I am very excited to announce that our home study is finally complete! We started our adoption process last summer, started our home study around September I think, and finally (officially as of Feb. 19), we are legally cleared to adopt. Hallelujah!
Now, I don't think home studies have to take that long. But we were kind of moving slow due to our own choices and then our pregnancy slowed us down a bit more.
Nevertheless, we are now able to receive a child whenever God should bring one our way! The next stage can now begin ... we will continue to put money into our adoption fund, and we can also begin to apply for grants and such. And as God brings situations our way, we will continue to be open to them. We are in no hurry. Our home study lasts for three years, and we are willing to wait on God's timing.
One thing that I am continually in awe of is this. Over the past year, Paul's income has increased 36%. Nothing in the natural can account for this. The economy is doing poorly, Paul has only worked for this company less than two years, and he works for a ministry that relies on donations. It can only be God's provision. So we continually ask ourselves, for what purpose has He given us this provision? We continue to seek Him for wisdom in this area.
Please continue to pray with us that God will open doors that no one can shut and close doors that no one can open. We are putting all our trust in Him.
Showing posts with label home study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home study. Show all posts
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Adoption News
Thank you so much for continuing to pray with us about this situation that we have been presented with this week. What an exciting, emotional week it has been for us!
So it looks like this situation is not for us. The agency is simply not willing to budge on the fees, and we don't have the time (and are not prepared) to be able to raise that amount of money that quickly. They said that they will look for another family for him. So we are continuing to pray that God will place him in just the right family!
Our home study should hopefully be completed next week (we just found out yesterday that there are still a couple of documents missing from our file). Then we will be able to start applying for financial aid and fund raising so that we will be ready when God brings the situation our way that IS for us! We are not in a hurry to make anything happen. We are simply trusting Him in the timing and provision of it all. We're trusting in the leading of our Good Shepherd.
So it looks like this situation is not for us. The agency is simply not willing to budge on the fees, and we don't have the time (and are not prepared) to be able to raise that amount of money that quickly. They said that they will look for another family for him. So we are continuing to pray that God will place him in just the right family!
Our home study should hopefully be completed next week (we just found out yesterday that there are still a couple of documents missing from our file). Then we will be able to start applying for financial aid and fund raising so that we will be ready when God brings the situation our way that IS for us! We are not in a hurry to make anything happen. We are simply trusting Him in the timing and provision of it all. We're trusting in the leading of our Good Shepherd.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Answered Prayer!
We have an amazing, wonderful Father who loves to plan fun surprises for us!
OK, so here's the story:
We have decided to go with Bethany Christian Services for our home study. Since we do not know what state we will be adopting from, we need a home study that will transfer to any state, and Bethany can provide this. They are an agency that we have known about for a long time, and we feel comfortable working with them for the home study process.
However, we discovered that the cost of a home study has gone up significantly in the past few years. We had started the process of adopting thinking that the home study would be $1200. We had that amount of money set aside already, so we figured we were set to get through the home study and then we would have to start trusting God for the money to adopt. :) Imagine our dismay when we discovered that the home study would actually cost $2500! That gave us pause for a few days as we processed whether we should go ahead and start the home study with a $500 down payment, not knowing where we would get the money to complete the home study. Yesterday evening, we sat down to talk and seek God's will about all of this. After reading these verses, ...
"He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good" (Ecc 11:4-6 NKJV).
... we had peace about going ahead and sowing our seed in faith, trusting that God would cause it to prosper. Whether or not He did, we knew that we were sowing in faith and that He would be glorified.
(By the way, I thought it very interesting that right in the middle of this passage about sowing is the bit about "how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child." A little apropos for adopting?)
So Paul went to the post office and mailed our home study application and the $500 application fee. Afterward Paul went for a walk and gave it all to the Lord (again), asking Him to provide the rest of the money we need for the home study and adoption. Then, today at work, his boss came by with a big surprise: a job promotion and a twenty percent raise effective immediately.
As a result, we will now be able to pay for the home study out of Paul's raise! After that, we plan to put all of the extra pay (less tithe of course) into our adoption account to help with future adoption expenses.
We are completely floored at God's goodness. Praise Him!!!! He has made the path clear before us, and we are on our way into the next phase of the adoption process. Home study, here we come!
OK, so here's the story:
We have decided to go with Bethany Christian Services for our home study. Since we do not know what state we will be adopting from, we need a home study that will transfer to any state, and Bethany can provide this. They are an agency that we have known about for a long time, and we feel comfortable working with them for the home study process.
