Our home study went incredibly well. We started the day at 7:00 a.m. by cleaning. Stephen has actually been cleaning like crazy all week. I have been so blessed by him. He knew I had limited time to clean.
So our home study lady came at around 11:30 a.m. She was a God-send for sure. We sat down and started chatting about why we were adopting. We knew the agency she came from was "Christian" but we weren't quite sure as to what extent that was. It became clear to us as we started talking that we had a kinship with one another and we had the same Father. We were so blessed during our interview. We both told our life stories, trials we've been through, what our relationships are like with family members, our financial situation, how we handle stress, basically anything and everything about us. It was hard to hold back tears during some of the time because when you really take a look back at your whole life and start talking about it, it can become a little overwhelming.
Our case worker told us she had adopted a girl from Guatemala 8 years ago. She gave us a lot of insights and was a great encouragement to us. At the end of our interview (which lasted about 3 hours) she told us she would be very comfortable leaving her kids in our home for a week.
Haiti's requirement is that a case worker only needs to visit our home once. The agency doing the study requires that we meet at least twice so next Friday she will have the report done and we will meet her in Cedar Rapids to review it and make any corrections and then our home study will be complete!!
Once again, God has verified that this is what we are supposed to be doing. He has made the path straight and easy for us. Thank you all for praying and thinking about us today. We certainly felt your prayers and we are thankful for your support along the way.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Personal questions
I don't know how many times I have written down my full name (including my maiden name) and social security number. How many times do they need the same information? It's going well though. Tonight I wrote out answers to 15 personal questions ranging from my relationships to my siblings to what I think about discipline.
Stephen has started a new habit in our house and it's working great! I've really been having a hard time keeping up with the house while working full time. I get home at night and just want to crash. So he came up with "the ten minute tidy." It's something he used in his classroom. (It's so sad he has to use the techniques he applies in his classroom on me but I need it!) Basically we pick one room to attack for 10 minutes each night. The rule is we can't pick the same room two nights in a row. So our house is getting clean 10 minutes at a time! I am taking Friday off so I can attack the house full force. I'll be getting up early to start scrubbing the house from top to bottom to be ready for our home study at 11:00.
Stephen has started a new habit in our house and it's working great! I've really been having a hard time keeping up with the house while working full time. I get home at night and just want to crash. So he came up with "the ten minute tidy." It's something he used in his classroom. (It's so sad he has to use the techniques he applies in his classroom on me but I need it!) Basically we pick one room to attack for 10 minutes each night. The rule is we can't pick the same room two nights in a row. So our house is getting clean 10 minutes at a time! I am taking Friday off so I can attack the house full force. I'll be getting up early to start scrubbing the house from top to bottom to be ready for our home study at 11:00.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Stephen's growing
Well, Stephen went in for his physical today and they measured him at 6'8". He's convinced there is something wrong with their measuring stick. I hope he's right.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Things are in full swing now!
Well, the ball really got started rolling this week. Let's go back just a few years for a little history. Since Stephen and I were both children we had seen adoption as something we desired to do with our lives. I had grown up desiring to adopt a girl from Asia. Stephen had grown up desiring to adopt a boy from Ethiopia or Africa. I had desired to adopt from Asia because my best friend in elementary school was from Laos and mom and dad had a few young ladies from Japan living with us while we were growing up.
Adoption was starting to burn more in my heart and mind over the past few years but the Lord spoke to Stephen specifically earlier this year while we were visiting Denise in Minnesota. He told me that the Lord told him adoption was supposed to be our next "faith project." On the drive home from Minnesota we prayed and talked more in depth and by the time we got home, we knew He was asking us to take this step.
Just a few weeks later we headed down to Branson, MO for a church conference. The first night of the conference we sat down and turned around and there was a large family behind us, full of children from China. The mother was on her cell phone talking about adoption and mentioned something about expediting things in Haiti. The Lord pressed on Stephen's heart to tell the mother of this family what God had told us to do and to just listen to what she had to say. She was very open and kind to us. We believe the Lord prompted us to speak to her so she would point us to the perfect agency for us--CCAI or Chinese Children Adoption International. Since we were looking at China to adopt from, it sounded like the perfect fit. She also mentioned that CCAI (although strictly a China agency) was making inroads to Haiti. At the time we thought that was nice, but thought China was the way we were going.
We came home and stared our application process for CCAI. It took us a while to fill out the application. I believe during that time God was starting to stir in us a different direction. We sent our application in with a $200 check and just a few days later, we were notified we had been accepted. The next step was to send in a pretty large chunk of money which would allow us to receive the Dossier Guide which would take us through the process of the "paper chase." We sent in the money and received the Dossier Guide for China.
