My Heart Will Lead Me There Soon...

Soooo…because some of you have asked.  Here is where we are in our long, long journey.

We’ve filled out our initial application which basically told us which countries we qualify for (Russia, Ethiopia, China, South Korea, and Hong Kong).  And we’ve narrowed it down to South Korea and China.  We are wanting to do a special needs waiting child adoption.  There are programs where families wait for a child.  But we adore that Bethany Christian Services believes in switching things up. They don’t find children for families, they find families for children.  Typically in Asia this means boys and children with various special needs.  

We actually have inquired about a certain child in South Korea and are waiting to find out if he is still available.  It’s tricky.   On the one hand, we are smitten with him, but on the other hand, if he is unavailable that will mean he is already in a loving family.  As for now, we are praising God that he is in foster care rather than an orphanage and that South Korea actually has fantastic social services and medical care.

We had our first meeting on Tuesday night and we can now begin the laborious process of paperwork.  We have fingerprints to take, doctor’s visits, and about a billion forms to fill out.  But Sloan has just has his wings clipped (as in he won’t be flying to anymore meetings for the rest of the year), so setting appointments will be easier now.  And the fire escape plan I lovingly crafted for Gracie’s adoption can simply be photocopied.  So there’s four hours saved.

  This top page is just the checklist for the paperwork.  And each item pretty much has to be filled out for each person in our family.  So there will be approximately four times this amount of paperwork when it is all said and done.

Our goal is to have all of this paperwork completed and into Bethany by Christmas.  

This gives us some time to just process the process.  I know, for some folks it takes months to get this paperwork done.  Well, during Grace’s adoption, it took us 10 days.  I think we may hold some type of record.  Which is good, because somewhere beyond the sea, he's there watchin’ for me.  If I could fly like birds on high then straight to his arms I’d go sailin’.