Home Study - CHECK!

Woohoo!! We finally, after 8 months of waiting on our anniversary to come and go, have a FINALIZED HOME STUDY!!

So what does this mean, this means that now we can...

...apply for GRANTS!! 

...kick off our next fundraiser (Stay tuned!)

...our home study will be sent to US Immigration for immigration approval for us as parents.

...our home study will be uploaded to the CARA database so that we can be registered to start accepting matches!!

That's right, the US immigration side happens pretty much simultaneously with the India side. 

And yes, I know you all are really wanting to know, "So when do you get your kid?". Well, we are still a ways out, hoping for mid next year. BUT, we will hopefully know who our bab(ies) will be in the next two months!! Woohoo! It will take anywhere from 2-8 weeks to be registered on the database to receive matches. With a lot of prayer and God's guidance, we will know the sweet faces of our kids very soon!

What can you do? Pray! Pray for a speedy registration on the database. Be praying for our bab(ies) and the orphanage that they are at. Pray for a hedge of protection around all of the workers that are working on our behalf to help us bring our kids home - US and India side. Pray for us as we wait, for our discernment to be able to know which match is right for our family. Pray for our adoption agency, that they would be able to have God's discernment in which match would be best for our family. 

I promise to do a better job of keeping every one up to date on everything. Hopefully we will be moving at light speed, God willing!

Adoption is NOT a consolation prize

The title of this one is intriguing, isn't it? Well this post is just to get some things out there. We currently have a lot of our friends having babies after dealing with years of infertility. This has in turn prompted a fair amount of people to ensure us that they are praying for us to have "our own, biological baby" or that we are going to be "next". First off, we greatly appreciate that you are praying for us and that you want that for us. But we want you to understand, that right now... in this very season of our life... a biological baby is not what we want. We want and were nudged ever so gently, several times by God, to choose this path. The path of international adoption. This path is hard, it is uncertain, and it absolutely not for the faint of heart. We have to be ready, and to be prayed up at all times. We have to have a gigantic amount of faith in our God that he is moving mountains on our behalf to bring our baby home.

We know that there are people who adopt due to infertility but at this stage in our life.. we want you to know, that adoption was and is our PLAN A. We know that it may be easy for you to assume that we can't have children, but we believe that we can. We are simply choosing to adopt at this point in time. We want you to know that our adopted child, will be OUR child. There is no distinction thanks to an awesome thing called love. If you are a christian, you would recall that Jesus himself was adopted by his earthly father, Joseph. Joseph loved him as his own and cared for him just like a biological child. God calls us his own through Christ. He has adopted us into his kingdom and we are his heirs and co-heirs in Christ (Romans 8:17). We are called to do the same thing by caring for waiting children today - whether they be in our own country or another. We are sharing that love of Christ throughout the nation and the greatest part is being able to take a child out of a bad situation and turn their life around for good. We are truly mimicking the work of Christ. We are doing his work; we are being his hands and feet. 

We would just like to empower you to show love and get excited for people you know that are adopting. We in the adoption community need your support just as much as the family that is pregnant with a biological child. Although you may not see a pregnant belly, we have the finger cuts of all the paperwork we have had to gather to prove to the US and India that we will be good parents. We are praying constantly for our child and we don't even know who they are yet. We pray for their family and for their birth. For their orphanage and for their growing little minds. We pray for them every. single. day. And while we may not know who they are yet, our heavenly father does and we trust that he is choosing the perfect child and timing for our family.

Please know that we love you, but we want you to understand that sometimes it does hurt a little that you can't recognize this joyous occasion for us or that you think we are less than the person having their own child. Because I assure you, our child, even though they may look different from us, will be our child in every sense of the way possible. We hope that you can understand this and get on board with us for the roller-coaster of a lifetime in bringing our baby home.

For those of you that are already on the ride with us, we thank you. Thank you for loving us and supporting us. You have no idea how much it means. It takes a village to bring home a baby, and we are so thrilled you are a part of our tribe! :)

Update

Hey everyone! I know a lot of people have been asking what's the word on the street? Well, at the beginning of the year we applied for a grant for our home study. The home study costs roughly $2,000 and there is only one grant available for this. The other grants require you to submit a copy of your finalized home study with it. So we have been waiting several months to see if we got the grant or not... and guess what?! 

WE GOT THE GRANT!!! 
And it was for $2,000, the entire cost of the home study!! God is sooo good!!

While we waited we have been busy gathering tons of official documents for our home study and our dossier. I mean we had to get official birth certificates, marriage licenses, medical forms, complete hours of classes online, copies of our insurance, background checks at the local, state and FBI level, autobiographies for Peco and I that listed recollections from childhood, employment, education, and how we feel about adopting a child... The list goes on. About 30+ documents and most had to be certified and notarized. We finally mailed those off to our home study agency and our placement agency today! Woohoo! 

So what's next? Next, we will meet our social worker with the home study agency and she will come out and examine our home and interview us. We will probably have about 3-5 different visits from her over the next few months. She will interview us together and separately and together again. Once she is finished writing up everything, our agency will approve this and SC DSS has to approve it as well. This won't be finalized until after our anniversary on July 25th. So we are looking to finalize it at the end of July, which is perfect because there is a grant that gives up to $15,000 and the deadline is August 6th! 

So what can you do for us now? Pray that we get the grant and most importantly pray for our future child. Pray for a hedge of protection around them, that they are safe and that God fills them with a sense of peace that we are coming for them!

