since it is national adoption month, i thought i would write about adopting our little guy.
we always had the desire to adopt again. God had already blessed us once through the miracle of adoption and we both felt like God was calling us to adopt again. we went through the same type of foster-to-adopt organization as we did with our daughter, just this time we were living in another state. since we were going through the county we lived in, we fully understood that we would probably foster a couple of kiddos before one would become available to adopt. again, we prepared ourselves, our daughter, family and friends, that we might care for a few kiddos before we were permanently placed with a child. we set up the room, put the crib together, added some gender-neutral decor and we were ready for a placement.
this time it was a little different than our first time around. we were approved at the end of December 2010 by our social workers and were now on call for a placement. over the next couple of months, we received a couple different phone calls from the county asking us to care for a couple different kiddos. for different reasons we discovered through prayer, we opted not to be foster parents to those kiddos. so the wait continued.
sometimes, waiting can be very hard and difficult to bear. but, we continued to trust in God's timing and held onto how He provided the first time around. the waiting process the first time around was so hard for me, but this time God had grown my faith and it was a bit easier. i had experience the wait once before and i knew the blessing would come. i spent a lot of time in prayer, praying for the child God had for us. actually, we all were praying. praying for the big things and also praying for the little details that we knew only God would care about. we prayed for a healthy kiddo that would be a good match for our family. my little lady was praying specifically for a baby brother. we were open to adopting a boy or a girl, but we encouraged her to be specific with her prayers. and that's just what she did. she wanted God to give her a baby brother with brown hair and brown eyes.
i too, was praying specifically. during the process, i really felt that we would probably be matched with a baby that was not a new born or just a couple months old. since i felt that way, i began to pray for a baby that would have been given a biblical name by his or her birth parents. this may seem weird or kind of random, but i knew that if the baby was a bit older then there was no way we were going to change their first name. if they are coming to us to be adopted then they had already experienced so much loss, why would we take the one thing that they had been given? plus, i think they need to hold onto something that was given to them by the person that brought them into the world. i knew we wouldn't change their first name, so i prayed for one that we would love too. i knew it was a simple little detail, but i knew God would listen to my prayer. no prayer is too little or insignificant to Him. it was simple to me...pray for a child that would have a biblical name.
at the beginning of April 2011, we were all at home enjoying the day together as a family of three, when we receive a phone call.
to be continue....