Catching Up

It's been pointed out to me that I haven't blogged since October and people want to know what's happening in my life. So, I'm going to post two or three to catch people up over the next few days.

I thought I would start with our fostering/adoption situation. Joshua did go back to his first foster home last November. I heard that he adjusted really well back into the home. But I have not heard anything since then. That's kind of the way it goes with fostering. So, I just pray for him and his parents and hope that they are ok.

After Joshua left, I told Matthew that I felt like we had gotten an "F" on fostering. It was very challenging trying to teach him how to behave when he had very little discipline up to that point in his life. I was amazed at how adept he was at manipulation at such a young age. And he seemed to know exactly how to push my buttons. It took a few months after he left before I didn't feel anything except a sense of relief that he was gone. Now, as Aaron is approaching two and reminding me of Joshua all the time, I do have fond memories of him. And I wish I could go back and love him better.

Since that time, we have been looking for open and closed doors as to whether or not we're to foster. Given the fact that we're expecting - I'm due in three weeks - Koinonia put us on an unofficial break. In addition, we just found out that the state of California has passed a law that a foster home cannot have more than a total of six children in the home. This was actually a policy at Koinonia already. But they may have made an exception for us. But now that this law has passed, I think the door is closing. The law only applies to state foster homes at this point. But there are plans to expand it to private foster agencies in the future. So, at this point, we may be done with fostering.

I have wondered why God would have us go through this process just to foster one child for three months. But we can't know all of His purposes. I don't know what God's plan for us in the future is regarding fostering and adopting. But I am very sure that He will be faithful to lead us every step along the way.

Next blog...the new baby!

Hiding in God

Yesterday, I heard the story of a family who adopted an older foster child. This child ended up molesting all the natural children in the home. But that information didn't come out until all the children were grown. At the time I heard this story, it happened that I was watching my oldest, Rebecca, and her friend play on the Webkins website. Both Rebecca and her friend are home schooled. So there is a level of innocence in them that public school children just don't get to have. In fact, it's one of the reasons that I love home schooling. So as I sat there imagining that my daughter could be hurt in the same way these other children were, the fear that I have faced since well before we ever made the decision to fost-adopt and, in fact, what has kept me from wanting to ever bring troubled children into my home, came back stronger than ever. I went and found a private place where I could cry out to God without interruption. In a nut shell, I reminded God that this was not my idea in the first place, but his. I was very happy with my sheltered little family and was not asking for him to rock our world like this. Then I pleaded with him that if this is not his will for us, that he would undeniably shut the doors on us and not allow us to walk through them. The only way I want to go through with this is if God is the one leading us. Otherwise, it is foolishness. As I prayed, God once again brought the scripture to my mind that he gave me a couple of years ago to pray specifically over Matthew, but vicariously over our whole family, since Matthew is our spiritual head. It's also one of the scriptures that I heard at church the night I surrendered to this idea of God's. The whole chapter is pretty much about not just going through the motions of religion, such as fasting, but putting feet to your faith.

Is. 58:5-9
vs. 5 Is this really the kind of fasting I want?
Do I want a day when people merely humble themselves,
bowing their heads like a reed
and stretching out on sackcloth and ashes?
Is this really what you call a fast,
a day that is pleasing to the Lord?
vs. 6 No, this is the kind of fast I want.
I want you to remove the sinful chains,
to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke,
to set free the oppressed,
and to break every burdensome yoke.
vs. 7 I want you to share your food with the hungry
and to provide shelter for homeless, oppressed people.
When you see someone naked, clothe him!
Don’t turn your back on your own flesh and blood!
vs. 8 Then your light will shine like the sunrise;
your restoration will quickly arrive;
your godly behavior will go before you,
and the Lord’s splendor will be your rear guard.
vs. 9a Then you will call out, and the Lord will respond;
you will cry out, and he will reply, ‘Here I am.’

I could put more, but you get the idea. As I was crying out before him, that's what he spoke to me, "Is this not the kind of fast that I require?" What can I say to that? This is the fast he has required of us. My heart once again at peace, I committed myself to follow him wherever he leads, trusting him to protect and guide us - and especially to keep us from evil and close the doors if we are going in the wrong direction.

That night during worship at church, our pastor shared the story of how Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal. How the priests of Baal did everything they could to get him to consume their offering, including self mutilation, yet nothing happened. Then Elijah prepared his sacrifice by not only providing the altar, wood, and offering, but also by digging a trench around the altar and soaking the whole thing with water. Then he asked God to accept his offering, whereupon God proceeded to send fire from heaven that consumed the offering, wood, stones of the alter and all the water. I felt challenged that this is the attitude I need to take towards this season in our lives. I don't have to try to make this work out. I pretty much just need to do what is right before me and even to "pour water" on it, refusing to try to help God make this possible. Then I am allowing God to show his power and glory, not mine. This is especially true in the financial area, since that is probably the biggest open and closed door at this point. As I was praying over all this, I gave the financial provision back to God and told him that if he wants to make this happen, it will have to be him.

