Promise!

Promise vs. Biology.  Family can grow through genetics shared with relatives through birth: biological children, parents, siblings, grandparents and so on.  No matter what happens in life the genetic connection remains and nothing can erase that permanency.

Family can also grow through promise.  Marriage is an example of this and so is adoption.  Both are legal ties.  The union of marriage(among other things)is to provide a loving and caring family for both man and wife.   

Gum on a wall somewhere in Seattle. Do you see why this picture can make sense on this blog?

On our wedding day we both publicly declared our decision to devote our love to each other “till death do us part.”  The decision to adopt was made by both of us, prayerfully we decided go forward, and patiently we now  wait.  Together we promise to devote our love to a child and provide a loving and God honoring home.

WAIT

Us by gg-photography.com

We are done with all the paper work and our “dear birth-family letter” is finally on-line.  This is the very important letter that the birth mother/family reads then chooses their favorite couple.  We never really know when someone is considering us, but we are continually praying for them and that little baby somewhere.  We had so much help with this letter.  THANK YOU!!  Many of you helped proof read and edit, and one local photographer offered her expertise.  If you want to check out her work go to gg-photography.com she really is amazing.  Thank you again!!

We feel like gg-photography.com captured a lot of our journey in this one.

By gg-photography.com

By gg-photography.com

 At this moment we are in the waiting phase, so we plan to do some fundraising!  Yep, that means another garage sale!  We are probably going to have that monster sale in the spring in Springerville …after all who doesn’t love a garage sale?

 April is also making little crafts that we hope will start selling at a local store.  She is crocheting Swiffer covers and dish towels among other things.  Each one takes about 2 hours to complete so she is also experimenting with other ideas.  Got any?

Just being silly.

We are so comforted in knowing that God has lead us to be part of this adoption agency at this exact time in history.  We plan to continue following Him every step of the way and would love for you to join our adoption journey by praying for us every time you think of us. 

Halloween DAY

Halloween day was a big day for us. 

The past 7 Mondays have been intensely busy for us.  We would get up early and drive to Tucson for our 3 hour class and try to do as much as we could in the few hours we had in the city.  Some standard stops were Bookman’s, In & Out and of course Trader Joe’s.

On halloween, which just so happened to fall on a Monday, we slept in and didn’t even one mile.  We got up later than usual, had a huge breakfast, went for a walk then cleaned the house a bit.  Then we waited for that Halloween hour I may never forget…1pm.

 Dun

du

duuun! 

Our amazing Case Worker arrived 3 minutes early all smiles and compliments.  She loved our home, our garden (which was in full bloom for the occasion), the river and the neighbor’s nameless cat came over for a visit.  We had our last interview together, then his final interview and then she looked around our home.  She told us that her case load was incredibly heavy but that we would be approved, just later in November. 

Even though there was no dressing up or trick-r- treating we sure felt like we got a pretty sweet deal – we are pretty much done with that part of the adoption. 

Now for the MATCH LETTER…… Dun

du

duuun! 

Monsters and Halloween

It all started with a dryer.

We moved to our lovely new home roughly 6 months ago, the same time that a friend of ours, Jenny, was having a garage sale to raise money for her mission trip to a foreign land.   We contributed by giving her more than just what we were getting rid ….we donated our dryer.  By the time she dropped by to pick up our dryer it had already sold!! Cha-ching!! Jenny’s garage sale made enough money to help her make their trip to an amazing country.  

A few months later we decided to adopt.

THEN, out of the clear blue Jenny called about the dryer.  She told us that the lady who originally bought it had moved and given it back to Jenny who already had a dryer and didn’t need another.  She offered us the dryer then she offered to be our “garage-sale-planner” which is like a wedding planner except not just one BIG day its TWO!!  And would you believe it if I told you the dryer sold one day before the garage sale started!

What do you think of our monster sign?

Thank you the Springerville Baptist Church for opening your gym to us, Calvary Chapel for additional tables and support, to everyone who donated stuff for the garage sale,donated financially, prayed, volunteered, set-up, cleaned-up, boxed-up encouraged, organized, and just came to stand around with us. 

God allowed us to make enough 

to cover all of our

initial expenses thus far! 

Praise God! 

Exciting news

1. ONE MORE CLASS LEFT!
2. Bought a crib.
3. Home study should be DONE Halloween!! 

Still to do

1. Some homework for the class
2. Interview and home visit.
3. Matchletter

Please (if anyone is reading this) keep us in your prayers…a lot!!

Thanks y’all

2nd Class

This week we got to the adoption center a few hours early to turn in paperwork and left with more to complete.  This is a much smaller amount than we previously had and it is a lot more fun.  We have to fill out paperwork for a state we lived in for roughly one year, re-write a short form, and the fun part is completing a personality test.  The personality test is taken with “yourself” in mind then “your spouse” in mind.  Our amazing case worker said it was so she could tell how well we knew our spouse, I’ll keep you updated with that.  

We decided to get our home study started next week and have already scheduled our “couple interview.” 

Our second adoption class was absolutely amazing and could easily be one of our favorites.  We got to meet a beautiful family who adopted (2 sibling groups) 4 children who are now teenagers.  This was an amazing visit because many of us in the class had fears and questions about the teenage years and “open” adoption.  The couple shared so beautifully of God’s guidance through their open adoption and His plan in their lives. 

We admire this couple and could have visited for hours.  It was so encouraging to meet someone with a life story matching ours (almost exactly) and seeing in them what we want our life-story to look like in a few years.   

First class, first blog.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.”  Psalm 127:1a

Our Family of Promise began over nine years ago when we signed “Our Marriage Covenant” which hangs and has hung in every home we have lived in since our wedding day. 

It reads:

Believing that God, in His wisdom and providence,

 has established marriage as a covenant relationship, a sacred and lifelong promise, reflecting our unconditional love for one another and believing that God intends for the marriage covenant to reflect His promise to

never leave us nor forsake us. 

We, the undersigned, do hereby reaffirm our solemn pledge to fulfill our marriage vows.  Furthermore, we pledge to exalt the sacred nature and permanence of the marriage covenant by calling others to honor and fulfill their marriage vows.

Under this are each of our vows (which I love) and signatures, then it is bordered by signatures of those who where there on that day.

Fast forward…

Today we are taking steps to grow our family through adoption, another lifelong promise. 

We attended our first adoption class this past Monday and just finished a majority of our paperwork.  The class theme was “Open Adoption.”  At first we thought this meant co-parenting but there are so many levels to openness.  

The verse that best sums up the first class is

“God sets the lonely in families.” Psalm 68:6

Special thanks to my dear sister in law who put this blog together.  As I feel more comfortable writing about our life on the world wide web I will be blogging about some of what happens in between and after our next 6 classes.  Please keep us, the baby and the bio. family in your prayers.