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