And, we wait . . .

So we received our foster license on January 4th. Yeah! It reads that we are licensed for three male or female children from ages three to twelve years. Unbelievable that we have it in our hands! Thank you, Lord!

And we're now again waiting. There's a potential little 15-month-old boy that could be coming to live with us. His birth mother is due to deliver another little boy in March and we'd get him, too. So we'd have a ten-, seven-, and four-year-old along with an 18-month-old and a newborn. We were told on a Tuesday at about six and we had to tell her whether we were interested in proceeding by the next morning at nine.

There was so much to consider. For one, we weren't licensed for children that age. They assured us they'd take care of that. Of course. The other issue was that the reason we didn't license for that age was because of all the stuff that comes along with kids that age: diapers, middle-of-the-night feedings, bottles . . . Needless to say, we did a lot of praying that night. We both came to the decision that we should proceed.

Right now they're reviewing our homestudy alongside two other homestudies to see where he'll go. There's also a potential grandma who has been on the sidelines for the past 15 months that's begun to contemplate whether or not she wants to raise them both. So we're waiting on that, too. We've been told it could be a couple weeks before they know for sure. Yikes!

In the meantime, the placement person at YFC is keeping us in mind for other potential placements. God has the perfect boys in mind for us. We're just waiting to see who they are.

Please pray for the perfect placement in the perfect timing.

We're Just Waiting Now . . .

We've done it. We have completed all parts of the process! Thank you, Lord, for being with us through it!

Funny story. When I called to get Max's pet vaccine records, the animal hospital I called (I figured out who to call only from his tags) said he actually needed shots again. Bummer. So off we went to the vet. While we were there, waiting in the waiting room, a lady was telling us about her dog that was having surgery right then. She is a breeder of Shih Tzus. A large dog found its way to one of her puppies she was raising to sell and long story short, bit her puppy and broke its jaw. It had to have its jaw bone wired. Poor baby. That's not the funny part.

Anyhoo, as we talked and she pet Max a bunch and they oohed and aahed over how obedient he was, she let me know that since this little puppy of hers was unsellable, she'd be willing to give him to me for free. In my head, I was thinking, "I don't need a puppy. I DON'T need a puppy." This was one of those moments, however, where my mouth (ahem heart) was not listening to my mind. Before I knew it, I had asked the lady for her information. Long story, short, we now have a four-month-old Shih Tzu and shot records for both dogs to go into the adoption folder. Ha!

Since then, we've had the home study where they delve into your personal life a bit (not too painful) and the saftey inspection done on our home (again not too painful). The people who came by for both of the studies were sweet, very knowledgeable, and have a heart for this. It was during the home study that I fell in love with my husband all over again. He teared up a couple times too. She asked us what about the other made us decide to get married. I couldn't wait for my turn to go. He's my sure place, my safety net. He always catches me. My cup runneth over. During our interview, we offically changed our requests for adoption for three children. We still want two boys, but since we've got bunkbeds in each of the rooms, we really could have another girl!

The bunkbeds came together great! We are so excited how all their rooms have turned out. I feel like they finally look complete. (The boys' room we'll decorate after they come. We'd like to see what their little personalities and interests are before we move to far in any direction.)

It's so fun to think about having boys here. I've been learning a lot lately about the difference between men and women, boys and girls. We're taking Love and Respect right now in church. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. I'm learning so much! At a conference I went to recently, I took two different classes. One emphasized what distinguishes a woman and another emphasized what distinguished a man. So powerful.

So now, we really do just wait. Lois told us that their portion of the paperwork should be at the state around Thanksgiving. She said she could see us being licensed by Christmas. By Christmas? Wow!

Of course, as a mommy, I've been playing out the scenarios of when we could possibly get our kids. T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, (enter screeching record sound) . . . Ahem, I mean everyone was stirring--there were new children in the house! Oh, what would we do?

Our friend Nita said everyone would surround us and help take care of it and we'd figure it out. I love our friends! God, have I told you lately how much I'm thankful for every one of them? I am! Thank you!

