Some challenging thoughts by Francis Chan

Along the way of our adoption process our goal is to put things on our blog that have inspired us and challenged us along the way. This short video clip was something that helped us fully commit to adopting now and not when things were even more comfortable in our life. Since we released our grip and stood up on this balance beam everything has felt so right even though we feel like we could fall off any minute. Before we started thinking about adoption we really were wrestling with how we were living our lives and what else we could be doing for the kingdom. We saw this video and we saw ourselves heading down this path of the American dream.....comfortable home, comfortable family life, comfortable church, comfortable job, no major disruptions, etc. Since God has called us to adopt the word comfortable has disappeared. After awhile it probably will come back into our lives and we will have to have remember to stop hugging the balance beam and let go of the comforts of this world. For now it's feels pretty good to be walking the balance beam knowing that the only way we are standing up is because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is nothing profound yet it's easy to forget at least for us.

First Home Study Visit

Our first home study visit went great! Thank you to all who prayed for us. We really felt at peace during the whole visit and were able to be ourselves. Our social worker is a really neat woman who has also adopted herself and is really encouraging and supportive. We basically just sat and talked with her for over 2 hours answering her questions and her in turn answering ours. We ended with an exchange of the paperwork we have gotten through this far as well as instructions on how to complete more paperwork. She also checked out our home- I think we passed that part!

She brought up some thought provoking questions such as how we will feel about the possibility of meeting the birth parents/family (which is likely because now we are both required to appear in court in Ethiopia) and also how we would feel about the birth parents in general- thankful, judgmental, resentful, etc. and how that could in turn affect our child as he grows up. We talked about how we will have a transracial family and how it is important that our son have friends who look like him and that we are proactive in promoting friendships with families of different races. We also talked about ways in which we can celebrate our son's Ethiopian heritage as he grows up.

We also went through a serious conversation about possible issues that our adopted son could have and that we have to realize we are knowingly deciding to parent a child that can have a lot more challenges than our biological children. We talked about different medical issues and mental/emotional issues he could have. On the flip side, we also talked about the awesome privilege we will have of raising him and that how each child (no matter what challenges arise) is a true blessing from the Lord.

We have a few more meetings with our social worker during the home study process which includes individual interviews with her where I assume we get a lot more personal than we did during this first meeting. It is a bit weird to have our lives under scrutiny but we feel that it is so worth it and also understand the importance of making sure adoptive families are fit to parent.

Next steps- fingerprinting, applying to USCIS (our country's immigration department), police background checks, and more paperwork!