Many Questions...Few Answers

Years ago, when we first entered the world of adoption, we thought we had God's will for us figured out. Seemingly out of the blue, we were contacted by an old family friend, via my parents, regarding a child who was in need of a family. We traveled out of state twice to visit this child and finalize the adoption privately, but it fell through at the last moment. I still have photos of that child, and often wonder how he is doing now. From that disappointment arose the desire to learn more about our state's foster to adopt program, and thus we met, and ultimately adopted, our two older boys. God used the first situation, as hard as it was, to bring us to what was meant to be at that time in our lives.

Once again, we find ourselves entering the world of adoption. We think--or shall I say, thought--we again had God's will figured out. China was where we would find our daughter. However, after much reading and searching, we are now not so sure. Last year (2007), China changed its requirements for adoptive parents. You can read the entire list of updated requirements here. We think we meet most of the requirements except two biggies: we must prove that we earn $10,000 per year for each member of our family, including the child that we wish to adopt, and we must show that, not including our income, we have at least $80,000 in assets (after subtracting all liabilities). Since I no longer work full-time, or even part-time, outside of the home, we will be hard pressed to meet these requirements any time soon. We believe that God wants me to stay at home right now, so my working a "regular" job is not an option. Dave already works insanely crazy hours and is not home as much as he would like, so a second job for him seems out of the question as well.

So what to do? Part of me thinks we should just press on, trusting God to miraculously supply so that we can lower our liabilities (i.e., debt!) and meet the requirements for China, which has always been our first choice for international adoption. However, we would like to complete the adoption in the next couple of years in order to keep the ages of our two younger sons close to our new daughter's, so the "miraculously" part would really need to occur soon! The other part of me questions whether our goal is to adopt a daughter from China, or simply adopt a daughter. If it is the latter, there are MANY other options out there, including adopting out of foster care again. Thus, the title of this post: Many Questions...Few Answers.

Please pray with us as we try to discern the Lord's will in this process. We don't want to make any hasty decisions that we will regret later, but we also don't want to wait too long to start the ball rolling, as we know how long adoption can take. As always, I'm glad that God sees the beginning from the end, and that we can trust that He knows what is best for us and will show us in His time!

Thanks for your interest in our journey!