We had our first home study visit last Tuesday evening. I was so nervous about it!!! I cleaned every corner in our house. I think I was mostly nervous just because I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't have anything to be worried about though. Our social worker was sweet, and the visit was very low key and relaxed. It sounds like we are in for a series of three, hour long interviews, and that is about all I know. Anyway, it went well and we are ready for the next one tomorrow night (1/29). I have not even begun cleaning this time around. Maybe I should give her the real deal this time... with a mountain of clean laundry spilling off of the couch. Ha! If you know me, you know there is no way I'm going to let her see that. I'll put it all in our bedroom and close the door.
For those of you who have been praying, thank you so much! The support of our friends and family is really going to make the difference in this long process. It already has.
Our prayer requests remain the same:
-that our fingerprint checks get through quickly
-that we are able to raise the funds needed for our dossier submission
-for the health and safety of our child (who we do not know, and may or may not yet be born)
-and always for the millions of orphans around the world who are waiting for their families
*If you feel lead to help support us financially I have included a link to my Etsy shop on my blog page to the right of this post. My hope is that this shop will take off, and that after we have raised our funds we can use the money earned from my shop to help support the orphanage and transition home that our kiddo will have lived in.
We also have an account through America World Adoption Agency and their Eternal family program. AWAA will accept contributions on our behalf and will provide a letter or email for you as a receipt. I have included a link to this as well where you will find more information. Please make sure that you use the "notes" section to designate "Jesse and Kara Williams" and the Eternal Family Program.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
At this point...
"Paper pregnancy?"
I have never liked that reference! But now I totally get it. This is where we are now. We have been accepted to an agency that will facilitate our Ethiopian adoption, and we have been accepted to a local agency that will be doing our home study. We are gathering all of the necessary documents for both our home study, and our dossier to Ethiopia. There are a lot.
But back to the reference to a paper pregnancy. I mentioned to Jesse the other night that this feels like the first couple of months of pregnancy when you have been told that you are pregnant, but there is no real evidence of it. No one can see your progress, and even you doubt that it is really happening. At this point you look for signs of it everywhere. Every document that has been reviewed and approved is like another inch around my middle and I am so happy for it! Look how thick my stack of papers is getting!! Can you see it? The progress? Do I "look pregnant" yet? Jesse told me, "Get ready for three years of feeling like this."
It is looking like we should have our dossier ready to go to Ethiopia sometime in June. We had originally thought that we could be done with our home study and dossier by mid April, but fingerprint background checks are taking around 4 months right now due to high demand (so many people out stocking up on guns.) After our dossier is in we get put on a waiting list for a referral for our third kiddo. The wait time right now is 24-30 months for a child 0-3.
And we have just scheduled our first home study visit. I don't have any idea what to expect, but I have turned into some kind of cleaning/organizing freak. I'm sure it will be great, and that I'll be slightly dissapointed to find out that she won't even ask to see our closets.
Our prayer requests right now are:
-that our fingerprint checks get through quickly
-that we are able to raise the funds needed for our dossier submission
-for the health and safety of our child (who we do not know, and may or may not yet be born)
-and always for the millions of orphans around the world who are waiting for their families
I have never liked that reference! But now I totally get it. This is where we are now. We have been accepted to an agency that will facilitate our Ethiopian adoption, and we have been accepted to a local agency that will be doing our home study. We are gathering all of the necessary documents for both our home study, and our dossier to Ethiopia. There are a lot.
But back to the reference to a paper pregnancy. I mentioned to Jesse the other night that this feels like the first couple of months of pregnancy when you have been told that you are pregnant, but there is no real evidence of it. No one can see your progress, and even you doubt that it is really happening. At this point you look for signs of it everywhere. Every document that has been reviewed and approved is like another inch around my middle and I am so happy for it! Look how thick my stack of papers is getting!! Can you see it? The progress? Do I "look pregnant" yet? Jesse told me, "Get ready for three years of feeling like this."
It is looking like we should have our dossier ready to go to Ethiopia sometime in June. We had originally thought that we could be done with our home study and dossier by mid April, but fingerprint background checks are taking around 4 months right now due to high demand (so many people out stocking up on guns.) After our dossier is in we get put on a waiting list for a referral for our third kiddo. The wait time right now is 24-30 months for a child 0-3.
And we have just scheduled our first home study visit. I don't have any idea what to expect, but I have turned into some kind of cleaning/organizing freak. I'm sure it will be great, and that I'll be slightly dissapointed to find out that she won't even ask to see our closets.
Our prayer requests right now are:
-that our fingerprint checks get through quickly
-that we are able to raise the funds needed for our dossier submission
-for the health and safety of our child (who we do not know, and may or may not yet be born)
-and always for the millions of orphans around the world who are waiting for their families
Getting started...
In October we got the ball rolling. We called around to a lot of agencies asking about their Africa programs and getting as much information as we could. We really don't know anyone firsthand who has adopted from Africa, so I felt a little in the dark trying to find an agency that seemed ethical and trustworthy. Reading reviews on the Internet can feel like a punch in the stomach. If you dig enough you read some pretty scary sounding stuff. But after quite a bit of researching we found our agency.
We decided that we would put aside the hopes of having an adoption completed in a year, for the security of a process that appears to be very ethical. So we applied, and were accepted into a program for an Ethiopian adoption. There are a few countries in Africa that are open to adoption. Some of them are pilot programs, where details are sketchy and the process is being developed around your adoption. Ethiopia has been open to adoption for a while now, and the process there seems to be ironed out pretty well. Having two little kids already, we just aren't open to leaving too much to chance with this adoption.
