Adoption Update

Goodness! It's been a crazy few weeks....I had not even realized that so much time had passed since our pottery post. THANK YOU to everyone who shared our status and especially those to bought a piece of pottery!!! We still have a few pieces left and are picking some different pieces up this weekend, so I'll do another post about those soon.

This is what I've been hearing a lot of lately..."Sooooo, any adoption news?!?"

It's so sweet the way people want to keep up with our adoption. However, not much has happened on that front. We're still working on paperwork, our home study, and getting our dossier together. Also, as I have learned more about our agency and have been meeting other families with our agency, I'm learning that we may be in for a pretty good wait on seeing our baby's face.

Basically, I think I've figured out that we're #4 or 5 for a boy under three years old (for our agency). The family at #1 has been waiting 8 months for a referral. Another family was told the wait may be 9 - 12 months. So, even though none of this has been told to me personally by our agency, I would say we have a little bit of a wait ahead of us.  While we may see our baby's face in 2013, we probably won't be bringing a baby home until 2014. However, God is good all the time, so we know when He decides it's the right time it will be. :) Please pray with us for referrals!

One more thing I wanted to mention in this post is about our fundraising.  While most people have been so supportive, I know that it may not make sense to some people why we're fundraising. I've seen adoptive families defend themselves about fundraising, and I vowed I would never do that because it's our life and our decision to fundraise. However, I thought I might clarify why we need to. First, we truly believe we have been called by God to adopt from Ghana at this time in our lives. I also don't know if I've told y'all this, but it will cost close to $30,000 to bring this child home. Yes! I did just say $30,000! While we did start saving over the past few months for this, let's just say that it certainly has not reached that amount. (Not even close!)

Our next big amount is due when we send our dossier to Ghana. We need to send our dossier to Ghana as soon as possible so we'll be ready for a referral. That's where fundraising comes in. We're trying really hard to cut back and save our money in any way possible, but we've also got to get creative to raise money in order to be able to pay this next large amount.  We will apply for grants and such when our homestudy is completed, but that won't be soon enough to pay for the dossier.

Soooooo, if it offends you that we're fundraising, I'm so sorry. But --- we believe that God equips those whom He calls. He will provide for this adoption. If He uses you, we'll be so thankful! If you do like our little fundraisers, then look forward to a blog post about our next fundraiser really soon!