Exciting Steps Forward

March 29, 2013

This past month of March consisted of more exciting steps towards adoption. Since so many things happened I thought I would share the whole month together in one post.  

The first week in March, we received our OFFICIAL application for the Domestic Adoption Program! Whoohoo! Once we received that significant packet, Luke and I were eager to get started on it!! It took us a little while to fill it out, but wanted to make sure we thoroughly put down everything they were asking for. We excitedly submitted our application online on March 17^th. Another step checked off!! Praise God!  It was very awesome, but again a little nerve racking, knowing we are truly doing this and putting everything we have into this process!! Luke and I have never been in such vulnerable positions where we have completely opened our hearts to something so unknown and so unpredictable that is completely out of our control! Our trust is in the Lord and He is our firm foundation through this all! We trust that if this journey is His will for our life, He will make this path straight and known to us by being accepted and opening yet another door through adoption.

“So then just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”   Colossians 2:6-7

Soo March 20^th came along and I saw online from our portal with Bethany Christian that we got APPROVED!!  PRAISE GOD!!  He is soo GOOD!! I was so thrilled and wanted to call Luke right away to tell him the exciting news!!  It was a wonderful day!!! I later called Bethany Christian to see if we needed to do any other paper work; now that was a silly question….of course there is more!! J We got informed that we have to fill out more documents pertaining to our family background, fill out a bunch of different background checks, and much more!  We were excited and ready to get started! I feel like Luke and I have had a very good attitude about having to fill out all this paper work. The more things we get done and plow through, hopefully the sooner we will be able to get on the list!! J

The last weekend in March, Luke and I plowed through all the documents that needed to be completed for the application.  We really enjoy doing these things together and it has been fun for us to do as a couple. The more time and effort we spend working on adoption, the more it becomes a part of us. It is really awesome how that works! It is so neat to see how amazing this process is on so many different levels, through growing in our relationship and dependence with the Lord and also growing with each other and sharing this amazing journey together! This has truly helped us to depend on one another more than we have ever expected thus far! On March 25^th I sent out all our documents to Bethany Christian. Yet another exciting step FINISHED!!! There will be LOTS of exciting steps in this process and we are looking forward to each and every single one of them!! As we wait, we commit this to prayer and that the Lord will continue to be at work through every little detail. We look forward to hearing what the next step is! J

Pre-Application

February 20, 2013

The weekend of February 10^th consisted of filling out the first part of paper work from Bethany, our pre-application. I was thrilled to get this process started, but it was also a bit intimidating and nerve racking because I knew this was just the beginning. However, we just had to get through this step and focus on the pre-application before filling my mind with all the other overwhelming paper work.  One section on the application had us share our statement of faith to the agency; I was very impressed on how thorough their questions were!  It really pleased us to see how much importance Bethany Christian put on wanting to know how we personally know Christ as our Lord and Savior and how we are actively growing in our relationship with Him. Through this whole application I wanted to make sure I thoroughly thought out everything while being open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance while trying not to listen to those thoughts of whether or not we would get accepted to the program. I truly believe the devil loves to plant those fears and worries in your mind when you are seeking Christ and putting Him first through anything you are doing. I literally think I spent as much time as I could on those questions and had to put my trust in God, and that He would open this path if it was meant to be. Once we made our decision to go with Bethany, Luke and I decided to pray with one another daily in everything we have done and continue to go through during this journey. This process is SOO much BIGGER than us and we need our Lord’s strength, comfort, and wisdom through this journey! That following Monday was a very exciting day; once I got into work I mailed in our pre-application packet. It was our FIRST big mailing of the adoption process! Woohoo!! Now that was a big deal to us!!!  As I made finishing details to our packet for it to be all set to mail out, one of my amazing co-workers and I prayed before I sent it out; it was so meaningful and made me realize how much God has blessed us with such an amazing support group!  I am very blessed to have such amazing, supportive, Godly co-workers; I am truly thankful for each and every single one of them!

After a little more than a week went by, I decided to call Bethany and see if they had received our pre-application packet….and soon after that they went on to tell me that they did receive our packet and that it was APPROVED!! PRAISE GOD!! Luke and I were thrilled!! As we took in this exciting news, we continued not to rush anything, but walk alongside one another as we put Christ at the center. We felt at peace with continuing the next step of the adoption process.

Informational Meeting

February 2, 2013

Luke and I went to an informational meeting on January 19th at Bethany Christian Services. Going into this meeting we didn’t have any expectations, we heard a lot of good things about this adoption agency, but wanted to give all the agencies we were looking at a fair chance. However, after our meeting with Bethany, I was trying to hold back my excitement for this adoption agency. I thought it was great and exactly what we are looking for! The most important thing to both of us is that they put Christ first in their agency and they really made that know, which is very important to us. We were very impressed with their presentation with their Domestic Infant Program; they sound like they have all their ducks in a row! I loved that! Going through the adoption process is a HUGE deal and very important to us! We wanted to make sure we went with an agency that we could trust and that was very experienced.

 Before jumping into this agency, we did look at some other agencies that were closer to where we live, but nothing compared to this one.  I truly feel like this is exactly what Luke and I need to grow through this journey spiritually, physically, and mentally. One downfall is it’s the most expensive we  looked at; we have noticed the larger and well know agencies are higher in cost, compared to the smaller, local agencies. At this point that was the only thing that seemed like would be a challenge, coming up with the money. However, if we did go with Bethany I was completely confident that this agency would prepare us to be the most well equipped adoptive parents by going through adoption meetings and going through  counseling with our adoption specialist. This process was NOT going to be easy by any means and completely out of our comforts zones in every little aspect! But we are completely open to it and having God mold our hearts into His plan for our family. We know God gave us this desire to have a family and gave us this abundant love for children to train, and grow them into the knowledge of our Savior.  After A LOT of talking and praying with one another the past couple weeks, we felt at peace with our decision…. Luke and I decided we would put both of our feet in and start our adoption journey with Bethany!!! We are SOO excited to see what God has in store for our family as we put our COMPLETE TRUST in Him!! J

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”   Jeremiah 29:11-13

Growing In Our Hearts!

Luke and I are thrilled to announce that we are adopting and are excited to share our adoption journey with all our friends and family! We are so thankful and blessed to have each and every single one of you in our lives!  We would not be where we are at without our Heavenly Father and without the love, support, and prayers from our friends and family! We finally made it to our first post of our adoption blog….wooohhoo! It took a little while, but we finally are here and cannot wait to share with you all what has been happening in our lives since the beginning of 2013! We actively started seeking out our adoption journey during the beginning of this year, but unfortunately did not get around to starting our blog till now. I have been journaling our journey thus far, so I will be back dating some of the process till I get all caught up to where we are now!

THANK YOU!

I want to personally thank Luke’s cousin, Kelly for being such an amazing inspiration to starting our blog!! I kept on contemplating whether or not to start one, but she was the final encourager who made us decide to stop thinking about it and put these thoughts into action and step out of our comfort zones…and here we are!  You are a blessing! J

I also want to thank everyone else who was encouraging me to start this blog and BIG THANK YOU to our friends Mark and Kelsey for helping us come up with our title name of the blog!!! We are blessed beyond measure for all who genuinely helped us out and continue to be a part of our journey!!!