Adoption Update

Big deep cleansing breath.....

Last time I shared with y'all about the adoption we had just found out that India had reopened their doors for international adoptions but with the pretense that it was only for special needs children.

Since then, we've taken a few weeks to pray, talk, be still, and ask God to show us what we were supposed to do. There were several late night talks, tears shed and then clarity.

We moved forward with the application and waited to hear if we would be accepted into the program. Our prayer was and still is that if this process ever veers from what God is truly calling us to, that He will slam the doors shut tight. At this point it would seem that He is flinging them WIDE open and we will humbly walk through.

Yesterday afternoon we received a phone call from America World Adoptions from a wonderful woman I hope to hug around the neck one day. Her words and kindness brought me to my knees.

Our application has been reviewed and we are officially accepted into the India Program for a special needs adoption!!!!!

I'm still in the stage of shock, we had prepared our hearts for the possibility of not being accepted and while there is still much ahead of us....SO MUCH ahead of us. I liken this feeling I have right now to looking at a pregnancy test and seeing that glorious +

What's next for us? A mountain of paperwork and about 8-10 hours of online adoption training. Our goal is to have it all finished and submitted with our first installment check by the first week of April. Once that is done we are off and running with home studies and more.

I assumed there would be some questions about being accepted into a special needs program and what that means. The classification for special needs is very broad for India, ranging from severe handicaps to mild physical deformities. Rather then list out everything we talked about and our reasons for what we are willing to accept in a placement, I'm going to focus on letting her story unfold on here. God already knows who she is, the numbers of hair on her sweet head. And when it comes time and I am able to share our daughter with y'all, you had better believe I'll be shouting every detail of her from the mountain tops.

I will give you the heads up that as I do little updates here and there on the process you are also going to see some fundraising stuff on here as well. If you can help, wonderful! If you can't, guess what? I still want you here! Whether support comes in money or prayers or arms linked with ours it all is so important to us! So please don't let any fundraising stuff leave a yucky taste in your mouth. k :)

I'm off to immerse myself in paperwork and grant searches....
Here comes our biggest adventure yet! Thank you for sharing it with us!