Thursday, May 26, 2011

Grant Approval and Baby Steps

Grant: We found out yesterday that we have been approved for a matching grant! We will fill you in on the details when we receive them! Exciting times!

Taking Baby Steps: I know we are still waiting for our approval with Covenant Care (which we should have in about 2 weeks), but I purchased our first piece of baby clothing this week: a Georgia Bulldog shirt (on sale at Wal-Mart for only $!)! It's been a while since I enjoyed looking at baby clothes, but I'm excited about looking at baby clothes now. It's hard to look at baby clothes when you've been told you will never have your own baby, so that's been something to work through. This new step in our adoption process has even made me feel okay with going in to Babies R' Us to get a baby gate for our puppy. :) Eric and I are excited to see what lies ahead!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Received

We received a confirmation email today from Covenant Care Services. They have received our pre-application. We should be receiving another email within three weeks letting us know when our pre-application is processed.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Next Leg

As always and without fail, God answers our prayers. We have been praying for wisdom about the next step we should take in the adoption process. Over the course of the past month we have requested information from several adoption agencies and have contacted many people. We both have a heart for the nations, so we were first looking at other international adoption options. We found an international adoption agency that would help us in our pursuit of a Chinese adoption, but then found out that both adoptive parents must be at least 30. The age requirement does not work for Erin! So, what next? We then proceeded to look at other international options as well as domestic options (America). Several years ago, when we first looked into adoption, we wanted to adopt an infant. God has brought us back to that spot. Having a puppy has even helped confirm that desire. Even though we have to clean up poop, loose sleep, and sacrifice our own desires to play with the dog, she's still worth it. On May 4th, a church member approached Erin to ask about our adoption process. Once hearing our latest news, she informed us of a wonderful, Christian adoption agency (Covenant Care Services), that she used for her son's adoption. After researching and praying, we are now in this friend's shoes. Yesterday we mailed our application and home study to Covenant Care, and it was received this morning at 9:06! This agency was willing to accept our home study (which our case worker graciously updated for free)! The agency should probably be able to use our fingerprint documents, too! This means we will not have to start completely over! We are excited about this next step. Please be in prayer for Covenant Care Services as our application is reviewed. Also pray for our future child - pray that God will unite us with the birth mom He has divinely appointed for us. Pray that God will receive all the glory through this next leg of our adoption journey.