A little Detour

We were told that all kinds of things would come up that were out of our control and to look at them as detours and not road blocks. We have felt very blessed becasue everything has gone quite smooth... Yesterday, I received a phone call from Spence Chapin saying that we had to change our homestudy. The Korean governement has gotten themselves into a little pickle. Korea is now making all the the incoming homestudies say that the family would accept a child 24 months and younger rather than the 18 months that we had on our homestudy. They are requiring these changes because they are not giving out as many Visa's as they used to so children are waiting longe r(and getting older) to be brought home. This is so screwy to me because these kids are in foster care longer and not with their famillies and getting older by the day but becasue Korea is really promoting domestic adoption the time frame for international adoption keeps getting longer. This is not the best news for us but we are still amazed at the favor we have. Let me expain, last week are fingerprints were done and processed and we were assigned to a case worker. Once you get assigned a case worker from CIS ( homeland security office) your Visa request to bring a child into the US is just about approved. This is a good thing unless your homestudy needs to be changed. Our Spence Chapin Case worker is on the ball and called us immediantly and called CIS and told them to hold our approval until we could get an updated homestudy report. If we would have not found out about this until next week chances are that our request would have been approved already and we would have had to fill out more paperwork and request an addendum to our approval. That process could take up to 2-3 months. Thankfully we caught the paperwork in time and the homestudy is being changed as I type. The CIS caseworker has no problem holding the approval until the corrections in our homestudy are made. THANK YOU LORD!!! This is great news for us, unfortunately the famillies who have already had their Dossier sent over to Korea are now going to have to change the homestudy and get a new approval for their Visa's. How frustarting for them, my heart breaks for them as it added more work and more time onto their process. Please pray with us for these families and for my family as we pray this litle detour will go smoothly and our dossier can be sent over.

Experiencing God...No coincidences

Last winter I did a Bible Study called Experiencing God, then this spring I did it again. Ron is taking the course right now. (If you haven't ever taken this study, DO IT) It was really life changing. The first time I did the study there was a particular lesson where you had to write down things that you felt God had called you to but weren't sure when they were to come to pass. I did the lesson and put down adoption along with some other things. I did not give it a second thought. Fast forward to the second time I was completing the study. We had decided that we were actually adopting about the same time I started the course again. The study talks about alot of things but mainly everything revolves around experiencing God and getting involoved where He is already at work. There are 7 "steps" that they have you learn so you are able to reconize where God is at work and how to join Him. One of the steps is a Crisis of Belief that requires faith to move forward into what God wants you to do. Clearly this one struck a cord with us mainly because adoption is so expensive and at this point in life we cannot afford it. There comes a time when saying. "Oh we cant afford this or that" can become like a crutch and you would never move forward because you could never afford to. We could have looked at the financial cost of adoption through human terms and never been obediant to God. Instead we chose to rely on God and take a step of faith. WOW!

 Amazing things began to happen and we began to experience God! From the very beginning we were unsure of how we would pay for things. The applicaiton fee was 300$, which we had, but not much after that. While we do have money in savings, we currently have one child, a house and cars that we needed to be responsible for. If an emergency came up we needed money to cover it, so we didn't want to take from savings.  This is where things get crazy and why I say that there are no coincidences when you're listening to God.

Once we got accepted we owed $1000 right away. We received an email stating that we were accepted and that we would get the official paperwork to sign through the mail in a few days and the first bit of money was due. During the course of that week we were given our first gift by people who we had told about the adoption. Ron helped a fellow business man out and to make a long story short he basically said he wanted to thank Ron for all his help and gave him a check. WHAT? Who does that... God does. In one week we were handed $1000 exactly. By the time the agreement paperwork came we had the money we needed. That's exactly how it has gone the entire time. We needed just a little over $7000 before we even got to send the paperwork to Korea. It is amazing how much paperwork can cost. Even now as I type my eyes fill with tears thinking about how my heavenly Father prepares a way for us. Here and there we have been given financial gifts from friends and family that met a need exactly when we had one.It is so cool to think that those who gave to us were being obediant to God just as we are. (pretty cool cycle isn't it)  Ron received a bonus at work that exceeded our expectations and we opened a seperate checking account just for the adoption. Our cup truly runneth over!!!

I am so curious to see how God will provide the rest of the money but I know the testimony will be a wonderful one. We still need $20,000 plus (yes you read that right) more before the adoption is complete, we haven't needed to ask, the need is met before we have to think about it. I was thinking about all of this the other day and decided to write about it mainly as an encouragement. If God has called you to something, OBEY, He who began a good work in you is faithful to complete it! There is nothing that He cannot do. I end this post with the story I began with in the beginning, my second time through the study when I had to do the lesson that asked what were the things that God had called you to but had not yet come to pass, I was able to cross off adoption. Thank you Lord for using us!