At this juncture, we have a little over $300 of the $520 that we need to finance the first part of our foster and adoption certification. After church, I kid you not, we were given a check for $100 specifically for the adoption. Our friends who gave it to us said that the husband had felt lead to give it to us. But the wife forgot about it until they saw me at church that night. Then she felt like they were supposed to give it to us that night. I was completely and totally undone. Here I was pleading for closed doors to keep us from going the wrong way, and God just reconfirmed that the doors are not closed! God's timing never ceases to amaze me. They had no idea the process I had gone through that day, but they listened to the Lord and blessed us with much more than $100. They really were the hand of God's blessing and approval for us last night.

So I wanted to share that story with you. God is so good that even though I walk through the valley of shadow and death, I will fear no evil, for he is with me.

On a side note, I had an ultrasound today to try to help determine the size of our baby that is due on the 21st. Since Ethan was 9 lbs. 9 oz. and almost got stuck, the doctor is being more cautious about letting this baby get too big for me to push out. Anyway, he is as cute as can be. His cheeks are so chubby and he seems to have Joel's nose. The whole time we were looking at him, his little lips were puckered in that cute little pucker that newborns do. It made me want to kiss them. I have had a hard time grasping the reality that we really are having another baby. So it was good for my heart to get to see him and know that this little person is part of our family.

Please pray for wisdom for us and the doctor. If the doctor feels that the baby is getting too big, he will want to do a C-section rather than endanger me or the baby. But I have had all my children naturally and really would prefer not to go the C-section route. Honsetly, this baby doesn't feel as big as Ethan did. So I am pretty comfortable with going the natural route. But we will need agreement on this between us and the doctor. Also, I felt a few weeks ago that God gave me faith to pray for the baby to come at 39 weeks instead of 40+. Although this could just me the desperate cry of a woman who's really tired of being pregnant, I did feel like it was a God thought, not mine. So that is what I am praying for, but planning on going full term. If you would also pray with me for 39 weeks, that would be awesome. God is never still or silent, is he? :) Have a blessed week!

The Start

This is the beginning of our journey to adopt. We have already been blessed with five children of our own. We have Rebecca (9), Daniel (7), Joel (4), Ethan (2) and one due in about three weeks. Six weeks ago, adoption was the furthest thing from my mind. I had always thought that if we were to adopt we would get a baby. But that just didn't excite me. So since I had no passion for it, I figured that we just were not called to adoption. I discredited the idea of bringing older children into our home, because their history probably would not be that great. And I didn't want to endanger our existing children. But God started opening my heart to it back in May and he didn't relent. He gave us this crazy idea to adopt older children that set my heart on fire until I could do nothing but say yes to his plan. After a late night talk, Matthew and I agreed to pursue foster-adoption and see how far God wants us to go with it.

We decided to go through Koinonia Family Services. (www.kfh.org) They are a faith based organization who acts as a middle man between us and the state foster care program. We have heard only good things about them through our church. So we knew this would be the way to go. The director of adoption services with Koinonia goes to our church. So I put a call in to him and he was very encouraging to me that as we take each step in obedience to God, he will open and close the doors as he wills. So we sent in our application and began the wait for them to process it.

Over the next week, I went from being excited to terrified to excited again about this new journey we are on. But God is so good to reassure us of our path. One week after I had sent in the application, I was at a birthday party. While I was there, I met a couple who had adopted their two year old son. Not only that, but they are actually the first couple to have ever adopted through Koinonia! You see, Koinonia used to be a foster care agency only. About two years ago, they added adoption services to their program and this family was the first one to complete an adoption through them. I once again was amazed at how God was confirming his desire for us to pursue this. I went away from the birthday party with a new excitement.

Since then, I have been able to talk to the person who will be coordinating our foster placement. She is coming to our house the 10th of July to do an initial assessment of the home and what we will need to do to make it ready for a foster child. We know there are things like having all medicines, cleaning supplies, yard chemicals and paint locked up. And we'll find out what else we need to do at that meeting. We also are going to be attending our first class, which is a foster care orientation class on July 12th. So we are very excited to see this dream moving forward.

We are not sure where the money we need for all this will come from. The fees alone for various classes and paperwork total $740. We need $570 of this pretty quick. However, we have been able to come up with about $320 of it so far. And God is the one who came up with this whole idea in the first place. So if he wants it to happen, he will provide what we need when we need it.

We also need a bigger vehicle. We could technically take on one foster child with our current van. Our family would just have to take two cars places if we were to all go somewhere together. But we're really hoping for two children, a sibling pair. So a bigger van seems pretty important. I have found that we could get a used van pool van from Enterprise for about $15,000. I have NO idea where we're going to get that money from. But again, God will show us the way as he sees fit. So I'm more excited to see how God intends to show his glory than worried about it happening. Who knows but that someone has a van sitting there waiting to give it to us? :)

I am going to be spending the next two weeks working like crazy to get as much paperwork as I can done before our first walk through. But if anything interesting happens, I'll be sure to post it. Please, pray for us as we are not only preparing for the birth of our new baby, but also the birth of a new dream.