However, we discovered that the cost of a home study has gone up significantly in the past few years. We had started the process of adopting thinking that the home study would be $1200. We had that amount of money set aside already, so we figured we were set to get through the home study and then we would have to start trusting God for the money to adopt. :) Imagine our dismay when we discovered that the home study would actually cost $2500! That gave us pause for a few days as we processed whether we should go ahead and start the home study with a $500 down payment, not knowing where we would get the money to complete the home study. Yesterday evening, we sat down to talk and seek God's will about all of this. After reading these verses, ...
"He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good" (Ecc 11:4-6 NKJV).
... we had peace about going ahead and sowing our seed in faith, trusting that God would cause it to prosper. Whether or not He did, we knew that we were sowing in faith and that He would be glorified.
(By the way, I thought it very interesting that right in the middle of this passage about sowing is the bit about "how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child." A little apropos for adopting?)
So Paul went to the post office and mailed our home study application and the $500 application fee. Afterward Paul went for a walk and gave it all to the Lord (again), asking Him to provide the rest of the money we need for the home study and adoption. Then, today at work, his boss came by with a big surprise: a job promotion and a twenty percent raise effective immediately.
As a result, we will now be able to pay for the home study out of Paul's raise! After that, we plan to put all of the extra pay (less tithe of course) into our adoption account to help with future adoption expenses.
We are completely floored at God's goodness. Praise Him!!!! He has made the path clear before us, and we are on our way into the next phase of the adoption process. Home study, here we come!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Our Home Study
**This post is by Paul, my husband and a new contributor to this blog. -Michelle**
After a few phone calls and one divine encounter, we have found the agency that will be conducting our home study. This was a somewhat difficult process because it is important to find a Christian social worker who understands our family dynamic and how our religion influences our decisions -- such our decision to adopt.
When you decided to adopt and then start telling people, some people look at you like "but you already have kids"? When they do, it is clear that they don't yet understand that there can be more than one motivation behind a decision to adopt. We didn't want a social worker with that mind set conducting our home study.
So, just after signing the contract with CAC, we had a divine encounter at church with a friend who just so happens to be the director of adoption from a local foster and adoption agency. We were able to sit with him for nearly 30 minutes and ask questions until his ears nearly fell off. We were hoping that someone from his agency would be able to conduct the home study. Since adoption is a new area for them (they have been doing foster placements for a couple decades), he didn't recomment that we go through them for our home study (which will probably need to transfer out of state). However, in talking with him, I was able to learn a lot of the language that they use. This helped a great deal when I talked with the other two agencies that I contacted.
When I called the first agency I had a bad phone connection. This could have clued me in to the fact that it wasn't going to work out, but undaunted by my circumstances, I pressed on. I was transferred in what seemed like a handset to handset transfer and I imagined a guy in the background yelling "Hey Sue! Someone's on the phone for you!" When "Sue" picked up the phone, I could barely hear her. I wondered if she could hear me, but every time I asked her to speak a little louder she did, so I assume she heard me when I said, "Yes, we already have a contract with a consultant." That still didn't deter her from going into the hard pitch about how great her agency is and how they can do so much, and if we work with them direct the cost would be less, etc, etc. As soon as she got to the cost factor, my red flag detector went off. All of a sudden I could see what I looked like to her, a big fat wad of $100 bills. I politely excused myself from the conversation and hung up. "Moving on ...," I thought. I was a little bummed, because I was really hoping this agency would work out. But I knew God had a plan, so I wasn't very concerned.
There was a third agency that I had on my list to call. I was hoping to do it this week, but yesterday I started out having a really rough day at work. Stuff just wasn't working, and anything that I did seemed to make it worse. I looked like I was going to have to stay very, very late to get things straightened out. Then Michelle prayed for me. Within fifteen minutes, everything started working. To my relief, I discovered that nothing I had done was the cause of all the problems. I was merely exposing problems that already existed. I saw my day go from really long to wondering what to do with myself for the rest of the day. So I made a call to the third agency.
I got the front desk lady. "Yes, we already have kids. We still want to adopt." "Oh, okay. What county please?" Shocked at the reply, I actually answered with the wrong county. After quickly corrected my mistake, I was transferred to the social worker responsible for that county. She picked up the phone, "Hello, Paul?" Again I was floored. The professionalism mixed with personal contact was amazing after the impersonal hard sell I had gotten from the other agency. I started to get a very good feeling.