This has been such a blessed journey (and I know it's not over yet). I keep wondering who our new children will be. What will comprise each of their little make-ups? What will they add to our family's dynamic? How will our current children grow through this? Will I be a good mommy to all of them? I keep being reminded of just how much I need my God. He says that where we are weak, He is strong! I'm holding on to that for dear life!

Thank you for continuing to pray for us in each step of this. We love you very much.

Majority of Phase 2 Finished

We've had a whirl of a past two weeks. Brian's surgery was scheduled for the 26th, so we moved PRIDE training up two weeks. We wanted to be sure the large majority of our training and all was finished before that.

In order to sign up for an earlier PRIDE training, we had to agree to driving up to Bremerton, which was close to an hour and a half each way. The drive was nice, though. We played some tunes and enjoyed our time together. Sarah Richardson, Nita Barnard and Grandma McCall volunteered to watch the girls over the six evenings we were in class. Praise the Lord! It worked out!

While the training was held by the state and we had some different beliefs about the hopefulness of the situation, PRIDE was relatively painless, and free! We met a couple couples who are very excited to bring children in their homes and we were able to plug A New Forever, the group we belong to that is absolutely amazing. (You should really check out their website. It's listed on my links section.)

My favorite thing about PRIDE was all the resources we learned about. My favorite resource was TREEHOUSE, which you'll find the link to in my links section. There's also a place I found that will give you a fire ladder and a fire extinguisher free if you're in the foster process. Bonus!

Last week, we received our letter from Youth For Christ that we could go get our fingerprints done, so I made our appointments for last Wednesday up in Federal Way. They're done digitally now, so I hear getting the results of the background check doesn't take as long as it used to. I've heard we're looking at about a month turn-around time. Fingerprinting was free. Bonus!

I also made our appointments to get our TB Tests done. Our insurance doesn't pay for TB Tests, so I checked around. Around here the cheapest place I found that would do them was at Enumclaw Medical Center. They were $18 each for Brian and me.

Since I have to have Max's (our dog's) pet vaccine records, (and we didn't have him as a puppy) I had to call Kent's Veterinary Hospital. Their records showed that Max needs his shots updated. Man! So now we'll be taking him to the vet to get his shots updated.

After that, we'll just be waiting on the fingerprint results to come back and the homestudy to be completed. While we're waiting, we'll be locating bunkbeds and dressers, and getting the house completely ready for our new kids. Yeah!

Thank you for your continued prayer. We are still asking that the processing of paperwork be smooth, that we have favor with all the people involved in the process, and that the items we need (bunkbeds and dressers) we'll come across very inexpensively or FREE! Please continue praying for our family and our marriage as we spend extra time during this time taking care of necessary details, that it would build our family up and not cause it to weaken.

We love you!

Classes and Preparation

So, Saturday before last, Brian and I headed to Allenmore Hospital to complete our First Aid/CPR/Bloodborne Pathogens Course through Keep the Beat. It was relatively painless and quick. Uncle Mark and Auntie Berta took our girls so we could go. The girls didn't mind because the got to spend some time with the Auntie and Uncle and cousins and they also were able to go swim at Don and JoAnn's. "Hooray for us!" they thought.

Tomorrow, we start our PRIDE training through the state. Because Brian's surgery is scheduled for the 26th of August, we had to reschedule our PRIDE training for the 11-13th and the 18-20th of this month. Our friend Nita has offered to watch our kids for us each of those days. Since then, our Sarah has offered to pick up one or two of those. We love our framily!

Right now, we're waiting on a call from Youth For Christ to let us know when and where to go get our fingerprints done. While we're waiting on that, we're also trying to get our house ready for the homestudy that will come sometime after PRIDE training. For now, we're on the search for some bunkbeds that we can pick up for cheap (or FREE is always good!). If you know of anyone who is in the market to donate some--we need three sets--send our information to them or send them to this blog.

