Sunday, March 27, 2011
Not worthy of a family??
Tesney's story of their family's struggles to adopt Kiril from Russia literally made me sick to my stomach. The judge in this region denied his adoption based only on the fact that he has Down's syndrome. I really do not understand how anyone could possibly think that ANY child could be better off in an institution than in a loving family experienced in caring for special needs children and with access to all of the needed services and treatments. This judge's decision will doom Kiril to life in an institution like this one - if we let it. This fight is not just about Kiril, but about each and every special needs child waiting for a forever home. Join me in praying for this family and sharing their story. Let's help get Kiril home and set a precedent for the adoption of special needs children from this region of Russia!!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Penny Pinching
As we entered into this process we were both a little uncomfortable with the idea of asking others to help us with our adoption expenses, but at the same time we knew it was the only way to make this adoption a reality. We also knew that God is faithful to provide the funds when He calls you to do something, so we stepped out in faith to start our fundraising.
Along with our fundraising efforts we have worked hard to decrease our monthly spending to be able to put aside as much as we could toward the expenses. With a family of six and mom staying home to homeschool the finances can get a bit tight even when you're not trying to finance an international adoption! But we have tried to cut back where we can and I have become diligent about using coupons and shopping the sales. I've even started to enjoy the challenge of finding the best deals. Eric laughs at me when I come home and gloat about how much I was able to save!
I thought I would share a few of my favorite ideas for penny pinching:
Target - You can save a lot by "stacking" Target coupons with manufacturers coupons. Just make sure you don't add that cute throw pillow into your cart when you're there for the deals! :)
Coupon Cravings - This was the first website I found when I started couponing and it is a great place to start. Check out her list of other blogs also!
Coupons.com and Smart Source - On-line coupons are great. You don't have to subscribe to the paper to get them and they often have really high value coupons for things like diapers.
CVS and Walgreens - If you use the weekly adds and combine coupons with the money back offers that they have you can save a lot of money! You have to make sure that you shop the stores consistently so that your rewards don't go to waste though. Coupon Cravings has a good introduction to how to play the "drug store game" if you'd like to learn more.
Happy coupon clipping!
Along with our fundraising efforts we have worked hard to decrease our monthly spending to be able to put aside as much as we could toward the expenses. With a family of six and mom staying home to homeschool the finances can get a bit tight even when you're not trying to finance an international adoption! But we have tried to cut back where we can and I have become diligent about using coupons and shopping the sales. I've even started to enjoy the challenge of finding the best deals. Eric laughs at me when I come home and gloat about how much I was able to save!
I thought I would share a few of my favorite ideas for penny pinching:
Target - You can save a lot by "stacking" Target coupons with manufacturers coupons. Just make sure you don't add that cute throw pillow into your cart when you're there for the deals! :)
Coupon Cravings - This was the first website I found when I started couponing and it is a great place to start. Check out her list of other blogs also!
Coupons.com and Smart Source - On-line coupons are great. You don't have to subscribe to the paper to get them and they often have really high value coupons for things like diapers.
CVS and Walgreens - If you use the weekly adds and combine coupons with the money back offers that they have you can save a lot of money! You have to make sure that you shop the stores consistently so that your rewards don't go to waste though. Coupon Cravings has a good introduction to how to play the "drug store game" if you'd like to learn more.
Happy coupon clipping!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Letting God Decide
I want to start by apologizing for be so negligent in posting to the blog! I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last posted, but so much has been happening in our home that I have allowed this to become a low priority. I've had to have my foot surgically repaired not once, but twice in the last month and being on crutches has made everything much more complicated than usual!
We have spent much time in prayer over the last month as we sought God's will for our adoption. I found myself becoming very frustrated as I read about other family's moments of realizing that a certain child was meant to be theirs. Why were we not having that same feeling??
