We've completed two of our three 3-hour long home study meetings. Our last one is in two weeks and will be at our home. We are so blessed with our social worker as she is a believer so we have been able to be VERY open and vulnerable with her about our motivations for wanting to adopt. We've had to talk through some really tough decisions regarding our openness in our adoption including what limits we're willing to go to to protect our child if he/she is of a different race than us. These are really difficult choices to make because we know that not everybody will be comfortable or accepting of our choice to adopt outside of our race and we know that some of these people may end up being people we know very well. But we've decided not to let the unjust thoughts of others make our decision for us and we will continue pursuing an adoption of a child of any race. We will also accept a child who has many mild to moderate special needs.
Once we're done with our home study, we will write a "Dear Birthmother" letter, submit it to the agency for birthmoms to see, and then WAIT. This is partly a breath of fresh air because everything on our end will be done but I know I am very nervous about how long we will have to wait to be placed and how many failures we'll go through till we're placed with our eventual child. We're really trying to leave this up to God, as He has the final say anyway, but with so many possibilities, it's difficult not to wonder and dream about the "what ifs".
We are doing SO WELL with our fundraising. We are now able to pay our first big placement fee of $4400 as well as about $3500 of the matching fee of $4000. After that, we're really relying on God. Depending on the race of the child, we will have a final payment of between $2600 and $7500 plus our legal fees which will most likely be about $2000 and any birthmother expenses we see fit to pay. We feel like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel but there's still work to be done. We applied for one grant and are waiting to hear about it still. If we get it, it may cover up to $5000 of our expenses which will cover almost everything we have left!!
Keep us in your prayers as we continue to find unique ways to pay for this process that we know the Lord has called us to. And consider ways that you can help take care of the orphan. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Before posting, we ask that you do not include any personal information about yourself or about our family. Just use discretion; we want to protect our privacy as much as possible. Thanks!