After our home study is complete, we will send off paperwork to be cleared through US immigration to adopt and at the same time send paperwork to India to be registered on their database to be matched with a child. We are hoping to be match with a child early Fall, but everything is unpredictable. We are at the mercy of the Indian government but ultimately we know that everything is in God's hands and will happen in his timing. :)

Thank you for following us and praying for us. We appreciate you more than you will ever know!

Blessed Beyond Measure

This past week we were once again reminded about the goodness of our God and how he will continue to provide for us throughout the adoption process.

In the last post, I told you guys how my husband's students raised $1,072 for our adoption... well we have some pretty awesome news to update you on.

Since the kids video of their generosity was posted on Facebook, we have had not ONE.. but TWO people dollar for dollar match their donations... So the kids didn't just raise $1,072 ... their donation was tripled to $3,216!! Praise God through whom all blessings flow. He is mighty and he is letting us know that he is in control and he's got this. :)

We are so blessed and thankful for the donations that have been bestowed upon us and we are so excited to see God move throughout the rest of our adoption process!

Valentine's Day Surprise

Less than a month after we decided to stop worrying so much about everything and stop attempting to control the timeline of our adoption process, the Lord truly blessed us in a beautiful and mighty way!

My husband’s 3^rd grade GATE class and the previous two years classes (now 4^th and 5^th grade GATE classes) secretly raised money over the course of a week and a half and presented it to him on Valentine’s Day!! Those amazing kids raised a grand total of $1,072!! They were so excited to be able to bless us with this and we are so incredibly grateful! Words can’t even begin to express how we feel – the Lord is working in our adoption and he is showing up BIG and in avenues that we never even imaged! The kids told us how some of them had lemonade stands in their neighborhoods and others made cards and pictures. We are so blessed!

Receiving the gift from the kids

This is just a portion of all three classes. :)

Collage of some of their cards 

One of the kids drew a "Baby Super Sanders"

Exceedingly and Abundantly

Whenever God gives you a word, it is SO exciting and empowering that you could just jump for the sky! It is so refreshing and you have such hope that you can't possibly be brought back down to reality ever... right? Well... not exactly. You see, when you get that initial hope, you can't just grab hold and think that it will take you through the entire process. You have to constantly renew your mind. Constantly repeat the promises to yourself that the Lord has told you. If you don't do these things...  that seed of doubt will be planted. If you aren't strong enough it will be watered and it will grow. Before you know it, you've just gotten yourself into a place that you never wanted to be. How could you be so doubtful of a situation that God clearly told you he had control over. Yes, you may not see the work that is going on in the background, the people whose hearts God is changing, tugging on and making a way for the promise he gave you. To truly have a God size dream... it can't be measured on our earthly terms. It's a dream that can only be achieved through the supernatural, through the Holy Spirit weaving in and out of people's lives, planting those seeds of hope. The hard, at least for me, is the waiting and having patience. As humans, it is so difficult to believe when you don't see. As Christians, this is what it is all about, believing in the unseen. That is what faith is all about, the substance of things that we hope for, the evidence of the things we cannot see. When we feel God has called us to do something we just want to jump in and do it now, on our terms... but that is what's so great about God. If we do it on our terms, so fast and hastily, it won't come out right. But if we wait on Him, put our faith and trust in Him, it will be far greater than our wildest dreams.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us" Eph 3:20

Do you see that... he is ABLE to do EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY above ALL things that we ASK or even think! How great is our God? I was feeling a tad bit defeated Sunday morning when I went to church, the seed was creeping in, how will we really ever afford all of this? Then I was quickly reminded that God's got it. A lady from our church came over to me and said "I've already told your husband, but I wanted you to know too. You shouldn't be surprised by overflow". There it was, God showing up to clean up my little mess. To remind me that he's got this, and not only does he have this and is he going to fulfill his promise to us, but he is going to do it exceedingly and abundantly. We send up prayers of thanksgiving and are so grateful for all that he is doing in our lives and in the life of the little one who will become our son or daughter. We don't know if they are born yet, but we do know that God is orchestrating everything and that it will be a testimony to only Him who we can give the glory and thanks! :)

Puzzle Fundraiser

Puzzle Fundraiser!

Every person who donates to our adoption becomes a piece of our story; a piece of our puzzle. So here is how the fundraiser works:

• We have selected a 500 piece puzzle and each piece symbolizes someone who will help to bring our child home.
• Each piece is a minimum donation of $20.
• You may choose to be one piece of the puzzle or many. There is no limit.
• Your name will be written on the back of each puzzle piece that you represent. Make sure to add a note to your donation or send an email with the name(s) you would like written on the puzzle piece(s).

Once we have fully funded the puzzle, we will frame it between two pieces of glass and hang it in our child's room. By hanging it between two pieces of glass, we will be able to turn it over and tell the story and remember the names all of the people that supported us making it possible to bring our child home!

Below is a picture that we chose to have made for our puzzle. 

We will write your name on the back of the puzzle piece...

Once we have funded the entire puzzle, we will have raised $10,000! This is almost a third of the price of our adoption. So huge!! 

We would be so honored for you to support us and help us to bring our child home! To buy a puzzle piece you can send your donation to our paypal account here or you can make a tax deductible donation to our Pure Charity account here and click the "donate to this fundraiser" button.