This morning, Alicia and I got the girls sent off to school, and drove down to Fort Washington for our office interview at Living Hope Adoption Agency. On the way to our appointment, we listened to another chapter of an audio book on adoption (Adopted For Life, by Russell Moore). This particular chapter was all about how to deal with the administrative details of adoption. Although it sounds like it would be a boring chapter of the book, but as we were traveling to the first part of our home study it was actually a great encouragement. We had prayed for a great visit with Aimee, the representative from Living Hope that has been working with us. Our time with Aimee was really good, and while we were there, the Founder and President of Living Hope came in and introduced himself. He shared with us some of his own story and the history of Living Hope. After our office interview was over, Dr. Fang came back in and shared with us how Living Hope is not only working to help adoptive parents through the process of adoption, but Living Hope is also working closely with the governments in China and Honduras to provide orphan care and training in those countries. We chose Living Hope because of its closeness to us and the fact that they were in Honduras, but having the opportunity to sit and talk with the President of the Agency and hear his vision was a great reminder that God uses all of our decisions to accomplish His plans even when we can't see it.
We figured it would be a few weeks before the home study is completed. The next step is a home visit, and we figured it would be next week at the earliest...when Aimee asked us if we had any time available this week, we sat there for a moment completely stunned. I think I mumbled something about my calendar, and Alicia grabbed my phone from my coat pocket. Our home visit is scheduled for this Friday. Ariana was excited when she heard the news. Alexa had mixed emotions. On one hand, she was excited to hear that things were moving forward. On the other hand, she realized that she has to clean her room before Friday. Our home study should be completed by the middle of April and ready to be sent to US agencies for approval. Aimee said that approval may take about 2 months. Then everything goes to Honduras.
The one bit of news that was somewhat disappointing was that it looks like the time in country to finalize the adoption will be about 4 - 6 weeks rather than the 2-4 weeks that was originally thought. Living Hope is working closely with the President and First Lady of Honduras to clarify the process for families. There is a possibility that we will need to travel to Honduras twice for a few days each time instead of staying there for a full month. The first visit would be an interview with the agencies in Honduras, and we would also have the opportunity to meet our daughter. The second trip would be to finalize the adoption. This is the "flexibility" part of the process. That's it for now...thanks for reading my ramblings.
Kevin actually found "Adopted For Life" on the internet. So far that book was the most helpful and encouraging. A welcome change in perspective after the other books that we were required to read! We felt we were being bombarded with the question of culture and what it means to raise a child in a specific culture. Just as we were struggling with this idea of culture we read that Mr Moore is teaching his boys what it means to be "a Moore" and raising them in the "Christian culture". The book definitely helped us reach the decision to adopt outside of our race.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hope your home study went well! I became obsessed with making the house perfectly. clean and baby-friendly. The counselor flushed the toilets and checked for a dial tone! LOL, I'm sure she was looking for more than that but she didn't make it too obvious :-)