After several minutes of conversation, I realized that the social worked had no intention of telling me how great her agency was or how foolish I was for not having signed up with them. She was completely on board with our situation and willing to work with us and provide a home study that would transfer to another agency. She put an application packet in the mail, and over the next few months our house and family will be undergoing the process of a home study.
In the process of looking for an agency, we found out that the cost of home studies in this county (and perhaps the rest of the state, though I don't know) has gone up considerably. When we started, we calculated that we had just enough money to pay for the home study at the typical rate of $1200-$1500. They are now around $2500-$3000. Please pray that God will provide the additional money needed for the home study. We are completely open to His will, and we have complete peace about moving forward, but we are holding all of this with an open hand.
Thank you for praying with us!
After a few phone calls and one divine encounter, we have found the agency that will be conducting our home study. This was a somewhat difficult process because it is important to find a Christian social worker who understands our family dynamic and how our religion influences our decisions -- such our decision to adopt.
When you decided to adopt and then start telling people, some people look at you like "but you already have kids"? When they do, it is clear that they don't yet understand that there can be more than one motivation behind a decision to adopt. We didn't want a social worker with that mind set conducting our home study.
So, just after signing the contract with CAC, we had a divine encounter at church with a friend who just so happens to be the director of adoption from a local foster and adoption agency. We were able to sit with him for nearly 30 minutes and ask questions until his ears nearly fell off. We were hoping that someone from his agency would be able to conduct the home study. Since adoption is a new area for them (they have been doing foster placements for a couple decades), he didn't recomment that we go through them for our home study (which will probably need to transfer out of state). However, in talking with him, I was able to learn a lot of the language that they use. This helped a great deal when I talked with the other two agencies that I contacted.
When I called the first agency I had a bad phone connection. This could have clued me in to the fact that it wasn't going to work out, but undaunted by my circumstances, I pressed on. I was transferred in what seemed like a handset to handset transfer and I imagined a guy in the background yelling "Hey Sue! Someone's on the phone for you!" When "Sue" picked up the phone, I could barely hear her. I wondered if she could hear me, but every time I asked her to speak a little louder she did, so I assume she heard me when I said, "Yes, we already have a contract with a consultant." That still didn't deter her from going into the hard pitch about how great her agency is and how they can do so much, and if we work with them direct the cost would be less, etc, etc. As soon as she got to the cost factor, my red flag detector went off. All of a sudden I could see what I looked like to her, a big fat wad of $100 bills. I politely excused myself from the conversation and hung up. "Moving on ...," I thought. I was a little bummed, because I was really hoping this agency would work out. But I knew God had a plan, so I wasn't very concerned.
There was a third agency that I had on my list to call. I was hoping to do it this week, but yesterday I started out having a really rough day at work. Stuff just wasn't working, and anything that I did seemed to make it worse. I looked like I was going to have to stay very, very late to get things straightened out. Then Michelle prayed for me. Within fifteen minutes, everything started working. To my relief, I discovered that nothing I had done was the cause of all the problems. I was merely exposing problems that already existed. I saw my day go from really long to wondering what to do with myself for the rest of the day. So I made a call to the third agency.
I got the front desk lady. "Yes, we already have kids. We still want to adopt." "Oh, okay. What county please?" Shocked at the reply, I actually answered with the wrong county. After quickly corrected my mistake, I was transferred to the social worker responsible for that county. She picked up the phone, "Hello, Paul?" Again I was floored. The professionalism mixed with personal contact was amazing after the impersonal hard sell I had gotten from the other agency. I started to get a very good feeling.
After several minutes of conversation, I realized that the social worked had no intention of telling me how great her agency was or how foolish I was for not having signed up with them. She was completely on board with our situation and willing to work with us and provide a home study that would transfer to another agency. She put an application packet in the mail, and over the next few months our house and family will be undergoing the process of a home study.
In the process of looking for an agency, we found out that the cost of home studies in this county (and perhaps the rest of the state, though I don't know) has gone up considerably. When we started, we calculated that we had just enough money to pay for the home study at the typical rate of $1200-$1500. They are now around $2500-$3000. Please pray that God will provide the additional money needed for the home study. We are completely open to His will, and we have complete peace about moving forward, but we are holding all of this with an open hand.
Thank you for praying with us!
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