I will try to make this extremely long story as short as possible. Otherwise I fear you would be reading for days. There is a bit more behind the scenes of the story, but for your sake, I will start here;
A while back, some friends from our church invited us to attend an adoption conference with them. We never would have known about it had they not invited us. (Thanks Matt and Dawn!....And to my mom for being here to watch the kids!) So, Feb 27 we headed to the Adoption Journey Conference at County Line Church of God. The first group session the pastor from the church spoke. GUYS.......His story was so similar to ours I could hardly believe it. Granted they ended up adopting from China and we are now domestic, but seriously, other than that crazy similar. I somewhat quietly cried through most of his message titled "Trust the timing of the one who created time". Then, he said "At the 4 year marker we asked God Why? God you called us to this and we desire this why is it taking so long?!" Insert ugly cry here. Of course there were no tissues. At least Dawn had one she so kindly passed down the row. This was the start of the tears for me. Tears that pretty much lasted all day with a few brief intermissions here and there. The conference was amazing. It felt tailored to us. Almost as if God ordained it just for Andy and I. I mean I know there were a ton of other people that gleaned from it, but the capacity at which it touched me was huge! The last speaker of the day asked if we felt like we drank information in through a fire hose. Uh yes! That was exactly right. Too much to take in!
Throughout the day we had moments to visit random booths set up in an auditorium. We met a social worker, Jan, from Gateway Woods. **ahem, if you are considering fostering CALL THEM!** Anyhow, Jan asked us about our process. Our struggles, what we are needing etc.... Even though we couldn't at this point adopt through them, she took her time to help us. She gave me her info to call her the next week and talk things over. So, I did.
The week after the conference I called her and she mailed us a list of agencies that are willing to take a home study from another agency and will allow you into their program. From all we had looked into we couldn't find one that was willing to take our home study from our current agency or one that was willing to work along side them! This was huge news to us.
Sunday I started scrolling through the list and one specific one caught my eye. Ok, if I am being honest it made me cry. I'm not totally sure why. All I can say is it gave me hope. I've been pretty raw with emotion since the conference and it doesn't take much to get the tears flowing. So, Monday I called G.L.A.D adoption agency. Just that one. And I am so glad I did. I spoke with a woman named Julie who gave me such hope and encouragement. I cried on the phone with her too....go figure. Anyhow, GLAD is willing to work alongside SEC who we have been working with the past number of years. She emailed me some papers to fill out and told me what else I needed to send in. Wouldn't ya know I already had an extra book to mail in and everything else we needed too. So, last night Andy and I spent a couple of hours filling out the paper work and today I mailed it in.
This means that as soon as they get our package we will be available for birth moms at their agency as well! Double the exposure..... A huge answer to prayer and a giant dose of hope!
To most of you I know this won't mean a whole lot. But for those who have walked through the past 4 1/2 years of heart ache with us and have seen our weary hearts rub very raw it will mean a lot. It means hope. We needed hope in a huge way and God provided. Keep the prayers coming friends. We need it. Our boys need it. Our future kids need it.
