whether or not you are comfortable adopting a child of another race. As some of you may have guessed by the fact that our family is already made up of different races, our answer was yes. So, what will this mean for us? It means that 80% of the children who have an adoption plan made for them are either bi-racial or African American. This means that we have an 80% chance of having our child be bi-racial or African American. There is about an 18% chance our child could be Caucasian and a 2% chance that they would be Asian or Hispanic. We believe that God made us all in his image.We will welcome a child of any race into our family. This is not to say we are "color blind," we don't live in a color blind world, so that would not be a realistic approach. We understand that there may be challenges adopting a child of a different race, just as there are challenges marrying someone of a different race or culture, but there will also be great blessings. The following video is from a Pastor named John Piper. He also adopted a child of a different race than himself. We both found this to be a very powerful video dealing with both race, and adoption. It is a bit long but well worth the watch. I hope you guys enjoy!

Home Study Interviews x's 3

A week ago today, we received an e-mail from our social worker with some unexpected news. She said that she wanted to go ahead and begin our home study interviews. She is expecting and would like to finish up before she goes on leave! Wow, we had actually assumed the fact she was expecting meant we would have to wait much longer to begin and that we would be waiting until she returned. We were blown away, but so excited!

So we had our first interview on Friday, this was a joint interview with both E and I. This meeting consisted of a lot of questions about us and our relationship. We were about 3/4 th's of the way through our meeting when our social worker was called out of the room. She came back and apologized but she would have to leave as they had an expectant mother just give birth! Wow, we thought that was just so neat. So E and I left just feeling amazed at how this whole process works. I said a prayer for the baby, the mother, and soon to be adoptive family. How neat!

We returned on Tuesday to finish our meeting and for E to have his individual interview. This time we went over a couples inventory that E and I had worked on the week before. This was a really neat tool that looks at the areas of strengths and the areas of growth for your marriage. Then I left and E had his interview. I told him to try and remember the questions so he could fill me in haha (you know you would do it too)! He laughed and when he got out he called me but couldn't remember very many questions. Bummer. It was probably better that way!

I went in yesterday and had my individual interview. Mine took much longer than E's that is because I like to elaborate and I ended up having a lot of questions! It was great getting my questions answered and just getting my mind around some things. We love our social worker and have really been blessed to have her working with us through this process.

On September 4th we are scheduled for our last home visit. Our social worker will actually meet our pastor late that morning and then come to our house. She will talk with the girls and check out our house. So, I have got to fit some serious cleaning in between homeschooling and caring for my husband and children!

Thought I would also share this cute picture. We were filling in names on our puzzle of people who have donated and S and S run back to their room. Out they come carrying their piggy bank. Mommy, we want to give money for our baby too! Oh, my goodness. It was hard not to cry. Here is a picture of S #2 (S#1 didn't want her pic taken.)

One Step Closer (or maybe a few)

This week we attended our second training. We were glad to see some of the same faces as we had in our last meeting. It was a much smaller group, so it was a very relaxed meeting (the doughnuts and coffee didnt hurt either!) We delved a bit deeper this time into the joys and challenges that adoption presents. Some of the couples we were in class with have already been through the process once, and we learned so much just listening to them.

All our paperwork has been turned in, and our file is complete. We should be hearing soon when we can start out homestudy meetings. We are working on paperwork to apply for a grant that would help with part of the homestudy fee. We also need to get started on our profile book. This is the book that will be shown to the expectant parents as they are making an adoption plan. This book will hopefully give them a glimpse of who we are as a family. Trying to decide what photo book site to use. Do you have a favorite you would recommend?

We have also had company this week! E's Dad and cousin are here from out of the country! We have enjoyed having them with us.

Picking blueberries with her Grandpa!

Adoption Training

Last week was our first all day adoption training. I was experiencing a variety of emotions but overall, I was just excited to be getting started. The girls stayed with my parents, so we would be rested and ready for the training. We woke up pretty early to get ready, and I have to admit it was nice to get ready without two little ones asking a million questions or hanging all over my arms as I try to put my make up on! It's amazing how good an uninterupted shower feels!

So, not the best picture, I'm not so good at taking selfies, but here we are on the way to the training!

When we arrived we noticed a lot of other couples picking up their packets and sitting down at the tables. It is a strange feeling going to an adoption meeting, usually decisions about creating a family or adding to a family are made on a more personal level. You know having a cup of coffee with your husband, deciding to "try again" or to "start trying." There is not a lot of "training" per say. Adoption is a bit more public, you have to fill out forms describing everything about yourself, your history, your struggles, your hopes for the future, basically everything short of what color your underwear is today. So this meeting was yet again another part of our very now public story. It is something I am trying to get used to, and I believe it will actually end up being such a blessing in our lives.

During the training we learned  a lot about adoption. We learned about the spectrum of closed to open adoptions, we learned about transracial adoptions, we learned about birthparents, about grief, also about joy. I think I will probably blog on each of those topics seperately, they will each play a huge roll in our process. We also got to speak and ask questions to a whole panel of adoptive parents, and a birthmother. It was all very eye opening, heart wrenching, and yet beautiful. Adoption is not without its share of pain. We have experienced both pain and loss when trying to build our family. The birthparents will also experience a great amount of pain and loss as they go through this process of trying to do what is best for their child and not necesarily what would be best for their own hearts. The infant/child being placed has also experienced great loss. Yet through these losses we will also experience the joy that adoption brings.

Through the meeting we were also very blessed to meet others that are going through this same experience. We had lunch with some neat couples and were really encouraged by speaking with them. We hope to continue these friendships as we go through the process. So what I had initially felt so uncomfortable about ended up being such a blessing to both of us. I don't think any of us left that day without a few tears being shed, ok maybe more than a few. Our next meeting is August 14th. We are hoping to begin our homestudy process as soon after that as possible. I will keep you updated. We do have a $5,000 dollar homestudy fee coming up in a few months. Please pray with us for God's provision. If you would like to help with these costs please click on the "Give Now" button on our homepage. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your love and support.