Where to go from here

The time for updates has arrived. I had hoped that we wouldn't have to go through this step (because we would have already been matched and working toward/finished finalization in court), but here we are. I was reminded yesterday that it's actually not uncommon to have to do a full update, since the homestudy is one of the first things we have to have completed.

The good news is that I managed to plow through the majority of it in just a few hours today. There are quite a few things that haven't changed since we turned in the paperwork the first time, so there were several items that I could just edit or polish. The financial forms were the hardest since I quit my teaching job last year, but even that wasn't too bad.

The most unsettling thing lately is I think the Lord is trying to get my attention about something. The last time I experienced this kind of "prodding" in this particular way from Him was about being obedient in the smallest details. He would not leave the issue alone. Every time I went to church, participated in prayer or read my Bible, it seemed like that issue was a subject (or the subject) of discussion. Eventually, I had to admit that while I was obedient in many other ways, I had not been obedient in THIS way. I was under so much conviction, that I had to clear my conscience and obey.

This time, it's about foster care. We have been asked by several people about whether we've considered foster care or foster-adopt, and it keeps popping up in other ways, too. It seems like every day, the issue of foster care or adopting a child in foster care comes up in some form or fashion.

To be honest, we went into this to adopt a baby. I wanted to be able to raise our child from his/her earliest days. But there are many, many children (about 400,000 according to Administration for Children and Families) who are in foster care, whose average age is over 9 years old, and more than 60,000 of whom are legally free for adoption in the United States (according to Children's Rights). As a public school teacher, I worked with several of these children, and it broke my heart that they didn't get to have the loving, permanent home so many of us take for granted.

I talked yesterday with a colleague and his wife who adopted a couple of years ago. They originally planned for an international adoption, but the country they were working with vastly reduced the number of adoptions they were allowing - effectively slamming the door in their faces. They were forced to either continue waiting (likely years), or turn to another avenue. They now have two more boys added to their family, adopted from right here in the US. They encouraged us to think and pray hard about what our next steps should be. They said it might be surprising to us the path we end up taking.

I don't know yet what we'll decide, or what role the Lord has for us to play concerning foster care. There are a lot of things for us to consider, and we would appreciate your prayers.