We met with a social worker this week who will be writing our home study. You can imagine how difficult it was to try to sum up the events of the last nine months, and not sound completely crazy. Fortunately, she shares our love for God and knows of His love for adoption. She also validated many of the emotions and concerns we had as we begin a new chapter in adoption. In short, she is fabulous.

We will not have to start from scratch — we’ll just have to do an update of our  home study. Unfortunately for us, that really means starting over. All of the autobiographies, essays on adoption, income statements, budgets, marriage surveys questions, physical exams and blood work, letters from employers, criminal background checks, tax information, birth certificates, marriage license, and on and on and on have to be put together again.

Sigh.

Didn’t we just do this 8 months ago?

But when I think of those sweet little faces on the other side of the world, what would I not do for them? So I’m stretching my writing muscles, and dusting off the filing cabinet.

We’re going to power through and complete all of it before our next meeting with our social worker, if possible. We meet with her next Wednesday at noon.

Wish us luck!

The shortened timeline for Democratic Republic of Congo is in many ways a blessing. Our kids get to come home sooner. They’ll spend less time in an orphange. We’ll fulfill our dreams sooner — perhaps even years sooner than if we would have chosen another country.

The ONLY downside of a faster timeline is the fundraising. Raising $28,000 over the course of three years is no huge challenge. Raising $28,000 over the course of 6 months is a bit more daunting. We would hate for any step, but especially the final step, to be held up because we couldn’t afford to move forward. In fact, $20,000 of the $28,000 is due near or at the end of the process — not that the process is very lengthy to begin with. 

We’ve considered many different options, from refinancing our house (not an option since the housing market downturn) to me going back into clinical practice (except that I feel called to my current job). We’ve stopped buying groceries, except for perishables like dairy and produce, and have been eating out of our grocery stockpile. We’ve tried to pick up some extra work projects here and there as well.

We’ve come to the realization that we can’t raise all of the money on our own.

But God can.

And we wholeheartedly believe that God is in charge of financing our adoption — we just need to be obedient to what He asks us to do. We are prayerfully considering what steps to take, and have sensed God’s leading in a couple of different areas, which we’ll be talking about over time.

The first fundraiser is a bit of a puzzle: literally! We want our kids to know that bringing them home was like fitting together lots of pieces of a puzzle — lots of wonderful people have invested in our family to bring us together.

We have two 300-piece puzzles, one of each of the children’s faces, and a frame with a mat to surround the puzzle. We would ask that you would consider sponsoring a puzzle piece for any amount ($10-$20 suggested). When a piece is sponsored, we’ll place it in the puzzle, and add your name to the mat surrounding the puzzle. When the puzzle is finished, we will frame the original pictures, and hang them in the children’s rooms. That way, every day we all will have the opportunity to see the hundreds of individuals, families, and groups who loved our family and helped to bring them home.

You can sponsor a piece by donating through our ChipIn account (see Interested in Donating link to the right), or by buying coffee at our Just Love Coffee store. There is even a fundrazr application on Facebook you can donate through. Or hand us a check or cash. We’re not picky. There will be more upcoming opportunities as well.

Most of all, we would ask for your prayers, and ask you to consider how you might help us piece together all the details of finding and bringing our children home.

There are an estimated 163 million orphans in the world. Will you help make that number a little smaller?

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Update: Since losing our referral at the end of July, you may be wondering what is becoming of the puzzle project. The puzzles we purchased can actually have their images changed. So the puzzle pieces already chosen will still be a part of the new puzzle, but may be placed in a slightly different area of the puzzle.

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Tonight I was amazed once again by how much I love our church, and how much our church loves us.

The Cater family in our church organized a fundraising potluck for our adoption tonight. Diane Cater has been an amazing blessing to us in so many ways, but especially in encouraging us in adoption. Being an adoptive parent herself, she understands the struggles and joys that we’ve had, and has believed in adoption for us when we’ve doubted adooption ourselves.

Dozens and dozens of people gathered for a great time this evening in the Cater home. There was plenty of food, fun, and fireworks. And then some more fireworks. We may not regain our hearing for a few days, but it was well worth it!

I’m so thankful for a church family who believes in us, sometimes even more than we believe in ourselves. Thanks to everyone who made this Independence Day one we’ll always remember!

