We are matched with a 4 year old little boy! We can't post pictures of him yet, but he's stinkin' cute and we're pretty excited.
Hitting the Pause Button
It has taken quite a bit of
paperwork to get to this point, and we are not done. I feel like
that is all we have done the last few months - finishing up the home
study paperwork and working on all the dossier documents to represent
us in the country. In the middle of that, we had several gracious
doctors answering our questions about medical records, and we
continued working on referral paperwork which is now complete as we
are semi-officially matched pending our dossier.. We'll receive our
last document for our dossier Monday evening (the 2 month circus it
took to get this one right) and then send our dossier out the same
night to our agency.
Sledding with our four kids recently
Sometimes I feel
like we hit the pause button on part of our lives during this part of
the adoption journey. We obviously have hopes and dreams for this
child, and it's exciting to finally put a name and a face with it.
We are hoping to travel sometime this year, so we will not plan a
vacation because we have no control of when we are going. I have
some plans in my head of who can help with the kiddos while we are
gone and activities for them to do, but it also depends if they will
be in school or on summer vacation. We are enjoying this time in
life and our kids, but a part of our hearts are with a little boy
halfway around the world. We are starting to ready the house, and
organize things with the thoughts of how will this all look. We have
started saying to the kids “when your brother comes home...”, and
they are putting things aside for him. So while life is continuing
around us, we are also on hold, just waiting. We want him to be
home.
Wehrspan lake path down the road covered in snow recently
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Late in the fall, I
was just starting to feel like we were searching for a needle in a
haystack. How long would it take to find him? Of course we knew God
had a child for us, and he would come home when the time was right.
At the same time, we want everything to move quickly, because we just
want him home. God gave me these verses in Romans 8 – “But if we
hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently...And we
know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him,
who have been called according to His purpose...What, then, shall we
say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against
us?” Such a reminder to walk in faith and trust Him. Do I really
trust Him? Some days it can be such a challenge, which I guess is
why it is called faith.
The pause button is
about to hit fast forward I think.
~Chris
Ways to donate to our adoption cause:
(not tax deductible, but has the lowest fees per donation)
(not tax deductible, but lower fees per donation)
(tax deductible and grants can go straight to our Adoption Agency)
Our Adoption math: ~$44,000 total - $6,000 company match - $8,000 already raised - $13840 tax benefit = roughly $16,000 left to fund. The tax refund will take a few years to totally recoup, so we will take a loan to finance the upfront costs. We are currently financing $11000 and will need to add the full amount soon as it becomes due.
