The Other Family

Well, most everyone who knows us knows about our recent experience with the Gour Family. Just in case you haven't heard, a couple of months ago, we had the privilege to review the file of a precious little girl from a waiting list of special needs children our agency had received. She had been diagnosed with a form of Spina Bifida and we were sure she was meant to be ours. But, God had a different plan and after an agonizing few days of fervent praying and searching our souls, we called our agency and declined her referral. The Gours are the family she was always meant to be with and I have had the opportunity to connect with this family via e-mails. It has been an awesome experience and I guess our agency agreed because they saw our families' stories on the Gour's blog and decided to feature it in their monthly newsletter. I was contacted today by our agency, also, requesting permission to send our story to larger publications. When all of this first started, I wondered why God allowed us even to review Claire's file, because we had already begun to bond with her, and turning her down was absolutely heartbreaking. Why did He allow us to go through all that emotional turmoil? I now see that this has become so much bigger than I ever thought. If we can help one family that is going through a similar situation, it was worth every second of hurt. I do know also, that this whole thing has helped affirm the Gour's decision to adopt Claire, and knowing that has helped tremendously. Here's a link to our agency's newsletter.

http://www.childrenshopeint.org/E-News/Mar08/email.htm



We are "The Other Family"

What an evening!!

Last night Chris, Morgan and I had the opportunity to work as volunteers for Shaohannah's Hope Foundation at an information table during a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Our duties included handing out information on the foundation as well as international adoption. We also carried around large buckets through the crowd collecting money. The money collected was given to a local couple at the end of the evening, who was pursuing international adoption. We collected over $2,200 dollars!! It was an amazing evening of testimonies and worship. We were able to enjoy the concert between the intermission.
A few weeks ago, we were contacted by a couple who lives in a nearby town. They adopted their beautiful daughter from China, a little over a year ago. We had e-mailed each other a couple of times a while back, but had regrettably lost touch recently. Well, when I got her e-mail last month asking us to work the concert, I immediately said "YES!" We were finally able to meet this wonderful couple last night, and were able to talk about their experiences. They offered SO much advice and support. I'm so glad we now can include them in our support system! We were also able to talk with other adoptive parents, and swap stories. Then, to hear Stephen Curtis Chapman's adoption testimony, WOW, it was just the icing on the cake! We all had a blast and hope someday we have this opportunity again.
Another positive, 2005 LID's are finally done!!! CCAA has finally begun referring 2006 families.
At least we can now say they are working on our year. We are only 9 months of LID's away from our referral, but it could realistically take another 2-3 years before our turn is finally here.
We continue to pray for patience, peace and perseverance.

Praise the Lord!!! We are finally out of review!!!

After waiting for over 2 months (usually takes around 2 weeks to a month) the CCAA finally posted last night that our application to adopt from China has been approved!!! I have been really stressing about this lately. It seems that I am hearing of more and more families that are being denied to adopt from here. We knew we shouldn't have any issues getting approved, but we could have easily had glitches in our paperwork which could have caused us further delays. So now our file moves to the matching room, but will probably sit on a shelf somewhere for at least another couple of years. Even though the wait will still be long, this is a huge milestone for our journey to our little girl.

More Disny Pics and 1st day of School

WOW, it's been awhile

I can't believe it's been so long since our last post. Time sure has gotten away from us this past summer. I guess I need to do a quick recap of our summer. June and July were pretty much a blur with chaotic baseball schedules. Our Disney trip was a much needed break during the middle of July. We had a blast as usual . The boys soon realized that the end of the trip also pretty much marked the end of their summer break.

We got the two older boys in school around the 2nd week of August. I can't believe I have a Jr. High er. Where does the time go?

On the adoption front, referrals are still coming VERY slowly. CCAA is still matching 2005 LID's. Hopefully they will finish Nov. 2005 with the next batch and I pray they will move into 2006 LID's by the first of the year. We are hoping to travel before 2010. Ugh, that sounds so far away. We've been keeping busy with updating our homestudy. We have a homevist this Friday with our wonderful social worker, Julia. She is absolutely wonderful! We think our paperwork (dossier) should be reviewed and approved before the end of the year, so that's exciting news for us. Right now CCAA is reviewing dossiers that were logged in during August 2006, so ours is next! Yeah us!!

We celebrated our 1 yr LID anniversary on Saturday, Sept. 8th. We attended an adoption seminar hosted by our agency. It was good for us to go and talk with other adoptive families. It keeps it real for us. There are some days that this doesn't seem like it will ever happen, but we just have to keep our faith in the Lord and know there is a reason behind this excruciating wait.

I promise we will do better at updating. Thanks for coming by!!

"If God leads you to it..."

"If God leads you to it, then He will lead you through it." I saw this on a church sign on Monday. It spoke volumes to me in regards to our adoption journey. Yesterday (Wednesday) our adoption agency posted their newest Waiting Child List. We (Tammy and I) have looked and prayed over the list several times. Our agency will begin accepting applications tomorrow morning. We are planning to submit applications for 7-8 little girls on Saturday. The families chosen to review the children's medical records will be notified on Monday. We continue to believe that God is in control of our journey. Our prayer is that each child on the list will be placed with their forever family. We ask that each of you will also pray this prayer. We also ask that God will prepare us if our daughter is on this list or not. He has placed us on this journey and we know He will see us through until the end and the beginning of our journey as a family of SIX!

A few pictures

Being a very big boy at the dentist!

Much happier at Chuck E Cheese!!