Of course we indicated our interest in two of the children whose pictures we were sent. There was one couple who was ahead of us in consideration for them, but soon we were at the top of the list. Does that mean that they are guaranteed to be ours? No, but we’re hopeful. We’re trying to complete our paperwork as quickly as possible to make sure no one else is paper-ready before we are.

So what does the future hold from here?

So far, we have completed our application, paid our initial program fees, and have been accepted into the Democratic Republic of Congo Program.

• Next, we have to redo our homestudy. Because our original homestudy was done for domestic adoption through the foster care system, there are a few adjustments that need to be made. That requires meeting with Catholic Charities three separate times. Our first meeting is this week.
• Once our homestudy is complete, we apply to the Department of Homeland Security for Advance Processing. We will await an appointment letter for fingerprinting and await pre-approval for immigration.
• Then we send our home study, criminal background checks, physician clearances, and a half dozen other things to the Congolese authorities as a Dossier.
• Then we wait for our official referral for children. There should be no wait time once the paperwork is processed, if all goes as expected, because we have identified waiting children that we are ready to accept. We’ll likely receive more detailed information on them at that time. For now, we don’t know much.
• Following that, we will be scheduled for local court, which can take 2-4 months. If we receive approval, there is a 30 day appeal period before our case is referred to the Ministry.
• At that point, we file to have the children classified as immediate relatives with the Department of Homeland Security. Approval takes 1-3 months.
• We then file paperwork for the embassy in the Congo to process visas for the children. This process takes approximately 2 months.
• We then obtain a letter from Congolese Emigration for the children to leave the country.
• Finally, we travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo to get the children. The trip will last approximately 7-14 days.

What does all of that add up to? Probably a 6-12 month process.

Because the program in the Democratic Republic of Congo is new, and is becoming more popular, timelines may increase. The very nature of adopting in a country that is not Hague accredited is unpredictable. So far, all adoptions through our agency have been processed in less than a year — and that includes families who have had to wait to receive a referral. We hopeful that ours might be a bit shorter because we’re ahead of the game with our home study being near completion already, and the fact that we are going to accept older children.  The faster we can complete our paperwork, the faster we will be able to bring them home.

But there is one other not-so-small issue: cost. $28,000 that we don’t have.

 

A Guest Post by Ken

When Robin asked me if I wanted to see the picture of the two children from the orphanage in the Congo, I thought, “Sure. Why not? What’s the big deal?” It was just a couple of photos. I was interested. Curious even. Who wouldn’t be?

But when I opened the photos, the experience was unexpected. I looked at the two of them and the only way to describe the feeling was one of recognition. Obviously I had never seen them before, but the overwhelming sense was, “Well that’s what my children look like.”

It was like déjà vu.

The children I had been praying for and dreaming about finally had faces.

Beautiful faces.

No smiles. Not yet. But beautiful faces none the less.

To say that they were precious or beautiful to behold is a ridiculous understatement. With the first photo they have stolen my heart. I don’t know how many days it will be until I meet them and hold them in my arms, but now I know who has captured my heart. I wonder who is tucking them in to bed tonight. I pray that they know that there is a couple who are desperate to be with them. To hold them and to promise them they will never be alone again.

It was one thing when Robin and I were discussing sometime in the future adopting some random child or children from among the masses of hurting and helpless orphans in a far off land.

But now, as Robin put it, “OUR CHILDREN are in an orphanage in Africa WAITING for us.”

They are no longer annonymous.

They have faces.

And now they have parents who love them.

Miss them.

And can’t wait to bring them home.

Though I had spoken to several international adoption agencies previously, I felt like I had not received good answers or felt a specific leading. However, within 48 hours of contacting our agency, a flurry of email exchanges had taken place with one of the Program Directors. Early in the morning, late at night, even on the weekend, she would respond to my questions within minutes to hours.  

Were adoption conditions changing for Kenya? Yes, but there was still going to be an extended required residency, which would mandate that we move to Kenya for months before being able to even pursue adoption. We knew that was not a possibility for us.

