Almost Done… Isn’t Done.



SANITY... the first thing to go when dealing with paperwork.



We are at last filling out the final forms for our home study paperwork. We are so ready to be finished with this… it has taken far too long. Sheet after sheet, form after form. We are so tired of it. But there is another reason we are ready to be done with it. We are yearning for our child! The sooner we finish the paperwork, the sooner we will start and finish our home study, the sooner we can submit our dossier to Bulgaria, the sooner we will get a referral, the sooner we will be bringing our child home!

Some of the paperwork is really, really boring… like filling in every address we’ve lived at since we were 18 years old. Some is really interesting, but time consuming – like writing out our autobiographies. Just think, someday I could take this autobiographical essay and expand it into a book! Or not… as I have said, we’re ready to be done.

One of the assignments we have is to map out our child’s life once he or she comes home.  Where will his or her school/daycare be? Who will be our pediatrician of choice? Who can we call if we have a question about adoptive parenting? What are our plans for making our child aware of his/her cultural background? For taking care of his/her special needs?  If we die, who will have guardianship? These decisions make us feel like we are parents already, trying to make the best choice for our child.

But who is our child? We wish we already knew – not knowing is the hardest part of waiting.  Not knowing, but still loving. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will it be a toddler or a little child ready to enter kindergarten? Will he or she have laughing brown eyes and a beautiful full grin or a shy smile and a head full of curls? Will our kid like broccoli and brussels sprouts like Mom or love all things bread like Dad? We will love whomever God gives us to love… we just can’t wait to meet him or her!

I think we will have a party when we are done with the last form… anyone want to come over and celebrate with us?

Fun Acts of Faith

Our hope is high and we are sailing the high seas of faith! We know God has called us to adopt and are trusting that He will bring us the perfect (for us!) child. A precious child who will fit into our family, whom we can love on, read stories to, and give to a knowledge of God - true and intimate.

We want our child to know God, to walk hand and hand with Him, to know in his or her heart of a higher adoption available – adoption into God’s family. We want our adoption to mirror this mightier one, not only to everyone who wanders in and out of our lives, but to our child as well. We believe that God will give our child a receptive heart and an active mind to search out the great things of God. We are stepping out in faith that we will be the sort of parents who can walk the difficult roads of adoption and of parenting an adopted special-needs kid.

Part of this faith is believing what is not as though it is. We don’t have our kid yet. We have yet to overcome the obstacles of all the paperwork, fundraising/saving of $30,000, and the months and months (if not years) of waiting for our referral to come. But we believe, we know in our hearts, that we already have a beautiful son or daughter, waiting for us over in Bulgaria! He or she is ours, not blood of our blood, but heart of our heart! In faith, we so completely believe this that we are taking action. It is a great joy to step out and get ready for the arrival of our coming cutie pie!

The first thing to getting ready for a major change in one's life, as any women will tell you, is to get a haircut! Here is my new mommy do:

We have received such encouragement from the Scriptures over the past month. Through various people, our own study, and God speaking through His Word, we know God has special plans for our family and for our children. Part of this encouraging Word was an answer to a prayer we’ve been praying – whether we should move out of our little apartment or not. And God said we are to expand our tent pegs! We have found a bigger place with a washer and dryer in the apartment – something which, as we have been told by all our parent-y friends, is something very difficult to do without when you have kids. So no more trips to the laundry room with the broken machines! Hurrah! We will be moving the beginning of June. It will be a little more expensive, but so worth it! Anyway, would it be a step of faith if it did not stretch us? Here is our new home… only two buildings down the street!

 

The latest faith action has been to become involved in some Bulgarian cultural events. Since we love exploring different cultures – what fun it is to do so in connection with our beloved child! In a completely “God way”, we have been hearing of Bulgaria right and left nowadays. One of our dear friends, the fabulous actress/songstress Amie, has recently become involved with a Bulgarian theatre group and invited us to a poetry reading of Bulgarian poems at the Bulgarian Embassy here in DC. Only segments of the poems were translated into English, but it was a beautiful event with amazingly beautiful people, language, and music. And food prepared by the Embassy chef! Truly fantastic! We met some very interesting people there, including a lady who has started an educational/medical facility in Sofia (the Bulgarian capital) for special-needs children. We had a lovely conversation about Bulgaria's special-needs children and our adoption. She couldn’t quite understand why we would want to adopt a special-needs child, which we thought was odd, as she has such a heart for them herself. But she was a wonderful person to meet and gave us her card in case we had any questions about Bulgaria she could answer for us. After all, that is what DC is all about – networking!