The day after we finish PRIDE, we go in for our TB test. We'll get the results for that the following Monday. We found the best place for us to go for our TB test is at Enumclaw Medical Center. They do it for $18. Best price around that I could find--even better than what YFC knew about. The least expensive place they knew about was for $26. I found that most insurance companies don't cover that test. If they do, it's done as a routine exam with your normal co-pay. FYI.

As we complete these, we'll post on them to let you know how it went.

Please pray for resources for the things we need in order to adopt, for expediency on behalf of those who have a part in the processing of our paperwork (Youth For Christ and the State of Washington) and for favor with them, for our daily tasks being completed while we are spending extra time on this, for our own minds to be able to keep up with all we have going on, for peace to cover our home, and mostly for our relationships with each other and with God to grow as we go through this (and not be damaged or depleted because of it).

We love you!

Our Kids

This is such an exciting time for us! As many of you know, we have prayerfully entered into this journey, believing whole-heartedly that God has at least two more children for us, and now we are paper pregnant! We don't want to leave out the specifics in case you have not heard all the details.

We are entering right now into Washington State's Foster Adopt program. As bumpy as we all know the road can be to foster/adopt, there are many ungrounded fears about this program that we hope our lives will serve to diffuse.

Nationwide, there are more than one hundred thousand of children in the U.S. foster care system waiting for permanent families. Child welfare professionals must recruit potential adoptive families for these children who are waiting for adoption.

A national survey by Harris Interactive revealed that 48 million Americans considered adoption from foster care in 2007, however:

- 67% were unnecessarily concerned that biological parents could return to claim the children; once the court finalizes the legal termination of parental rights, the parents can never return to claim the child.

- 36% were unsure or confused about the adoption process.

- 45% believed children in foster care have entered the system because of juvenile delinquency. In reality, the vast majority of the 129,000 children waiting in the U.S. foster care system entered through no fault of their own, as victims of neglect, abandonment and/or abuse.

The more we learn about the foster adoption process, the firmer our resolve becomes to get through the process and bring our children home. So who are our children?

We certainly want whoever it is that God has in mind for us. With that in mind, we would love to have at least one boy. The children we have in mind will be under eight and over three, preferably a sibling set. Children who come into the foster system with brothers or sisters are more difficult to place, as are children over six. We feel strongly about keeping siblings together so we're hopeful that the children we receive will be from the same family and at least one of them being over six.

Many people are nervous about the fact that children coming from the foster system have been exposed to some harsh realities of life in unfit homes. The more we learn about this, we are finding that children who have been exposed to such abuse that causes them to be dangerous to other children will not be placed in a home that currently has children. Phew . . .

What is the adoption process like?

Well, we just finished our paperwork, which, we must say, was extensive. Yeah! We now are in the process of retrieving our reference forms. The next steps for us are: pre-service training (in the state of Washington, the training is called Pride), TB screening, CPR classes, fingerprints and background checks, getting our house ready for more children (yikes!) and having a home-study completed on us as a family and the suitability/safety of our house.

The costs of adopting a child from the public foster care system are typically kept to a bare minimum and may be eligible for reimbursement. Incurred costs are generally limited to household preparation, attorney fees, and adoption home studies. The typical foster adopt process costs up to $2,500, not including household prep. We will be building an additional two rooms out of our current playroom space and it looks like we'll be covering our now two-story foyer for additional space for our kids to play. I'm not sure exactly how much all that will cost. We could use some help in designing and building it though! Know anyone who believes in God's plan for adoption and who has those abilities? (wink!)

As you can see, there's a lot involved in adoption, so please remember us as you are praying. We know that God has said that "external religious worship [religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world" James 1:27. America's orphans can be found in its foster care system. They are the unseen, domestic orphans, the neglected, and the lonely. We also know that "God sets the lonely in families" (Psalm 68:6). We know he will set two in ours. We are sure that He will take care of us monetarily, emotionally, and with favor in paperwork as we set out to rescue our children. He may just use you to do it! "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)

We love you and we're so excited for what will come next! We'll keep you posted. If you subscribe to our blog, any time we update it, you'll be emailed. God bless you!