Skip to main content

Decisions...Decisions

Thank you for all the encouragement and prayers over the past few weeks. In our weakness so many have stood with us and prayed for us. We've been so blessed by the body of Christ wrapping around us.

In our last post we mentioned we were given three options (switch countries, go on hold or stay active). We took time to pray, seek the wisdom of others who were less emotionally involved, talk with other Ugandan adopting/adoptive families, looked into other countries, had multiple phone calls and emails with our agency and prayed more. 

Ultimately, we don't feel like we're being called away from a Ugandan adoption. So that left us with two options with our agency: 1. go on hold or 2. stay active. Both of these options came with the reality that we would not be adopting any time soon so we began to look elsewhere.

We finally decided to switch agencies so we could stay in a Ugandan program. This was from when we sent in the application fee and initial documents and agreement. What you don't see is the tears behind the smiles. I especially struggled with going back to step one and starting again with a new agency.  I didn't even want to take the picture, I didn't feel like celebrating. At the same time, I want to remember this process in pictures. I'm praying this "application picture" is our last before we complete our adoption!


This also means we begin all the agency fees again. The only things that will transfer over are our I-600A clearance and our home study (please pray they don't make us pay more for an update). Miraculously we have almost the exact dollar amount saved compared with what is due in the next few weeks. We were also awarded a grant through Lifesong which will help to offset cost but we'll be continuing to fundraise as we clearly don't have thousands of dollars under our bed!

We ultimately switched to the agency who had completed our home study. Some of you may remember what a headache our home study process was but we are working with a different office and praying things go more smoothly. We chose them because they too are committed to ethical adoptions. We have sent in our first big payments and are working on getting all our paperwork switched over. This means a few weeks of monotonous paper chasing. 

In summary, we are on hold with our first agency but still actively involved in that process. We love our first agency and will complete an adoption through them at some point! We have a big opportunity we have asked to be part of which may happen this summer. Please pray for that! We will update with more details as things are sorted out and we see exactly what, if any, our role is. 

We are so grateful for all your prayer and support. Please continue bringing us before God. We have no idea what to expect or what the future holds for us and our adoption. This time around it is even more clear that we have no power over our situation and that is frustrating for me. We will continue pursuing a Ugandan adoption until we feel like God has closed every door or told us to stop!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biometrics Appointment Complete!

Another check on the checklist, another task marked off!! We submitted our I-600A less than 3 weeks ago. We were told to expect up to a 2 month wait for our biometrics (fingerprint) appointment. I prayed and prayed we would receive our appointment date by the end of this week. I came home Monday to 4 letters from USCIS with our appointment date set for noon on December 12. It was such a direct answer to prayer, exceeding our request for an already speedy process! Silly government people who assign random times during normal working hours. We both couldn't do it but we've heard from numerous other families that they will often take walk ins. So today, I left school early and we rushed over to the office...we got a little lost on the way, stupid iphone lead us to the completely wrong place! When we arrived we were told we had to speak with the immigration officer to see if he would allow us to walk in. Thankfully we saw the nicest immigration officer there is and he did...
Post a Comment
Read more

Update and Another Fundraiser

We had a 2 1/2 hour call last week, and an hour call this week with our social worker...Can I just tell you I LOVE our social worker! She is easy to talk to, understands our concerns and is willing to walk the distance with us. She is preparing us for each step of the journey but also helping to prepare our hearts to be parents to our child. I'm so grateful for her expertise, she makes me feel protected in a journey that often feels very uncertain. We are inexperienced at this whole parenting and adoption thing but we've never felt demeaned or like our infinite questions are silly. We will be starting our home study soon...hopefully this week or next. I've realized I've thrown that term around and it confuses many people. A home study is basically an assessment of us as individuals, us as a couple and our physical home. It is a thorough study to make sure we are ready and capable to adopt. It's a long and often time grueling process but I appreciate that they look...
1 comment
Read more

#2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell we're a little excited around here. Like laugh and cry at the same time which sets off an asthma attack (true story). WE ARE #2 ON THE WAIT LIST!! WE EXPECT A REFERRAL IN 6 TO 12 MONTHS!!! Wow, thank you Jesus, Praise God, we are going to be parents!! After 18 months of discouraging news, setbacks, indefinite timelines, suspensions it doesn't seem real that we will probably become parents in 2016!! When we left our first agency, we were #11 on the wait list with an indefinite timeline. When we first began talking with our current agency in March, we were told there we would be #4-5 on the wait list when we completed our dossier and wait time would be 12-18 months. They were able to make a couple matches in May and we've moved up to #2!!! Please be praying for us, we are so excited and reality is setting in that our home will be filled with a little person (or persons). We are so grateful for God's sovereignty and provision, we are so excited...
2 comments
Read more