You learn something new everyday...

Two letters can mean the difference between life and death.

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

We're BACK!

Well, after a whirlwind adventure to IL, KY and OH, Hunter and I are finally back and trying to resume life as "normal." We had the opportunity to visit with my family and actually spend some time with them which was wonderful. After being in IL for a few days we headed to the Cincinnati area to meet up with a sweet friend of mine and her two amazing kids. It was an extra special treat because it had been TWO YEARS since I saw her and during that time she had adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. Hunter is in love with her! :) Then we headed to Ohio to see Ben's family and attend his youngest brother's wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and we are sooooooooooo excited to have Karli as the newest member of the family. Anyway, then it was back to IL to return the rental car and now we are finally home! It was a great trip, but it sure is good to be home!

The night before we left on our adventure we began our home study. We are very excited to have this process well on it's way although I will certainly NOT miss the paperwork part of it! I think that I must have scanned and emailed about 60-70 pages yesterday! And that was certainly not all of it!

As I mentioned in my last post, it seems like things with the little boy we were hoping for aren't going to work out. Although I haven't heard anything more from his mother, I am assuming that the silence means that she isn't interested in us and has asked another family to parent him. However, we have had THREE other leads in the past couple weeks! One definitely isn't going to work (not-yet-born twins that have already found a home), but the other two still have some glimmer of home. Please be praying that God will make it clear to us when we have found our newest family member(s)! We have definitely already been feeling the roller coaster of emotions that is characteristic of adoption and we know that it is far from over! One thing that we have been soooooooooooooooooooo aware of during all of this so far is the overwhelming support from family and friends. We are so grateful to each of you for all of your prayers and encouragement. You have no idea how much it means to us!

So, today is kind of an "up" day for me concerning the adoption. Friday was definitely a "down" day. I know that we are going to have so many more ups and downs, I just pray that God will give us the strength to handle each day as it comes.

Love all of you and thanks for joining us on our adventure! :)

B, E & H

Moving forward

Right now it looks like the mother of the little boy we were hoping to adopt will choose another family to keep him. We really have mixed emotions. On one hand, we know that if he belongs in our family God will make sure that he finds his way to us. On the other hand we are disappointed because we really hoped that things may work out in this situation.

Really all this means is that we will continue to move forward and pursue an adoption of a legally free child(ren). It's a small setback, but nothing that we can not overcome! We know that God has everything figured out and that there is a wonderful child (or children!) waiting for us! In the meantime please be praying about a few leads that we have. We can't post much information about any of them, but God has been faithful about opening doors. I can't wait to see what he has in store for our family!

Thanks for being a part of this wild ride, I promise there will be more updates soon!!!

B, E & H

Paperwork!

If you haven't ever adopted, or known someone who has adopted, you can not fathom the amount of paperwork that goes into adopting a child. I mean seriously, to have a baby there is NO paperwork. You get pregnant, have the baby, sign the birth certificate and you are on your way.

NOT SO with adoption. I can't tell you how many papers I have filled out so far, but it has to be well over 100 and I still have a TON left. Last night I filled out two different 15 page forms (THIRTY pages total!) One for myself and one for Ben. That was just one of eight forms that we each need to fill out simply to complete one part of our homestudy. Seriously, the amount of writing and typing involved is crazy. So, if you know someone who is in the process of adopting you might want to buy them a cup of coffee. Chances are they are staying up late to work on paperwork :)

Just a quick note...

As many of you know we met with a little boy and his family yesterday. He is a super adorable 4 1/2 year old boy who Hunter enjoyed playing with. He has some issues (ADHD, speech delay, etc.) but we still feel called to pursue the adoption with him. We are well aware that it will be a difficult task to integrate him into our family while also learning to cope with his needs, but we know that if he belongs with us we will be able to make it all work!

His mother is meeting with another family on Tuesday and then she will have the difficult decision of choosing which family (if either!) is right for him. As much as we would love to have him join our family, we would ask that you pray that he finds the right home whether it is ours or someone else's. He has had a tough little life so far and needs to be in a home where he can have lots of love and stability.

Thanks so much for all of your encouragement and prayers so far!

We love you all!

B, E & H

More news!

What a whirlwind the past couple weeks have been! If you read the first post you probably saw that we have been working on all this adoption stuff since December and quite honestly, we feel like we haven't gotten anywhere. It's been frustrating. It feels like it comes in waves. We do a huge pile of paperwork, then we wait. Then we get a bunch of phone calls, then we wait. Over. And. Over.

HOWEVER... the past week has been a complete whirlwind of activity. It started like this; Hunter and I were out running errands on Wednesday of last week and my phone rang. It was a sweet friend of mine (who is also in the process of adopting) and she says, "Did you get the email?" I respond, "Nope, I'm out running errands. What email?" (Here comes the CRAZY part) "The email about the little boy here in the Seattle area that needs a home. He's four and a half." WHAT?!?!?! So, here we are, in the Costco parking lot and I'm making a call about a little boy who could potentially become our son. I can't even begin to describe the emotions in those few minutes.

So, to make a really long story short, we are meeting this little boy on Saturday. We have no idea if it will amount to anything. His legal mother is interviewing us and two other families so she could choose someone else. Or we could meet him and decide that he is not a good fit for our family.

In the meantime I have been speaking with an adoption attorney, a home study writer... it has been chaos! But, God has been lining everything up perfectly. It just happens that husband of the woman who sent the email about this boy is an adoption attorney. And yesterday I found a home study writer who can begin our home study NEXT WEEK! Oh, boy do we have a lot to do!

I really don't know if we will be the family for this little boy, but if you don't mind would you pray that we have a lot of clarity about this situation? So far everything about this situation has been very much directed by God. We have been praying specifically for a little boy, around four years old. It's pretty awesome!

Okay, back to doing paperwork. Last night I received two emails from our home study writer with about 12 different attachments. Which need to be filled out by Wednesday night. Oh, and Ben will be out in the field on Monday and Tuesday so it's going to be a few more days of craziness for our family! :)

Thanks for coming on this WILD ride with us! I promise to keep you all updated!

Love,

Ben, Em & Hunter