After being accepted we decided to share the news with friends and family. Telling people that you are adopting isn't quite the same as announcing a pregnancy. There was quite a mixed response. Anywhere from excitement and support, to fear and concern. Some of the responses were a bit disheartening, but many others left us feeling wholly supported.
The kids were pretty fun to tell. Rykin is only two, and doesn't really get it, so his reaction could be equated to, "Meh, whatever." Aydin is completely excited. She considered what we were telling her, agreed that it was a good idea, and asked that it please be a sister. She stopped me one night at bed time and said, "Mom we're going to have three girls and two boys!" I replied, "Or we might have three boys and two girls." "No," she said, "It can be three girls and two boys, or three girls and three boys." I explained to her how this whole thing works using the example of snack time at school, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." She now prays every night and at every meal for her baby brother or sister. The week before Christmas she asked us when her baby brother or sister was going to be here. "Not for a while," I told her. She said, "Well maybe in three days when it's Christmas they can be here." This is going to be a long wait for her.
A long wait for us all.
We decided that we would put aside the hopes of having an adoption completed in a year, for the security of a process that appears to be very ethical. So we applied, and were accepted into a program for an Ethiopian adoption. There are a few countries in Africa that are open to adoption. Some of them are pilot programs, where details are sketchy and the process is being developed around your adoption. Ethiopia has been open to adoption for a while now, and the process there seems to be ironed out pretty well. Having two little kids already, we just aren't open to leaving too much to chance with this adoption.
After being accepted we decided to share the news with friends and family. Telling people that you are adopting isn't quite the same as announcing a pregnancy. There was quite a mixed response. Anywhere from excitement and support, to fear and concern. Some of the responses were a bit disheartening, but many others left us feeling wholly supported.
The kids were pretty fun to tell. Rykin is only two, and doesn't really get it, so his reaction could be equated to, "Meh, whatever." Aydin is completely excited. She considered what we were telling her, agreed that it was a good idea, and asked that it please be a sister. She stopped me one night at bed time and said, "Mom we're going to have three girls and two boys!" I replied, "Or we might have three boys and two girls." "No," she said, "It can be three girls and two boys, or three girls and three boys." I explained to her how this whole thing works using the example of snack time at school, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." She now prays every night and at every meal for her baby brother or sister. The week before Christmas she asked us when her baby brother or sister was going to be here. "Not for a while," I told her. She said, "Well maybe in three days when it's Christmas they can be here." This is going to be a long wait for her.
A long wait for us all.
The beginning...
I have gone back and forth about beginning an adoption blog, but as personal as I feel this journey is, I have also gotten so much comfort and reassurance from reading other family's blogs. And let's be honest, these days this is about the easiest way to share updates for friends and family. And so here is our story...
Our decision to adopt is based on a
calling. No, we did not hear the voice
of God say in a booming voice, “You are to adopt an orphan.” And yet, I am 100% sure that God put this on
our hearts. 100%.
I think as humans we all seem to have a bit of a crutch that we can tend to lean on. For Jesse it was a sense of security. For me it was a craving to control everything. We have reached a point in our lives where we feel like we are pretty secure, and have a pretty good handle on things for the time being. And for that reason, we decided to stop at two kids and live comfortably for as long as possible. But God has been working in our hearts.
I think as humans we all seem to have a bit of a crutch that we can tend to lean on. For Jesse it was a sense of security. For me it was a craving to control everything. We have reached a point in our lives where we feel like we are pretty secure, and have a pretty good handle on things for the time being. And for that reason, we decided to stop at two kids and live comfortably for as long as possible. But God has been working in our hearts.
In June 2012 Jesse read the book
“Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. Through
that book God showed him that security and comfort are both well and good,
but not a worthy investment for the kingdom of heaven. We are called to help those less fortunate
than us. We are to have hearts of
compassion, and bless others with what God has entrusted us.
This past summer I felt God challenging me to let go of my fear to lose control, and honestly ask Him how He can use my life. For me this has been a
process of letting the Holy Spirit show me to give up control to God one step at a
time, moving closer to Him all the while.
And I am finding that the more control I give up, the more I want God to
take control. And prayers for the Holy Spirit's guidance, have led to an amazing and exciting request.
Mid
August 2012 Jesse and I watched a movie about a missionary who opened a refugee
orphanage in Sudan. The images and the
reality of what is happening there haunted us.
And so we began to pray for God to show
us how we could help. If you pray enough for God to let you know what He wants from you...He will let you know! ”What if we adopted?," popped out of my mouth. Jesse and I
have talked about adoption before, but in more of a, "I could see us doing that someday" kind of way. So this was not a completely crazy response, and
we left it as something we would pray about. At that time Jesse had made it clear that he was thinking 10+ years down the road.
And so we
began to think and pray about it, but didn’t really talk about it after that. As
I prayed I began to feel more and more like God was putting it on my heart to
adopt sooner rather than later. I
attended a Women of Faith conference at the end of September and came home
feeling certain about this. I needed to know where Jesse was with this,
so one evening I just asked him, “What age kid do you think we should adopt, and
how soon are you thinking?” His response
was 1-5 years old, and within the next 5 years.
I was amazed that without having previously discussed this we were in
the same frame of mind about it. And the
more we prayed and thought about it, the more certain we both were that this is
what God has planned for us, and this is what he is asking of our lives.
So here
we are. Each of us has been growing so
much closer to God in the past year, and while this has looked so much
different for each of us, it has lead us to the same place. God has shown Jesse that living your life to
the fullest for God means leaving your security in His hands, and using His
blessings to care for "the least of these."
And I am giving the Holy Spirit room to move my life. He has asked me to begin a process that I
really won’t be able to control, and I am finding that it is drawing me closer
to God every day. We couldn’t be more
excited to begin the adoption process.
This is our mission and we are ready.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)