Haiti or not???

The day before our middle school retreat we got a call from a mom here in Wiesbaden who works with her church back home finding homes for children.  She told us about 2 sisters from Haiti who needed a new home as the one they were in now wanted to get rid of them.  They both had some issues (which we expect) but we had to weigh out some options. They were 7 and 10, and were survivors from the earthquake in Haiti. They had been adopted to a family in CO, and that family now wants to pass them along after 2 years. One girl has PTSD (duh, her life has been tramatic) and one has ADHD.

There would be no cost to us as the family wanted to have it a private thing with 2 lawyers going family to family. While this was ideal for us, we wanted the Lord's guidance and seek guidance of others. Plus, the day before a big retreat is not the ideal time of life altering choices.

After much prayer and guidance, we decided not to go forward... here is the main reason. Although our heart was to rescue them, there is a difference in being called to rescue or called to parent. Both Dan and I had some reservations, and neither of us had a peace about it. We knew the Lord was telling us, see there are kids out there, just wait for the ones I have for you.

This week we will be finalizing our homestudy finally. The next process is finding an agency. As of now, we have no calling or leading to a specific one, but we know the Lord will sort it out. We are just called to be faithful and listen to His voice.

Wanderings and education

So the other night we decided to continue our adoption education courses. This journey has been crazy already, but we know it will be worth it! 

We took a 1.5 credit class on adopting the older child. While our hearts are still open to it, it brought us to question some things as to why we indeed want to adopt an older child vs. a baby. The jury is still out as to who... but we are trusting God in the midst. It looks like our social worker is coming mid feburary to close out or home study. At that point we will need to have some decision as to where we will be going :(a.k.a- Agency). Would you please join us in praying for direction in this area. 

Answered prayer

Yesterday as we had been emailing back and forth with our social worker, she said to call the place directly. The number we had been given was a fax number. So being the witty people we are, we went on to Google (what would we do without it) and found the IL government page.  We looked thru and found the dcfs page. Then called the main number. We asked for a lady, and were switched around for about 10 minutes... but then when we finally got in touch with her she told us they had been caught up with all the background checks. Puzzled by this news we inquired further. She told us then to email to her. I (becke) began filling the form out again when I realized I already had things saved on the computer in our Hope Haas folder. 
So we emailed them last night, and this afternoon we got the email with the forms scanned and checked. 
What a blessing! So where did the forms go in August that we mailed? hm. not sure. But this phase is done, and we are scheduling an appointment with our social worker to finalize the paperwork.  


Now, we need to ask for guidance about where we are going. We will talk to her about Ethiopia still but we are unsure at this point. 


This process is crazy! Its wonderful and tiring all at the same time. How can this be. 


Thanks to everyone who has given and has been praying! We are so grateful to all of you! More than words can say. It was a rough Christmas in that everyone asked how the adoption was going and each time we shared, our hearts grew weary. We praise you Father for giving us a ray of sunshine and your promise to us during this time! Thank you Jesus!

Ethipoia

So we were told, that Ethiopia is closing.... hm.. Lord, where do we go from here????

community

So tonight we got to spend some time with a family that has adopted from Ethiopia.  We had such a good time of talking, and asking questions. It eased our hearts greatly as we asked lots of questions. They were really gracious and gave us lots of thoughts and ideas.
Was so good to glean wisdom from those that have done this before. We had been getting bogged down in all the paperwork, and this brought us back up and lifted our hearts.
Its an emotional ride as we go through this.

I think the one of the hard parts is the waiting period. Wait for your life to change, wait to have your world upside down. Wait on the government, wait on fingerprints.... wait on this and wait on that. In our get it done now world we live in its so hard to have to wait on things that are beyond your control.

Who likes to have their patience level muscle strengthened or grown... um... I think no one. We generally would rather go with the easy and comfortable. But as you know Dan and I, being comfortable is just not us. We love to get outside our comfort zone. Then again there are times when I just want to fall in line with others, but I generally like to think outside the box.

With that said, this whole process is growing my patience muscle! (joyous)

Thank you dear family for letting us glean your wisdom and see up close an personal your family! We are so completely thankful!!!!!

Still waiting...

Yes, we are still adopting and still waiting....

I get that question a great deal, Hows the adoption going?
What I have come to realize is that there is a great deal of waiting invovled in this process. The amazing thing is the more we wait, the more our hearts are getting excited to welcome our children home.

We finished a long course in our adoption education (parenting class) called with Eyes Wide Open.
We learned so much about bonding, the difference in parenting natural children as opposed to adopted children. We also learned a great deal about how people can react to our family. Since we will have afirican children, we will stand out, but we know we are a family. We learned how to talk to our kids about it, and also about their past, and how it affects where they are now. Also there was talk about the grief they experience coming to another country, how they will act.

I am so grateful for my friends who have taught me so much about parenting. You know who you are.

We still have 5 other courses to complete but the one we started with was the longest. We are still waiting on things to come back. We are almost done with the homestudy things.

We went away last week to emotionally rest, and to spend some time with our friends Jeff and Candy. We felt refreshed from our times there. Wow, what a great place to catch up.

Till later-

time away

so we just returned from vacation where we went to a retreat house within our mission in the Black forest. During our time, we did some personality tests, and evaluations to see how we are doing. This was such a great time of relaxing and decompressing. We went to a thrift store in France, and stumbled upon a winery town.  This was filled with about 20-30 wineries. They even had a Haas winery. We went there just because its our name. We went about a half hour from the place we were staying into Switzerland and enjoyed a date night and also got a BASEL mug!

While on vacation we continued our training courses for adoption.These were on rejection, and grieving. Its was a great time to stop and think on who we are and our parenting style. We have been apart of some great families who parent well. We glean knowledge and experience from them. Also we have been around people who have not parented well and we process that as well.

All this to say, God is working in our hearts preparing us emotionally for our children. I know you can't be really ready for what will happen but at least we are letting go of past issues that have been holding us back, and processing hurts along the way.

Woot woot! God is good!