Friday, January 30, 2009

HOME STUDY / T & J

Well, I just finished the individual interview and the home tour all at once! I didn't know what to expect or what questions would be asked, so I just prayed that I would speak words that I was supposed to speak and lo and behold...it went pretty good! Nathan goes in for his indiv. interview on Monday, then hopefully we'll have a rough draft of the home study by late next week or early the next week and have the completed home study done by mid-Feb. Yeah!!

School today consisted of practical living (cleaning the house!!) however, Taylor wants to do church at home tonight, tomorrow night and go to 'real' church Sunday morning. So, she and Jack have been coming up with what to talk about during home church. They had their Bibles out, discussed various Bible verses and wrote notes. Taylor wrote 3 words for Jack to read but said she wrote sentences for herself. They won't let me see their notes, so I'm excited to see what they 'preach' about.

~L

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Adoption

I guess I need to backtrack a little :)

Nathan and I have been thinking of adopting for about a year. We really went back and forth. When we first considered this, I researched for hours different agencies, made charts and graphs and completely overwhelmed Nathan! He needed a break. After a while, we had pretty much decided on Ethiopia. Last fall, we tried submitting an application and the app. fee to one agency and it never went through. I then tried sending a pic of the fam and that didn't go through either. We took that as a sign not to continue for a while. So we waited a few more months. We then decided to try again. Once again, it didn't work out with that particular agency, then I just didn't have a great feeling about it, so we waited some more.

Nathan then read an article about Haiti and how some women have to choose which of their children get to live because they are too poor to feed all of them. He came home one day certain we were to go to Haiti. During this time of waiting, again, I had researched even more agencies and found another one I really liked, but when we came home and said it's Haiti, that agency didn't do adoptions in Haiti, so I was back to square one in looking for an adoption agency. Ugh. Finally, I found an agency who I liked and who we are going through now, International Child Foundation www.childfound.org

Although Haiti's adoption process is very long, we really feel this is where God is leading us to adopt. Right off the bat, we learned that Haiti frowns upon families with biological children, but thankfully, the president is pro-adoption and is willing the grant the necessary waiver that is needed to let us adopt from his country. Although it is an extra step, we are excited to do this.

The entire proecss will most likely be at least 2 years. We submitted our application to the adoption agency in mid-December, are now in the middle of our homestudy which hopefully will be completed by mid-end of Feb. Then it's time to work on the 'dossier' which is Haiti's paperwork. Then we have to apply to US immigration, then all of this paperwork needs to be translated into Haiti's language for the officials to review.

We will get a referral (a child that the orphanage has picked out for us) fairly quickly but the wait after the 'referral' will be 12-18 months. Luckily the agency we chose will allow us to visit as often as we like.

It's a lot of waiting and A LOT of unknowns, something I'm not always good with. I am praying for peace and patience and wisdom and of course for this new child. I pray specifically for a healthy body, strong bones, good immune system, healthy blood, good ears and eyes, and a healthy brain. I pray for the caregivers that they have patience and wisdom and love on these orphaned children and make them feel so loved and wanted.

This is all so outide of my comfort zone, telling everyone about what's going on in our lives and asking for prayer, but if you wouldn't mind keeping this new baby in your prayers and the orphange and the caregivers in your prayers, it would mean the world to us.

Thanks for reading this blog.

~L

Scrapbooking Weekend!

I went on a scrapbooking retreat this last weekend at a WONDERFUL Bed and Breakfast in Rogersville, MO about 45 minutes from here. The food was great and the location was perfect.

I got there on Friday about 5pm. Started scrappin' right away until 2am. My normal bedtime is about 9pm, so that was great. I had been up since 5 am that day, so it's amazing I was still going at 2am!

Saturday, I slept in 'til 8am, started scrappin' at 8:30am and only lasted until 1am that day. Still 15 hours is good (take out 1.5 hours for meals :))

Sunday, slept in again 'til 8am, but only scrapped until about noon, I was anxious to get home. It was a good weekend..I got 53 pages done which is the equivelant to the first 3 1/2 months of 2004. I've turned our downstairs kitchen into my scrapbook nook, so hopefully I can continue to make pages and slowly get caught up, but I wouldn't count on it. I'll just have to rely on these retreats!

I learned last Friday that I am to make a "Lifebook" for the new baby. I figured I would make a scrapbook anyway, but apparently I need to start a "Life Book" now to be able to incorporate the process and all of our feelings during this adoption process. There are books out there about how to make a Life Book starting now, so I guess I need to add that to the list of books I must read!!

~L

Adoption Home Study

We had our first joint interview with our social worker last Friday. It went great and wasn't what I expected. I figured we'd be grilled (maybe she's saving that for the individual interviews), but it was mostly for her to inform us on what to expect with an adoption and more specifically an international adoption. I've already read a few books, so some of it wasn't new, but it was still good hear it again. The kids played in a playroom connected to the room we were in and they did great. I like having them involved in this whole process.

My individual interview is on Thu. and Nathan's was supposedt o be today but got moved to next Monday because of the ice today. And she comes out to the house Friday for the house tour. Better get to cleaning, since we're iced in today!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

SCHOOL/WEEKEND

Taylor and I decided to take a field trip to see the Titanic Museum in Branson yesterday (1/17). They were also having an ice sculpure contest, so it was neat to see that again. Taylor loved that, but really loved the Titanic again (her 2nd visit, my 1st). Our unit now is on Trust in general and trust in God while learning about boats and floating. The trip to the Titanic was amazing in that they have a lot of neat artifacts, tons of fascinating information and so much to see and learn about. We were there for 2 hours and didn't even know it. She got a level 4 reader about the Titanic and read some of that during supper and again before bed. She is absolutely fascinated with the Titanic which is so neat to see! We then went to the outlet mall for about 45 minutes then decided to stay the night at the Hotel Grand Victorian! Since we didn't have plans to stay, we ran to Wal-Mart to get some essentials, including a swimsuit for Taylor, our little fish. So, off to the pool we went until about 9:45pm. Then we went back to the room and watched Brady Barr compare various salamanders from around the world, including the Hellbender from Missouri! His "taste test" (which involved licking the back of each salamader) declared the Hellbender the winner for the nastiest taste!
Today (1/18) we came home, then went to Bass Pro to get some essentials for Nathan's Mexico trip and while we were there, there was a boat show!! So, with pad of paper and pen in hand, Taylor managed to find 9 different kinds of boats. We looked at how they were different and there different uses. How great!!
What a fun, productive weekend for schooling!
~L

Friday, January 16, 2009

Brand new blog

This is all so new, but Nathan suggested we start a blog for this adoption process, it is a loooong process with lots and lots and lots and lots of paperwork.

So far...
We have submitted our application to the adoption agency:International Child Foundation (ICF)

We have started our homestudy through Lutheran Family and Childrens Services (LFCS) which involves: fingerprinting, background checks from 4 states, kids' physicals, our physicals, blood work, TB test, and mounds of paperwork asking what we are like as individuals, a couple and a family.

We now wait for the interview process with LFCS, references to be returned and our homestudy to be complete.

We then start all over with all of the paperwork for the "dossier" which is the paperwork that Haiti requires.

So, for now, that's about all I know. It's all a waiting game.

~L