Here We Go Again!

WE HAVE A REFERRAL!!!

Yes, you read that correctly.  No, there isn’t a blog post that you have missed!  We are adopting again!  Let me start from the beginning….

When we got home from adopting Titus we knew that we wanted to adopt more children but weren’t sure what the timing would look like for our family.  We started praying about it this summer but didn’t feel the time was right to start the process again.  In October, Brian saw a post from our adoption agency, West Sands, about two brothers from Ethiopia that were 5 and 7 years old that were available for adoption.  Brian e-mailed me and asked me what I thought about inquiring about them.  I told him it made my stomach hurt since we had only had Titus home for 6 months…but we decided it wouldn’t hurt to inquire about them.  We found out that our agency was having trouble placing them because of their age (most people want younger children).

We took the weekend to pray about these boys and whether God was prodding us to open our hearts and home to them.  On Saturday afternoon, we really felt a peace about moving forward with them.  We talked it over with our boys and got a resounding “yes” from them to add more boys to our family.  Our balloon was quickly burst, however, when we e-mailed our agency and found out that the brothers were much older than they originally thought, that there was another family interested in them as well, and that the boys wouldn’t be “paperwork ready” for a few months.

We were certainly disappointed but decided that God had a larger plan and had maybe just used this “push” to encourage us to start the adoption process again.  So, we contacted our social worker (who “coincidentally” was already  scheduled to come to our home the following week for a post-placement appointment for Titus) to let her know that we wanted to update our home study in order to be able to start the adoption process again.  Additionally, we contacted our agency and started our dossier work and were told that it would be about a 9 – 12 month wait for a referral after all of our paperwork was turned in.  Realistically, we were looking at the end of 2013 before we would even get a referral.

Fast forward to just a few weeks ago… 1) We found out that our dossier we did for Titus’ adoption is still good in Ethiopia through July 2013; 2) We have completed our new home study (since portions just needed to be updated from our adoption of Titus); and 3) I stopped by Lifeline Children Services’ (our local partnering adoption agency) office here in Louisville to drop off some paperwork and our first payment.  I was talking with our adoption coordinator when she told me that the brothers that we had asked about a few months ago were complete and ready for adoption, the other family was no longer interested in the boys, and their ages were actually only 6 and 8 years old!  I asked if I could see a picture of them and she told me that they were our referral if we were still interested!!  I was speechless.  The boys were with me in the office and couldn’t wait to see the pictures of their new brothers!  Soon we were looking at the sweet faces of two boys who were to be our sons!  We took the pictures to lunch to surprise Brian.  I think he was even more in shock than we were!  Only God could have worked all of this out…so, of course, we accepted the referral for our two new boys!

Now we wait.  Our home study is complete, and we hope to send out our I-600A to the U.S. Homeland Security this week.  As soon we can get our fingerprints done, we will be waiting for our court date in Ethiopia.  We are optimistically anticipating our first court date will be sometime in late Spring of 2013.

This is all happening so incredibly fast; but we are so incredibly excited!  There are times I get overwhelmed thinking about 5 boys in my house making a mess and eating us out of house and home; but there are just as many times that I think about what a blessing they will be to our family.

As we embark on this journey again, we ask for your prayers for our process to bring these two brothers home.  We feel that God keeps reminding us that…

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:  To look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  – James 1:27

Thank you for being such an encouragement to our family and coming along (again) on this journey with us!  We wish the best to you and your family during this Christmas season!