Home Study Ready & Approved!

We are celebrating progress in our 

adoption journey!! 

Praise Report #1: 

We are home study ready and approved as KY State foster parents.

This means that we have met the requirements and our home is "open". Our workers can call us if they have children that need placed who may make a good fit with our family. We have received a few calls for placements already, but for one reason or another, didn't feel like God was wanting us to pursue those options.  

Prayer Request: That we would have very specific and clear guidance from the Lord when we receive calls for placements. There is often very little time to make a decision, so in those moments, we need God to make His will known to us very clearly. Pray that David and I will always be on the same team. 

Praise Report #2: 

We are home study ready and approved through Adoption Assistance for an independent domestic newborn adoption. This has been the other avenue that we've been pursuing alongside doing foster care. This means that we have all of our paperwork in and our home has been approved. We are now ready to connect with a birthmother who is planning to choose adoption for her child. We have not yet located or been matched with a birthmother. However, when we do, we are ready! 

Please contact us if you know of a situation of a birthmother wanting to choose adoption!  

Prayer Request: That we would be matched with the birthmother and child that the Lord wants for us. That we would have patience as we wait on His timing. That we would have very clear guidance from the Lord. 

You may have already wondered this -- but, no, eventually we will not be able to continue pursuing both options (foster care and independent adoption). We have done that so far because they were open doors that we hadn't sensed the Lord closing. However, we will have to eventually drop one option for the other. Our hearts are drawn towards the independent adoption, so we are praying that the Lord would clearly guide, if that's what we should totally pursue. 

Thank you for your interest, care, support, and prayers! 

We are excited to see what God is going to do next!

Last state home visit before approval ... we are hoping!

We would appreciate your prayers for us tomorrow. We will be having,
what should be, our last home visit with the state before we are approved and our house can be opened. Our worker says that he is finishing up writing our home study and it should be completed this week!

We are also going to transition to a new worker. There is a new worker taking over our part of the state. She will be coming along on the visit tomorrow, so that we can meet her.

Also, an update on the shadowing -- that went very well. The family that we shadowed was very nice and easy to talk with. It was a good experience and gave us some confidence that we could do what they are doing. :-)

None of this really helps us know when we will have a child in our home, but it does tell us that we are one step closer. :-)  We thank you for your continued prayers!

Shadowing on Saturday

Our state social worker has connected us with a local seasoned foster family that we are shadowing on Saturday (Dec. 3) afternoon. We will be with them for a couple of hours. We will be evaluating/observing them and they will be
doing the same for us.Yay for another step
closer to having our
home study complete! :-)

Second State Home Visit - Successful!

 

We are praising the Lord that our 2nd home visit went well this morning! This one was longer than the first -- about 2.5 hours. There was more paperwork and it was more "interview" style. We really like our worker. He is easy to talk to and work with. We may end up with a different worker eventually, but we have this one for now. :-)

Next steps:
1) Do some online training sessions
2) Shadow a seasoned foster/adoptive family
3) Have another home study by the end of the year.

Thank you for your prayers!

Second Home Visit

Monday, Nov. 21 at 10am is our 2nd home visit with our state worker. We would sure appreciate your prayers that all would go well!

Wait No More Conference

 

On Saturday, Nov. 14, we had the opportunity to attend the Wait No More conference in Lousiville, KY. This is sponsored by Focus on the Family.The conference is designed to encourage families to begin the foster care and adoption process, and help them get started. There were agencies there who could answer your questions, motivational speakers, reading resources supplied for us, and the opportunity to get fingerprinting done. 

We discovered fairly quickly that we are further along in the process than what the conference is designed to help you with. However, we were thankful to learn that we are on the right track! We did get to get our fingerprinting done for our private agency (we had already completed the fingerprints for the state). :-) And to top it all off, they provided Chick-fil-a for lunch! :-) 

We are thankful for how God is leading us in this process. When we were trying to decide whether or not to begin the state training (several months ago), we had contemplated waiting until we had attended this conference. Looking back, we are so glad that we didn't wait! They would have told us to do exactly what we've just done. Anyway, we're thankful for how God leads ... especially when we are basically clueless. :-)

First State Home Visit - Successful!

-

We successfully completed our first state home visit last Friday! We had to complete some paperwork separately and then our social worker reviewed our answers and checked for a compatibility in answers between us. 

Our worker then took a tour of our home and checked to be sure that everything was safe. He reminded us of a couple of things that we need to get to make our home more child-ready. We purchased those things and will have them ready when he comes again. :-) 

We will have 2-3 more home visits. They will probably be before the end of the year. 

We are celebrating 1 down! :-)