People ask us fairly often why we would want to adopt when we can have our "own" children. Or they wonder why we would want to adopt when it costs so much time, money, and effort. Or they ask if we think we will love them since they won't be our "own"?
To that we reply, it is biblical truth that if you are a follower of Christ you have been adopted by our heavenly Father. Eph. 1:4-5 "For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-"
-Is it hard to love me? (yes! I am a rebellious sinner but Jesus loves me anyway)
-Did I come at a high cost? (yes! my God paid the ultimate price for me through death on a cross!)
-Am I God's "own" child? (yes! He will never leave me, never forsake me, he is "Abba" my Father!)
It was during this time that God began to really lay some ground work for adoption in our hearts. We met a couple at our church who were going through an African adoption and soon we were doing some research online just to understand how adoption worked. Adoption and adopted children just seemed to pop-up around us all the time... God was working!
God continued to work on our hearts. After lots of discussion and prayer, we decided to attend a conference about international adoption. When we left that day, we both felt that God was leading us into adoption from Africa.
As a young couple it is intimidating to think about having children, much less adopting children! Babies cost money and we don't have the money to finance this adoption so we knew we would have to fundraise every penny.
We decided to start with a yard sale that would fund our home study (the initial step to take if you considering adopting).
In July 2011, we had a yard sale fundraiser that raised $1,000! It was the exact amount of money we needed at the time to proceed with our home study.
Our home study was just completed 2 weeks ago. We did our final interview and home inspection and sent all our paper work off with the social worker. It is a relief to be done with this part of the paperwork and move on to our Dossier. We should hear back within a month or so to see if our home study was approved.
We aren't in too much of a rush because we do need money to proceed further. The next step is to turn in our contract and Dossier to our agency (this will cost around $5,000).
I have been teaching art lessons to a couple different groups for extra money as well. One is a home school group of around 60 kids and the other was to a Boys and Girls club of 60 kids. I have also been commissioned to create a painting for extra money.
Today, our car broke down... A curve ball! but God has given us what needed each step of the way and we are trusting He will continue to provide.
We started this process in June 2010 by deciding to start the adoption process. Here we are in November, having just completed our home study. We are learning adoptions definitely do not happen quickly, especially when you have to save and raise all the money. But, some day our babies will be home with us. We are trying to adopt 2 children age 0-4 and of either gender.
How can you help our adoption?
Please pray for the health and security of our children. We love them already!!
Pray that we would continue to find people in need of an art teacher or art work. If this is something you are interested in, contact me at sltodd02@gmail.com (hopefully soon I will have some pictures of my work on the blog!)
Pray that we would continue to seek God's will in our lives and that he would continue to confirm this in our hearts.
