July Update

Several of you have call to see where WE (love the we!) are at with adoption paperwork this week; I've been so busy doing the paperwork, I've forgotten to tell anyone about it. How I could forget about the paper is beyond me, 'cuz there is paperwork EVERYWHERE and a tad ALL CONSUMING. (insert daunting echoing sound effects here).

I am officially in the Home Study process, which apparently is the worst part. Good to get that over with, I suppose. The list is long, but here is a general overview of what the Home Study involves:

·       FBI fingerprinting (Jessie came with me on the 11th & took pictures of that process. I can guarantee you nobody else's kids are going to have THAT photo in their baby book!)

·       Extensive questioning about my upbringing & mental state through puberty (THAT was a real treat to complete)

·       Peer & pastoral references (thank you to those that were involved with this portion!)

·       Work references & salary confirmations

·       Ten hours of online training (haven't started that yet...)

·       Twenty hours of additional assigned reading...and written book reports

·       Financial statements, copies of insurance, birth certificates, legal guardianship paperwork---all notarized, of course

·       Discipline plans

·       Personal interviews & home inspection (that’s coming any day)

·       Physical exams, blood work & xrays

It's A LOT! This all while checking 'the catalog' of waiting children on a regular basis. It's a little overwhelming, I won't lie. There are some days that I can't look at the pile when I get home from work. It's a feeling very similar to that of when I was in grad school--overwhelmed, unprepared, financially upside-down, and certainly not sure what the future was holding...but positive the Lord told me to do it. The Lord was certainly faithful in that arena! Secretly, I was kind of hoping I wouldn't ever have to go back to that 'place' again, but it is now the altar of remembrance that I am holding onto. This time, instead of a fancy framed diploma and patients that are convinced that caught tuberculosis from their pet fish (not making that up!)...a sweet little one who needs a momma is the reward.

Paperwork Maddness

The big packet of Home Study paperwork has been sent out!  There is not much more about me that is not in that envelope. Lord, protect it & surround it with favor.  Just straggling forms & little lists to complete while waiting for my fingerprinting to be processed.  And books to read.  Lots of books to read…

June Update

Well, if I was looking for any other confirmation, listen to this:

     I've been feeling really good about international & decided to complete the preliminary international application on-line just to see what happened. The process of review & matching the applicant with the available countries normally takes 2 weeks...I got my results in 19 hours! NINETEEN HOURS. Jack Bauer can't even get anything done in 19hours...which means, mathematically, we have proof that God is indeed bigger than Jack Bauer!

     I've been matched with Ethiopia, Russia (with stipulations that are still unclear), China & Hong Kong...which means that as a single adopter I qualify for those countries. I've had a couple of days to ruminate---I'm not feeling particularly passionate about Ethiopia and I still need to get details on Russia. China sounds good, but honestly Hong Kong feels really good. Of course, I'm praying about it, but I've also asked the Holy Spirit to make Himself clearly heard through my emotions and 'gut instincts'. I feel a little bit like I'm playing blindfolded Hot-Cold with a birthday present, but trusting that I'm hearing appropriately.

     So..the next step. I'm working on the formal application with my international adoption specialist After the formal app is processed (I'm not sure how long that will take), it's on to the Home Study and the fields of paperwork.

     This is going a lot faster than I thought it would, which I hope is a sign of God's favor.

The Gospel. The Seed of Adoption. My Family Tree.

Samuel. Esther. Ruth. Moses. Dave Thomas. Malcolm X.  Steve Jobs. Scott Hamilton. Marilyn Monroe. Melissa Gilbert. Babe Ruth. Faith Hill. Harry Carry. Eleanor Roosevelt. Leo Tolstoy. George Washington Carver. Edgar Alan Poe. Crazy Horse. Aristotle. Nancy Regan. ALL adopted. All born into one family and raised by another. All loved and cared for by someone without their same blood. Each with their own hurts, joy, failures and successes. Each with the permanent mark of God’s redeeming story…you were vulnerable, alone and unable to care for yourself and I sought you out to love you as my own.  Adoption IS the Gospel story.

I’m sure every adoptive parent has a different on-ramp on their road to adoption, but the mileage is the same.  Mine was on a plane, December 1994.  I was seventeen and on my first trip to Seattle—the city that I now call my own. During the boarding process, a woman in a white t-shirt holding an Asian toddler passed on my left down the aisle.  She didn’t bump me.  The kid wasn’t screaming.  No one smelled funny.  There was no reason why this woman & child should have stood out to me.  But the Voice within me that echoed as she passed me was significant: “That’ll be you”.  Of course, at the time, I didn’t understand the magnitude of that prophetic statement.  I nonchalantly tucked it away in the “Someday” file that, at the time, included riding in a hot air balloon and marrying Val Kilmer. (Hello, Top Gun!)

Over the next 15 years I kept a soft spot for adoption. I was drawn to the young and sick on missions trips. I focused on pediatric & international medicine in school & work. I gave faithfully to adoption organizations and was in awe of Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman’s adoption story of their three daughters. Then one Sunday in November 2009 the Voice echoed again “It’s time”.  Say WHAT?!!  I knew instantly, the Lord was calling me, eh, tossing me from 30,000feet, onto the adoption road, but it would take me another 18months of personal struggle before I would finally say YES.  YES to the Lord’s calling. YES to welcoming a child of a different race and with special needs into my home.  YES to the financial struggles and social stigmas. YES to believing God’s plan for me and my family was FAR more important than my desire to marry Hugh Jackman (Sadly, Val didn’t age as well as I had hoped…). YES to understanding that God was not asking me to do anything I hadn’t already promised Him I would do…Go to the ends of the earth, and to care for the widow and the orphan (Matthew 28:19 & James 1:27).  YES to realizing that is EXACTLY what God had done for me. 

The Gospel is adoption and adoption is growing my family tree.