The Program Director suggested that we consider Democratic Republic of Congo.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was indeed on my short list of desired countries. In my research of every.single.country. open to adoption, I had been particularly shocked at the plight of the orphans in DRC. Because of civil war spilling over from Rwanda in the late 1990’s, the country formerly known as Zaire, now known as Democratic Republic of Congo, has seen massive casualties. Estimates are difficult, but it is widely believed that as many as 5.4 million Congolese have died since 1998, making it the most deadly war since World War II, yet most Americans (including myself) have been completely unaware of the humanitarian crisis. Due to the war-related destruction of the economy and infrastructure, widespread disease and famine have taken the lives of the majority of the 5.4 million, and nearly half of those have been children under 5 years of age. Congo has the world’s second highest infant mortality rate, and almost half of children in DRC have stunted growth due to poor nutrition. In the capital, Kinshasa, 20,000 orphaned children under the age of 18 live on the streets, surviving by means that are simply unthinkable.  

The orphan crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo broke my heart. I knew that it was breaking God’s heart even more so, and I could not turn away.

I needed to hear more.

When the Program Director sent me a list of their agency fees and anticipated costs, I found that the DRC program was actually less expensive than most programs. Rather than requiring a prolonged trip lasting months, or two trips at different times, the DRC requires one trip of 7 to 14 days.  There are many children waiting, and the process would be considerably faster than other countries — all adoptions our agency had done had been completed in 12 months or less, compared to 2-5+ years for most programs. Infants were available, but the greater need was for sibling groups over the age of 3, and there would likely be no wait for a referral once paperwork was submitted to the country.

In fact, when I indicated our interest in more than one child, and our willingness to adopt children over the age of 3, the Program Director offered to send me pictures of some waiting children. Would I like to see them?

Would I like to see them. That was difficult to answer. After having looked at pictures of “adoptable children” for years, only to find out that they weren’t adoptable, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get my hopes up again. Was I really ready enough to move on? Should I focus my attention on specific children, or was that unwise? If we did want the children, would they commit to “saving” them for us, or could someone else choose them ahead of us? Would it just be better to be matched when we were paper-ready?

On the other hand, why not?

I typed an e-mail to the Program Director and asked to see the pictures of the waiting children.

And then I hit send.

Though our hearts had been broken, and our hopes had been dashed, our calling was not yet fulfilled: to help children in need. Almost as quickly as my world had fallen apart on April 21st, one month later, it was as if God picked us up, brushed us off, and set us back on our mission. Somewhere in the world, there were still children who needed parents and were waiting for us. Though our hearts were still healing, God’s leading that we needed to move on was clear. 

But to where should we move on?

We had maintained contact over the months with Youth Villages, and during that time, we began to realize that they would not be able to offer the type of adoption situation we were looking for. As our hearts had opened to the prospect of having little ones in our home,  we knew that was something that Youth Villages could not guarantee or even offer much hope for. In Tennessee, it takes so long to terminate birth parents’ rights that children who are legally free for adoption, especially through Youth Villages, are almost never younger than elementary age. Though it wasn’t the only reason to cease pursuing adoption through the foster care system, it was a primary concern.  Our other concerns added up to our decision that we needed to pursue adoption elsewhere.

It seemed like we were back to square one.

And so just like I had done nine months earlier, I began to research international adoption. I looked at every.single.country. that had children available for international adoption to United States residents. I developed a spreadsheet of countries, positive and negative attributes of their programs, agencies that could provide services. I eliminated countries that we didn’t qualify for. I kept ones on the list that looked promising. In my research, I was surprised at how much adoption had changed over those months. Several new countries had opened up to intercountry adoption. A few more countries had stopped processing applications. The costs were still high.

Our hearts were especially drawn to Kenya, where members of our church had visited the Suvia Children’s Home, and plan to return next year. They had brought home stories and pictures of beautiful happy children, and sad stories of how many had been turned away from the home due to lack of space. I had stared at their lovely faces many times as I passed the display case at church, and prayed and longed for each of them to find a home. But as I have learned many times, I should not pray for God to work in a situation unless I am willing to be a part of God’s answer. What if? What if we could adopt two children from Suvia? What if Ken and I could go to Kenya next summer with the other members of the church, and bring two children home? We had to at least try!

After hours of searching, I found that there was one agency that was preparing to open an adoption program in Kenya. One of the reasons why no agency had been processing Kenyan adoptions was because of a residency requirement that was extended. Previously, adoptive parents had to move to Kenya for months to even start the adoption process. The opening of a program in Kenya almost certainly meant that something was about to change. What was that change? I had to find out!

I contacted our agency.