Patience

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him

- Psalm 37:7

Sounds simple, but what a challenge it has been to just sit back and wait. Up until the past week or so we have been so busy with paperwork and all that it hasn't been so hard to wait patiently. However, now we are at the point in the process where we are just waiting for our home study to be finished. Sure, we have a couple things to do (like go to the doctor, ick!) but it has all been scheduled and so we are just waiting. After we both have our physicals this week the only thing we are waiting on (as far as our home study is concerned) is for our fingerprints to come back from the FBI. Just like everything else that has been quite a process; we have actually had our fingerprints done three times now! We are really praying that this will be the last time. The first set went to the agency that we began working with in December, but the prints expire after a year so we didn't want to use ones that were that old. The second set went to Antioch, but they haven't returned yet (the FBI can take up to 13 weeks to process the prints and return them to the agency) and since we aren't working with Antioch any longer it seemed silly to wait on those prints and *hope* they would be released to us. Soooooooo... one last trip to WSP (Washington State Police) and our prints are hopefully being processed in Virginia right now!

We still have a couple open doors, but nothing is certain. There is a baby that we are really praying about. While we weren't necessarily looking for a newborn, this situation presented itself and we certainly felt like we needed to be open to it. If God chooses to inspire this birth mother to pick our family we know that it is His will for us to be the parents of this little one. There is also a sibling set (4 year old boy, 2 year old girl) that we are sepecifically praying for. They are tied up in the court system right now until at least the beginning of November, but we are definitely interested in possibly being a forever family for these children. The social worker was very receptive to us so if nothing comes up sooner I will be contacting her in November to see how the children's situation has progressed and if they will be needing a permanent home.

In the meantime I promise to keep you updated if anything wonderful happens! We are basically just waiting, hoping to hear about a child or children who need a family. Once our homestudy is completed we will be able to login to the WARE (Washington Adoption Resource Exchange) website which will allow us to have more access to children who are waiting in the system. Being registered in WARE will also allow social workers to see that our family is looking for children. I'm really hoping that this will help to open some doors for us in the process.

Pray for our patience during this wait. I know that at any moment the floodgates may open and we might be rushing to find everything we need to welcome a child into our home, but in the meantime it feels as if we aren't making any progress.

Thanks again for all the prayers and support!

B, E & H

When I was waiting quietly for the Lord, His heart was turned to me, and He gave ear to my cry.

- Psalm 40:1