Getting ready!

Woohoo!!! We have an appointment to get our fingerprints done! Saturday is the big day. Again. Ha! I had never been fingerprinted before, and now we have had it done four times in less than a year. Ben is a little more used to it I guess, getting security clearances and such. For me though, every time we have to go have it done it just feels weird! But, I'm super glad that we were able to get appointments so quickly this time, and on a Saturday too! God is GOOD!!!

This Saturday we spent most of the day running from store to store, pricing mattresses and trying to round up all the items that we needed to complete our home visit. We now have a first aid kit (complete with a one way resuscitation mask!), mattress covers for every bed - including the one we still need to buy - and a few other odds and ends that we needed. I think that we visited about 10 stores, but we got it all accomplished AND had a nice dinner out afterward :)

While we were at a furniture store pricing mattresses we happened to find these super great bunk beds that would allow us to keep the full size mattress that we already own on the bottom bunk and loft a twin mattress. We were checking them out and explaining to the saleswoman helping us why we may possibly need bunk beds, etc. She said that she and her husband were also considering being foster parents and had gone as far as taking the classes and everything but then decided against it because they didn't want their two boys exposed to the children that were in the system. At the moment I know that I must have nodded in agreement and didn't really process what she had said, but later on I couldn't get it out of my mind. I know that not everyone is called to be a part of what we are doing, and I fully realize that it is a calling. However, I have to admit that I think that this woman is thinking about it all wrong.

I understand her need to shelter and protect her own children, but when you look at the bigger picture, what makes her children superior to the children that are needing a foster home? Each and every child is deserving of a loving home, regardless of what they have experienced in the past. I know that it won't be easy, but any child that enters our home will have to be treated JUST THE SAME as our own child. There can't be any preferential treatment simply because I gave birth to Hunter. Each of us is a precious child of God, and we all deserve to be treated as such.

Anyway, I will get off my soapbox now and ask you for prayers. Our biggest need right now is time. Ben will finish command sometime around June or July and we are just praying that the Army sees fit to let us stay here so we can finalize an adoption. Since the state requires 6 months between placement and finalization, I really feel like it would be best if we could stay here at least through 2012. However, God knows what is best and He has it all under control. We both feel strongly that God wants us to pursue this, so we know that if it is really His will for our family there will be a way to make it work! So please be praying that we have a peace about all of this. Right now everything concerning moving is up in the air. We definitely don't have orders to anywhere else, so that is a very good sign!

Love you all, and THANK YOU!!!

B, E & H