Home Study in progress

We finally have our first home study interview, it is this Thursday!  Prayers please:)  We got our FSP application in to Reeces Rainbow which means that soon we can announce to the world who our beautiful daughter is!  I am so excited. 

Jason and I are quickly realizing that we cannot do this on our own.  Yes, we have always known this, but it is becoming more clear every day.  We are relying on friends, family and complete strangers for prayers, positive words, fund raising assistance and financial assistance.  We cannot do this without YOU! 

When we can officially announce who our daughter is, we have an amazing story to tell you of how God has reaffirmed this as His will for us.  Stay tuned!

Clairification...

Ok, so I know that in my previous posts I discussed that we were looking to adopt more than one child from Latin America.  You may have noticed that in my recent posts I have only been talking about "our daughter."  We found out from our agency a while ago (when we were switching agencies) that during the time we work trying to work with our original agency that one of the girls had been applied for.  This was a bit sad but also was great news.  This means that we are not the only ones looking to adopt children with DS from LA!  Raising two children, about the same age with DS would have been very difficult, not that we did not take that into account before pursing the adoption but we felt that God had a plan for all of this.  He does have a plan!  Now, I am not God, I cannot even begin to guess what His plan is for us but maybe, just maybe He wanted us all along to only adopt one of these precious children?  Not only that but maybe He did not want to make us choose which one we would adopt (how hard would that have been!?!)  So, we are currently pursuing the adoption of one little girl from Latin America with Down syndrome. 

We have known for some time that we would most likely only be adopting one but today we found out which one it is.  It is bitter-sweet news, we would have been happy to adopt either one, but now we also know which one will almost definitely not be coming home with us.  We are so happy that she will have a home soon!  Now please help us pray that our home study process goes smoothly so we can announce to the world who our daughter is!

Reeces Rainbow in the news

I wanted to share with you this story from ABC News that follows a faimly adopting a beautiful girl with Down syndrome from the Ukraine.  This story only begins to describe the life that little Mia would have had to endure if she was not adopted quickly.  The family found Mia on Reeces Rainbow.  See it here: Mia's Story.

As for us and our story, we have our Home Study application in and are waiting to hear back from the agency.  Once we get our date for our first visit we can officially commit to our daughter and we can show the world who it is we are adopting.  Please pray for a smooth procees!

Warp Speed

Now that we have been approved to adopt I feel like things are moving at warp speed. Of course I know this will most likely be short lived as I know how slow the adoption process can be! We have found a local agency to prepare our international home study and now have to get appointments with our doctor and take our parenting class.

Right now we are working hard to come up with the funding for the initial fees for the adoption. We will have to pay for our home study, our parenting class, and our agency fees. These fees are all due soon. As you will see I have added a "Chip in" gidget to the blog on the right. This allows our family, friends and supporters to help us with the costs of the adoption. "Chip in" works through Paypal. The negative about "Chip in" is that it the donations are not tax deductible. The good part about it is that the funds will be deposited directly into our paypal account and can be used immediately for the adoption expenses. Soon (hopefully) we will be officially commited to the child we are seeking and Reeces Rainbow will have our page available.  Once this is up and running you will be able to make donations to us through them which will be tax deductible but will not be able to be used by us until we are ready to travel.

I will be selling some wonderful and unique items through my blog in the near future as I have some amazing family and friends who will be helping me with this.  You can also help fund the adpotion by purchasing items through my Etsy shop Simplyvintagefun.

We are humbled to have to ask for help, but God has asked us to put our trust in Him to povide us the means to follow through with this adoption.  Please do not feel obligated to donate to us.  We ask that all donations be given lovingly and not grudgingly.  We appreciate every bit of help that can be given. 

Approval!

Ok, so we got the email saying that we have been approved from our adoption agency!  This is very exciting but scary at the same time.  Now we have to scavange for all of the start up costs.  We are currently working on some fund raising ideas but we have no clue where to start!  Trusting God with everything, it has and always will be in His hands.  We now need to get a local agency to do our homestudy.  One small step at a time...

SLOW Progress

So... it has been a while since I have posted but that is only because there is not much to tell.    Not to mention I have been very busy.  I will try getting my blog looking better soon too.  Anyway, we ended up switching agencies since the first one was unable/unwilling to help us.  They could not do the research to get the needed info on the children.  So now we have switched to the agency that has the files and will (hopefully) be hearing from them soon to let us know if we passed the application.  Since we had to change agencies, the new agency is not in NY so we will need to find an another agency to work with for our home study.  It is a long and tedious process but it will be well worth the wait!  I will have updates when they are available.