Adoption update

I haven't updated on the process in quite a while, mainly because I didn't feel like I had any updates! We've been doing a lot of waiting and then some more waiting, which is, well, annoying! But we're totally trusting that God is doing His own timing thing, and that He knows what's going to work best. :)

After our attorney got both birth parents' paperwork saying they were terminating their parental rights, we had to wait 30 days in case either of them wanted to change their minds. That was a really nerve-wracking time for me. After the 30 days was up, which was December 24th (quite the awesome Christmas gift!), then we had to go back down to our attorney to file our own notarized paperwork stating our intent to adopt Mr. M. :)

From there we got to wait some more and just this week learned when our first hearing will be...... March 26th!!!!! What?????!!!!!!!!! *sigh*, but again, God has fought for us through this entire process and has led the way, so why would He stop now? I was a little sad at first because M will have his first birthday (March 20th) and not be "ours" yet. But, that's just on paper. He's been ours since we brought him into our home September 10th, 2011. :) We love him to pieces!

So the first hearing takes all of 15 minutes, and is the termination of parental rights hearing. Basically the birth parents don't show up (unless they've decided they want to contest) and their rights are automatically terminated. After that we get to wait yet again (noticing a theme here?), and then we'll have the 2nd hearing which is the hearing when we actually adopt M.

I know we're making progress, but I just feel like the process is creeping along slower than winter! And that's reeeeeaaaaallllly slow. But, as I've mentioned before, we're still clinging to our life verse:

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." Exodus 14:14 ESV

Blessings

The Lord has blessed us so much in the past five months, we are still amazed by it all. One of our most recent blessings is someone from our church paid off our Ford! When we got it, Brad had just recently started his job at New Life Christian Ministries, I had just started nannying, and my cavalier just died. Oh, and Brad was in that 6 month loan deferment period after you first graduate from college. We needed something big enough to fit baby Grace in her car seat, and also something big enough to haul all Brad's music and other tech equipment to and from church each week since we did not have a church building (but we'll be building-less not too much longer!) All of this to say we got a TERRIBLE interest rate and our payments were ridiculously high, but we've been paying it for 4.5 years now.

We've been wanting to become debt-free now for years, but with me quitting my nannying job, with my sole income now coming from being a private piano instructor, to all sorts of various things that occurred in our lives, we could never get a head start on paying off our debt. We believe God wants us to be good stewards of all He gives us, including money, and felt that with so much debt and interest, we were failing miserably at the task! So with this blessing, our largest monthly payment was now freed up to put towards other bills! In one month, I was able to pay off my credit card (which I haven't used in years), in a few more months we'll be able to pay off Brad's credit card, we'll beef up our security fund a little more, and then all we'll have left are our school loans!!! And perhaps a mortgage by that point.

We feel like God has given us a little boost to start us on our debt-free journey, and I am so energized by it! What a great way to start 2012.

In the process

Well, we are moved in! Almost everything is put away and we are settling into our new home quite nicely. The Little Guy is LOVING having his own room! Brad put up vinyl wall decals of zoo animals, and every time M wakes up, he loves looking at each one and waiting to hear what sound it makes, which makes him grin the cutest dimply grin!

As for the adoption process, it's moving along (it feels like it's creeping to me). This week our references got their paperwork. Please pray for us. This adoption stuff is stressful. It's also extra-delicate when it's amongst family. So pray that all the references AND birth parents return their paperwork promptly and filled out correctly. We covet your prayers in a huge way during this process. Lately, Satan has really been messing with my mind, and I've been experiencing a lot of anxiety about the actual process. The nerves have nothing to do with being a parent or anything of that nature, but just that something will go wrong during the process. I would appreciate you lifting the three of us up in prayer during this time, and also pray for K, the birth mother (Brad's sister). Pray that God gives her wisdom and strength during this tough decision for her.

Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to post some adorable pictures from our little adoption photography session we had a few weeks ago with the fabulous Betsey!!

Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers!!

We're moving!

Happy Monday!! So, I keep telling my friend Rachel, over at Even One Sparrow, that our lives are paralleling (can that be a verb?) a LOT lately! For instance, last Tuesday we looked at a house someone from our church owns (actually, it's a trailer, but it's really nice!) and we're moving in tomorrow! And we were gone all weekend! So right now is a little bit hectic around here...

 

Kibwe can't even find a spot to lay down!

But so so soon we'll have a place of our own for our family of three. Four if you count Kibwe! And we are just so blessed. Just in time for us to prepare for the homestudy for our adoption. God is so good.

From Heartache to Hope

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life."

~Proverbs 13:12

For the past several years I have had a sick heart. And I have prayed and prayed for God to make it well. Sunday, August 28th, Chris preached a message on God the Healer, and we had a healing prayer at the end of the service. We could also go up to one of the elders afterwards and have him/her pray for our healing, but I couldn't make myself do it. Instead, I cried through the last 10 minutes or so of the message. On my way out of worship, one of our wise old pillars of our church, Rich (amazing man with an amazing story!), said, "Sam! I love you Sam. I woke up today and God told me think of Sam, and pray for her. So I have been." That, of course, made me cry more. :) (I get it from my mom).

Fast forward a few hours... Brad and I went to his parents' house to visit for the afternoon and had a really good talk with his oldest of two sisters,K. We came home, were getting into bed, and my phone rang. It was K. Long story short, and for K's privacy, she asked us to adopt her 5 month old son, M. This had been a long time coming, with a lot of thought and consideration behind it on K's part. A lot. She and I had another long conversation and, skipping a few details, we now have M most of the time.

We were given the name of an attorney who has done inner-family adoption before, and saw him for the first time a week and a half ago. He said if everything goes as planned, the adoption should be finalized by January!! :D

We are now very proud parents of a very handsome little man. I hope to be able to post in the future about how God's hand is all around this could-be-delicate situation, but for now I'll close in saying this verse has pulled Brad and I through the past month and a half:

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."

~Exodus 14:14