At that time, we both recognized that we were supposed to go to Haiti first. The biggest reason is the need in Haiti is very great right now. We contacted CCAI and asked them how difficult it would be to change countries. They told us all it would take is a couple of different forms to be filled out and a little more money and they would send us the Dossier Guide for Haiti. We didn't lose a cent by switching countries, Praise the Lord!
So here we are. We are fully involved in getting our paperwork together for Haiti. Today we were fingerprinted. Stephen and I were talking about how blessed we are that we have a courthouse just a few yards away from our front door. The convenience of it is awesome. Another God thing! Being fingerprinted was kind of intimidating for me. I didn't like the fact that I would "be in the system" now. But the corrections officer who did our fingerprints was so incredibly friendly. We had a lot of fun. I regret not bringing my camera along. Even though our courthouse has a new jail, they hadn't moved the equipment over yet so we had to go to the old part on the third floor. They don't use ink anymore. It's all computerized. Then they print it out on a card and that's all that is to it. They actually take 10 pictures of your fingers in different positions. It took longer than I thought it would. The charge to get fingerprinted is $5 per card and when we went to pay the officer, he said don't worry about it. Another praise the Lord!
The fingerprint cards have been mailed to our home study agency based out of Bettendorf. Our first appointment with the home study lady is next Friday, July 30. Stephen has his physical on Monday and my physical is Friday. We have an appointment set up to see a psychiatrist at the end of August. We gave a letter to our county sheriff today asking him to provide proof that we were good citizens. We requested certified copies of our marriage license.
So now you are all caught up! We're so glad you are taking part of this journey with us. This was a long post. I don't expect them all to be this long, but we had a lot of catching up to do!
Adoption was starting to burn more in my heart and mind over the past few years but the Lord spoke to Stephen specifically earlier this year while we were visiting Denise in Minnesota. He told me that the Lord told him adoption was supposed to be our next "faith project." On the drive home from Minnesota we prayed and talked more in depth and by the time we got home, we knew He was asking us to take this step.
Just a few weeks later we headed down to Branson, MO for a church conference. The first night of the conference we sat down and turned around and there was a large family behind us, full of children from China. The mother was on her cell phone talking about adoption and mentioned something about expediting things in Haiti. The Lord pressed on Stephen's heart to tell the mother of this family what God had told us to do and to just listen to what she had to say. She was very open and kind to us. We believe the Lord prompted us to speak to her so she would point us to the perfect agency for us--CCAI or Chinese Children Adoption International. Since we were looking at China to adopt from, it sounded like the perfect fit. She also mentioned that CCAI (although strictly a China agency) was making inroads to Haiti. At the time we thought that was nice, but thought China was the way we were going.
We came home and stared our application process for CCAI. It took us a while to fill out the application. I believe during that time God was starting to stir in us a different direction. We sent our application in with a $200 check and just a few days later, we were notified we had been accepted. The next step was to send in a pretty large chunk of money which would allow us to receive the Dossier Guide which would take us through the process of the "paper chase." We sent in the money and received the Dossier Guide for China.
At that time, we both recognized that we were supposed to go to Haiti first. The biggest reason is the need in Haiti is very great right now. We contacted CCAI and asked them how difficult it would be to change countries. They told us all it would take is a couple of different forms to be filled out and a little more money and they would send us the Dossier Guide for Haiti. We didn't lose a cent by switching countries, Praise the Lord!
So here we are. We are fully involved in getting our paperwork together for Haiti. Today we were fingerprinted. Stephen and I were talking about how blessed we are that we have a courthouse just a few yards away from our front door. The convenience of it is awesome. Another God thing! Being fingerprinted was kind of intimidating for me. I didn't like the fact that I would "be in the system" now. But the corrections officer who did our fingerprints was so incredibly friendly. We had a lot of fun. I regret not bringing my camera along. Even though our courthouse has a new jail, they hadn't moved the equipment over yet so we had to go to the old part on the third floor. They don't use ink anymore. It's all computerized. Then they print it out on a card and that's all that is to it. They actually take 10 pictures of your fingers in different positions. It took longer than I thought it would. The charge to get fingerprinted is $5 per card and when we went to pay the officer, he said don't worry about it. Another praise the Lord!
The fingerprint cards have been mailed to our home study agency based out of Bettendorf. Our first appointment with the home study lady is next Friday, July 30. Stephen has his physical on Monday and my physical is Friday. We have an appointment set up to see a psychiatrist at the end of August. We gave a letter to our county sheriff today asking him to provide proof that we were good citizens. We requested certified copies of our marriage license.
So now you are all caught up! We're so glad you are taking part of this journey with us. This was a long post. I don't expect them all to be this long, but we had a lot of catching up to do!
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