Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted to adopt. In my heart, even before I was a Christian, I knew that I would someday adopt and bring home a child from another country. When I became a christian and understood that God had adopted me into His kingdom that desire only increased. So I knew that when God brought someone in my life, that man would have to have that same desire. When Pete and I met and started dating we began to talk about children. I asked him what kind of family did he see in our future. He proceeded to tell me that he would like a couple of biological children and then he wanted to adopt internationally. I remember sucking in my breath and thinking, REALLY!! I told him of that same desire. So fast forward and we have had two beautiful biological children, Amelia and Shai. Amelia is a vibrant two year old and Shai was our gift on earth for a brief time and is now in the arms of Jesus. As Pete and I contemplated and prayed about what the next step would be in our family, adoption stood out. We would love to have another natural child! Hopefully in God's timing and plan, that will become a reality in the future. However, we truly feel like adoption is the next step for our family. So with much JOY and much EXCITEMENT, we have started the process of adopting a child from Ethiopia. The application is turned in and the next step will be building our dossier, a fancy word for A LOT of paperwork. After that we will have to wait for a referral and then make two trips to Ethiopia. The first to fill out government paperwork and meet our precious new child and the second trip to bring that precious child home!! The process could take 12-24 months from this point on. However, Pete and I have said that we are willing to bring in one of the "Waiting Children", which means a child that is either older or who has special needs. If we qualify, that would speed up the process. So, as I did with our journey with Shai, I am going to blog about our process. Mostly for two reasons. One, I want our families to feel a part of our journey along with our friends. Second, I want our future child to know how much they are loved. They are already prayed about, thought about and very much our child. This is a long road but one we have thoughtfully considered and prayed through. So at times, this will be a blog written to our child. I want them to know that we documented about them before we met them face to face as much as we did when we were pregnant with our other two children.
We are so excited! Let the journey begin!!