If you want to look through the Flickr photo stream of the event, you might catch a glimpse of us in the audience!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aticc/sets/72157629604504465/with/6990177407/

We will be going to more Bulgarian cultural events in the future as they are officially part of our adoption education. We need 30 hours of education before we can fly out to Bulgaria to pick up our kid.  If you would like to come with us, let us know - the more the merrier!  The next event is April 1st and is a celebration of Bulgarian culture: http://www.aticc.org/home/ambassador-theater-presents-hopa-tropa-kukerica.

The Thrilling Ascent - Climbing Mt. Money

I really do my best to avoid sports analogies. I believe that they are only illustrative to those who know the sport, either by playing or watching. Which leaves some of us, namely me, completely left out of the know.  “This team member’s function is that of the quarterback” is often said at my work. The quarterback throws the ball or something, right? How is that related in any way to facilities management? What is the ball symbolic of? I’m clueless.

So now I am going to break my own rule. On top of that, I haven’t ever participated in this sport and will probably get everything wrong in an attempt to illustrate my point.

Last week, we blogged about overcoming the money mountain between us and our son- or daughter-to-be. Any guesses to the sports analogy yet? Yes, mountain climbing! The thrilling ascent to the peak! Right now we are on the gentle slopes upward, we have yet to feel the pressure of the impending cliffs of deadlines, the perilous crags of applying for grants, and the slippery uphill slopes of fundraising.

When we face these more arduous obstacles, we are going to need help. And when faced with a difficult ascent, climbers use a technique called “belaying”. (I learned this term today from Wikipedia! I searched for “person holding rope for rock climber”). While one person is climbing up the cliff, another person is holding a rope that is run through a locking device and then tied to the climber’s harness. If the climber slips, the “belayer” applies tension to the rope, locking the device and stopping the climber from falling to his or her doom. Here’s a picture of it:

While the most important responsibility of a belayer is to ensure the safety of the climber, they also do a couple of other very helpful tasks. They feed more rope to the climber to enable them to reach greater heights. Due to their wider view of the climb, they help direct the climber’s route, guiding the placement of their hands and feet to nooks and crannies the climber cannot see. They also warn the climber of any falling debris or unsteady foothold.

To translate this analogy – We need people to hold our ropes, to keep us from falling as we tackle our mountain. You can be our belayers!

Here’s how:

Prayer! Because it is most important, we are listing this first. We need faith-filled people who love God and who love us to hold us up in our climb – not just with the money mountain, but all the other mountains of our adoption too. We need intercessors to pray for provision, the removal of obstacles, and for protection for us and for our child, for us to be a blessing and an encouragement to our agencies both here and in Bulgaria, to the orphanages, and to all the people we meet along the way. Pray Matthew 11:23 for us – “Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.”

Funds! If you would like to feed us more rope in our climb, in the form of monetary funds – that would be awesome!  Even if you cannot give much, it will bring us that much closer to giving an abandoned special-needs child a home. We realize that just about everyone is facing a financial crunch, but we greatly appreciate and honor the sacrifice you are make to help with our adoption. Check out our page on some of the ways to give.

Ideas! Do you have a great idea for a fundraiser that we could use? We already have some great suggestions that we will be implementing. Create a babysitting team where people babysit for their friends for donations toward our adoption? Great idea! It blesses us and blesses parents in our community! Ask people to give up a Starbucks coffee once a week and give the money to our adoption fund instead? Awesome! You have heard of a grant that we could apply for? Terrific! We may not be able to use all of the ideas, but each one will remind us that you are there for us, helping guide the way!

Encouragement! All climbers face discouragement on difficult climbs and are tempted to turn back. They need their belayer to shout out “Almost there! Another few inches and you will reach a ledge!” Please lift us up with a scripture or a promise from God. Tell us the story of your friend who adopted a baby from China last year. Remind us of how far we’ve come or how short the distance is ahead of us. Tell us we will be great parents! Tell us how cute we are! All of this will en“courage” us – give us courage to face the tough bits of the journey ahead of us. This is more important that you know, for when we are tired and have hit obstacle after obstacle and are ready to give up, one word of encouragement from our friends will give us strength and perseverance to keep on keeping on!