Last week we thought that God was leading us to a certain child and asked for prayer that God would reveal His will in that situation. He did that by very clearly closing the doors that would have made that adoption possible. Then this week we found a beautiful little girl in Bulgaria who we felt very drawn toward. Eric asked me to contact our adoption coordinator about her and I had just finished doing that when I decided to enter her name into a Google search to see if I could find out what it meant in Bulgarian. That search led me to The Heaston Family blog . When I saw this little cutie's picture pop up on their blog my heart sank. I was thrilled that another family was working toward adopting her, but I was SO disappointed! When was God going to show us who our child was going to be? (BTW, check out the rest of The Heaston's blog. They have some great information and thoughts on adoption)
For some reason I have felt as if the "right" way to approach adoption was to search the listings of waiting children and wait for God to tell me which one was "ours". For some reason I resisted the more usual route of waiting for a referral from the agency. {Traditionally the way an adoption works is that your are approved to adopt with the home study and other required paperwork. Then the agency you are working with takes your information and looks for children who fit into the criteria that they have your family approved for (e.g. age of the child, if you have a gender preference, if you are able to accept children with special needs and if so what severity of needs you are capable of caring for, etc.). Once they find a child(ren) that matches they will send you a referral that includes pictures and detailed information about the child if it is available. Then you have several weeks to review the information and decide whether you want to accept the referral and move forward with the adoption.}. To me it felt as if waiting for a referral was letting someone else choose our child for us. It never occurred to me that God might use the social workers at the agency to show our child to us! I know, I'm a little limited in my thinking sometimes!
I have had so many wonderful opportunities to see and feel God at work over the last few years and it was amazing to see him at work again over the last week. After several times of Him telling us "No, that one is not meant to be yours." I have finally realized that God is planning to work in a different way than I expected. We will be submitting our paperwork and initial fees to the agency tomorrow and asking for a referral.
Please pray that the child(ren) that the agency refers for us will be the exact child(ren) that God has planned for us and that we will know that these children were chosen by Him to be part of our family. We are so thankful for your prayers as we ride the roller coaster of emotions called adoption!
We have spent much time in prayer over the last month as we sought God's will for our adoption. I found myself becoming very frustrated as I read about other family's moments of realizing that a certain child was meant to be theirs. Why were we not having that same feeling??
Last week we thought that God was leading us to a certain child and asked for prayer that God would reveal His will in that situation. He did that by very clearly closing the doors that would have made that adoption possible. Then this week we found a beautiful little girl in Bulgaria who we felt very drawn toward. Eric asked me to contact our adoption coordinator about her and I had just finished doing that when I decided to enter her name into a Google search to see if I could find out what it meant in Bulgarian. That search led me to The Heaston Family blog . When I saw this little cutie's picture pop up on their blog my heart sank. I was thrilled that another family was working toward adopting her, but I was SO disappointed! When was God going to show us who our child was going to be? (BTW, check out the rest of The Heaston's blog. They have some great information and thoughts on adoption)
For some reason I have felt as if the "right" way to approach adoption was to search the listings of waiting children and wait for God to tell me which one was "ours". For some reason I resisted the more usual route of waiting for a referral from the agency. {Traditionally the way an adoption works is that your are approved to adopt with the home study and other required paperwork. Then the agency you are working with takes your information and looks for children who fit into the criteria that they have your family approved for (e.g. age of the child, if you have a gender preference, if you are able to accept children with special needs and if so what severity of needs you are capable of caring for, etc.). Once they find a child(ren) that matches they will send you a referral that includes pictures and detailed information about the child if it is available. Then you have several weeks to review the information and decide whether you want to accept the referral and move forward with the adoption.}. To me it felt as if waiting for a referral was letting someone else choose our child for us. It never occurred to me that God might use the social workers at the agency to show our child to us! I know, I'm a little limited in my thinking sometimes!
I have had so many wonderful opportunities to see and feel God at work over the last few years and it was amazing to see him at work again over the last week. After several times of Him telling us "No, that one is not meant to be yours." I have finally realized that God is planning to work in a different way than I expected. We will be submitting our paperwork and initial fees to the agency tomorrow and asking for a referral.
Please pray that the child(ren) that the agency refers for us will be the exact child(ren) that God has planned for us and that we will know that these children were chosen by Him to be part of our family. We are so thankful for your prayers as we ride the roller coaster of emotions called adoption!
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