After our last exciting post we have gotten quite a few questions about where we are at in the process, what's next, etc. So, here we go~
What age child are we hoping to bring home?
We have applied to bring home a child between the age of 6 months - 24 months, at time of referral (from time of referral to time of travel is about 6 months). So, while we will be calling this child our baby, our kids will tell you we will actually be bringing home a "toddler". :)
Since we are adopting from China are we "getting" a girl?
Who knows!!!! :) There actually are a LOT of little boys waiting to be adopted in China as well as little girls, so we did not specify the gender. We figure we didn't get to pick with our other four monkeys, so why pick with this one!? You can imagine that we have two people in our house praying for a girl, two people praying for a boy, and two people that really don't care! :)
Will you be bringing home a "healthy" child?
We are applying to the China Waiting Child program, which means we will be bringing someone home with minor/correctable special needs such as cleft lip/palate, minor heart condition, etc. FYI~the wait for a healthy child from China right now is over 6 years!
What's next in the process?
Currently we are ALMOST "paper ready" to start our homestudy. Yay!!! We have a few online classes to finish up and then as soon as we have the money for our homestudy we will get that started! The homestudy process will take approx. 2 months to complete, while we are working on that we are also working on getting all of our paperwork for our Dossier (BIG stack of paperwork that gets sent to China) ready so that when our homestudy is completed, we can mail ALL that paperwork to get certified by the State and authenticated at the Embassy.
Why China?
Honestly, that is where Wade & I "knew" our child is waiting for us. It's hard to explain, but it's kind of like when you find the person you are supposed to marry....you just "know" and that's it! :) There is a HUGE need all over the world, but we felt God leading us to China.
And, the question no one wants to ask, but everyone is dying to know....How much does this cost?
Honestly, a LOT. More than we have ever paid for any 2 vehicles combined. Do we know where all this money will come from? Absoutely!!!!! We know that God will provide what we need, when we need it. Does that mean we have all this money sitting in our bank account ready to write out the checks when we need to? Absolutely not! We do know that the God who owns all the cattle on a hillside will provide what we need to bring our baby home. You can imagine that the biggest reason Wade was saying "no" all the time was because of money. We really wanted to be debt free (other than our house) before we started the process, but obviously God was not on the same page as us. :) To us, this seems impossible. To fundraise this much money in a relatively short amount of time, seems COMPLETELY impossible to us. But, one verse that Wade & I have found extremely encouraging as we move forward is Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!" We know that God is able to cover this amount of money in an instant....before we could even ask for it. We know that if we ask for $10 God can turn that into $10,000 in an instant. HE is able to do soooo much more than anything we can ask for, and we are so humbled by that. The only way our baby will come home is if people listen to God's voice, and follow His leading to donate to our adoption fund. This is a very humbling process....to ask someone to donate something they have worked so hard for, so that we can answer God's call in our life. We know that in this, God will receive ALL the Glory.
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