Why are we adopting . . . again?
By now you’ve had the chance to hear our news. Yep. We’re adopting again. We sent in our application on Ethiopian Christmas Day, January 7. A couple weeks ago, we had our first home study visit in our home; next week, Casey and I will meet with our social worker for one last interview. I’m hoping, HOPING, that we could have our home study written up by the end of February. That may be wishful thinking, but, if not that soon, it should be done by mid-March. Meanwhile, we’ve been working on gathering up our dossier paperwork. It’s exactly the same stuff that we did for Josiah’s adoption, but this time it is SO much easier. In fact, I’m almost finished and will have it ready to mail in as soon as we get our home study back. Yippee! After that, we will be on the waiting list for a referral.
Since we’ve announced our news, we’ve gotten some wonderful encouragement from our family and friends. Thank you. A lot of you have been a little surprised, and some have even asked . . . why, why now?
Well, we’ve been a little stumped by your question. It was a natural decision to us, something that we knew we wanted to do as we flew home from Ethiopia; it was so clearly the next step for us that we’ve been at a loss as to how to answer the why questions. Of course, all of our original reasons for adopting still apply. But this time, there is so much more. When we left Ethiopia, we promised we would never be the same, that we would never forget, and that we would never quit talking about what we had seen. We know that we are responsible to God for the way that we respond to what He has shown us. We want to be faithful to Him. We’ve come back realizing that we have so much to share, that we can, with a little inconvenience to ourselves, easily change a child’s life.
But, the other reason we are adopting again is because . . . we WANT to! God has filled our hearts with a huge desire to care for orphans, and we have learned that when we let God use us to bless others, we end up being blessed the most.
If you wandered out in the woods and found a million dollars, and, when you returned home, you knew there was more money in that wood, just waiting for someone to pick it up . . . wouldn’t you go back? Wouldn’t you be crazy NOT to go back? We have been unbelievably blessed by our sweet Josiah. He has blessed us abundantly more than we will ever bless him. He is a treasure . . . and we want more . . . more treasure, more blessings. We want more laughter ringing through our halls, more chubby hands patting our faces, more rosy cheeks to kiss. And yes, we know that means more peanut butter sandwiches, more sleepless nights, and more diapers . . . but it is WORTH it! And so we begin again on another great adventure, but this time knowing how great the treasure at the end will be!
I know most of you come here for pictures, so I’ll leave you with a few pics of the birthday boy and some snow day pics.
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Gordon Hogan
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Wayne Larimore
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jeoweo
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Heidi Weimer
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AaronKlein
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Cindy Stanford