We are adopting from China!!!

Many years ago God laid on Jeff and my hearts that we should someday adopt.  We were both drawn to Asia, but at that point not to any specific country.  After doing a great deal of research and praying we felt that God was leading us to China!  We are so so blessed to have a great support group of families from our church that have already adopted from China.  I also have an old high school friend that is too adopting from China.  She and her family are just a few steps ahead of us in their adoption journey, but she has been such a huge help to me along the paper chasing process!  Thank you Jerusha!!!

I will be posting when events happen in our adoption journey.  To catch you up to speed, in mid August I started calling adoption agencies.  I talked to people from several different agencies but really did not find a good connection and a confirmation from God that I had found the RIGHT agency for us.  One evening Jeff mentioned that we should also consider Central and South America.  That surprised me a bit, but I knew that the only country in Central and South America that might work for us was El Salvador.  I certainly have a love for El Salvador.  I was able to go on a mission trip there with our church in March of 2009.  We also have 2 dear couples from our church that serve as missionaries in
El Salvador.  While searching for agencies that work with El Salvador I found an agency in Georgia that I would have never found any other way.  They also work with China.  I called them the next day and never ended up talking to the El Salvador Coordinator.  The China coordinator was on the phone with me for an hour!  She answered questions for me in a way that I had not found with the other agencies.  Her family is blessed to be traveling soon to get their second adopted child from China.  After completing our conversation I was racing out the door to get to the gym and in the quietness of the 2 minute drive to the gym I really felt God telling me, "This is it!"  Wow!!!  It was in the depth of my soul that I knew that I had found the agency that would help us find our new daughter!

Shortly there after I found the agency to do our homestudy and I am proud to say that by Friday, November 19th it will be complete and our I-800A (application for approval to bring a new child into our country) will be in the mail!!! 

I am now busy getting documents ready to send to the appropriate Secretary of States for Authentications.  Wow, I am learning so much.  As we go through each step of this great journey we believe that God is going before us and directing our steps!  Your prayers are appreciated as we take each step in the process!!!