Our Journey over the Past 4 Months

When I first set up the blog it was mostly just to see if I could do it. Now that I have a little bit of time I want to explain to everyone how our journey has evolved over the past 4 months and then the past week. It has been a roller coaster!

Kirk and I had discussed for quite a while the possibility of having another child. With my history of miscarriage, we knew we could have to face that again and Kirk just really didn't want to go down that road. I never had a real peace about it so I didn't try to convince him. He had said from the beginning of these discussions that he would be willing to adopt. I wasn't. So we decided to be happy with our two wonderful boys.

For a while now I have listened to a radio program, "Family Life Today" almost every day. Last December they ran a series on adoption and how Christians have not stepped up to the plate to do what God has called us to do--care for orphans. He began working on my heart (I realized later he had been doing this prior--I just wasn't listening). Kirk was out of town during part of this time. Late one night I talked to my friend, Donna about the programs we had both heard. We both struggled with God would have us to do. After a very long conversation with her I realized God was calling me to be open to adoption. That weekend Kirk and I talked about it and the journey began. I immediately had an overwhelming peace that this was what we were supposed to do. I no longer struggled with the decision to have another child because I knew I wasn't supposed to give birth--we were suppose to adopt--and we both knew it was from China.

Since December we have been "paperchasing." The amount of paperwork is unbelievable. During this time China changed their adoption policies and the wait time for a child stretched to a possible 3 years! We were open from the beginning to adopting a special needs child if we found one that we felt was ours. Our agency gets approximately 20 special needs children every 3 months. We knew we would look over the list and pray about it, and if we felt like our child was there we would try to adopt her. The next list was due out May 1st.
We were anxiously waiting for that day but knew it would be a long shot since so many families want these children and you have to be the first one to request their medical information or you are put on a waiting list.

That takes us up to last week when things really changed for us!