It’s been a busy few days. Let me start from the beginning…
On Friday and Saturday evenings, my mind kept going back to international adoption. This has been something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, since high school. This weekend, though, I was BURDENED. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think about anything else. I cried through the night both Friday and Saturday. As I mentioned before, I’m reading Ashley Judd’s new book, and it’s stirred up some of this, too, I think. At the same time, I was thinking a lot about Honduras and this mission trip that a friend told me about six weeks ago.
So, on Saturday night, I decided to tweet to Phil Wing, a worship leader at our church. He’s the only person who I know that’s adopted internationally recently. He got back to me about the agency they had used. I go to the site and the first country I see is Honduras. Of course, as Honduras has been on my mind, I look through the requirements. Most international adoptions require two visits to the country. Honduras: 7-10 day trip and 4-6 WEEK trip. I immediately discount this country, as there is no way we can be apart from the girls for that long. (I did find out that the girls can come on the long trip and that both of us do not have to be there the entire time.)
My international adoption thoughts continue through the night, and I barely sleep. The next morning, it’s still heavy on my heart, and I begin to pray. Immediately, my phone dings, and it’s a tweet from Phil telling me about two other families at Apex using this agency. Woah, I thought. We get to church, and I open the bulletin. The first thing I see is a blurb about the SAME MISSION TRIP that I mentioned above! Right then, I know Honduras is important. My mind goes straight to…YAY, we’re adopting a Honduran baby!!!!!!! I did not hear a single word of the sermon. I prayed about this the entire service, wondering why this was happening now-our homestudy visit was the next day. How did this fit with the foster licensing? We couldn’t do both.
When we got home, I researched the mission trip a little more. Let’s talk about the missionaries with whom Apex is partnering for this trip. The guy? I’M RELATED TO HIM. The girl? My sister spent several months in Spain studying with her, while in college. Praying and praying all day. That evening, we go out to eat to celebrate a house church friend. Guess who’s at the restaurant? Phil Wing and his family!!! I almost started crying. I spoke a little with Amber, Phil’s wife, and got her contact info. That night, Grant and I are discussing it more. We know that the Lord would not have us go into debt for an adoption, after everything that we had been through getting OUT of debt. I google “adoption no debt.” The first site that comes up is a blog about a family that has adopted internationally without going into debt. I could have written the post. Their story sounds exactly like ours, even down to how much money they had in savings and how much extra they had per month. My phone dings. This time, it’s an email from the contact person at Apex for the mission trip. I had written her earlier that day for information. She said that the deadline for the trip was today…of course, it was. She’s giving us this week to decide.
What does all this mean? We know the Lord has been leading us to fostering. We know that, for sure. I ALSO know that this burden and all the events that happened this weekend were from Him. I spoke with the international agency and our county caseworker, and there’s really no way that we can do both programs simulatneously.
The homestudy visit on Monday went great. We really liked our caseworker, and it was confirming that we’re doing what we should be doing. This makes it harder, though. I half-expected things to go terribly, which would have pointed us to international adoption! We got a LOAD of paperwork. I really wanted to stay up all night last night and finish it. I did get a lot done and will hopefully have everything completed in about two weeks. Our caseworker said we could see a placement, as early as May.
So…we will continue to progress with the gazillion forms we have to fill out to become foster/adoption certified in our county. We will continue to gather information about the Honduras adoption. We will pray about the Honduras mission trip and make the final decision by Sunday. (We’ll be gone a week, so how does that look, if we have a foster child?!?) Plus, Grant is applying for another job at Dave Ramsey. In Tennesee.
All I know to do at this point is pray. For wisdom, guidance, peace. I’m not going to pray a “bare-bones” prayer anymore, either. I’m going to pray that: we can open up our home to foster children; adopt from Honduras; Grant gets a job that allows me to focus 100% at home; we are able to sell this house easily and find one that can accomodate more children; a van.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Eph. 3:21