Because He Listens

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Today is our 11th wedding anniversary.  I can't believe how fast it has gone - 13 years together, 11 years married, and 3 amazing kids.  We've had some stressful times (um, hello... adoption!), but I can honestly say that we are very happily married.  Looking forward to many, many more anniversaries together!

Not much new going on with our adoption journey, so this is sort of an update without really update!  We just found out we have to update our homestudy for the THIRD time due to the fact that our I-600A approval from USCIS is about to expire.  Updating our homestudy is very time consuming and a little discouraging, but we are hopeful that this could be the last time we have to do this.  Currently, we are 1 of 9 families with dossiers submitted in the Bethany Ghana program who are waiting to be matched with a child.  Only one other family other than ours that is open to an older child.  We were told it would be approximately 12-24 months after dossier submission for our family to be matched with a child.  We submitted our dossier in March 2015, so we have not even been waiting for 12 months yet.  With our failed adoption, feels like it has been forever!  I try not to let myself think it could be sooner, because in reality it could also be so much longer.  I have really enjoyed meeting a few new adoptive families in Bethany's Ghana program.  The little girl featured in this article just came home last week.  Her sweet mama has been a huge encouragement to me. 

This past week, we started working on our spare bedroom to get it ready for a little person to join our family!  Along with international adoption, our family is also in process of completing the last steps of being able to foster a child from our community if needed.  We started this process almost a year ago and are now far enough along that we could bring a child into our home.  Hoping to finish up the last few trainings this fall.

Please be praying for all the kiddos worldwide who are waiting for their forever families.  Blessings to you and your family. 

Adoption Announcement: Ghana

We are excited to share that we have decided to further pursue international adoption.  We have changed placing agencies and countries. While it wasn't a difficult choice AT ALL to change placing agencies, it was a very difficult decision to change countries.  To read about our experience with our prior agency, click here.  Uganda is an amazing country with beautiful people!  However, the corruption in international adoption with many cases is rampant there.  I do know of a few cases that are ethical, but they are definitely not the norm.

We have a great relationship with our caseworker from our homestudy agency (Bethany Christian Services).  We had kept in touch with her after our adoption fell apart last summer.  When Bethany opened up a few spots in their Ghana program, she invited us to an information call.  Chuck and I took some time to pray about the decision and felt that the program was a good fit for us.  There are only approximately 20 families in this program.

Our dossier was officially received in Ghana on March 4, 2015 (see timeline).  Our family has requested to be matched with a child aged approximately 2-6 years old at time of referral.  We have been told that the expected wait time is 12-24 months for referral.  After referral, we would travel within 1-3 months.  The child *could* be home within 6 months after referral.  These are all just estimates we have been given.  However, we have learned first hand that international adoption is very unpredictable.  We are just praying for God's perfect timing.

Bethany is the only U.S. adoption agency accredited by the government of Ghana to complete international adoptions.  They have had an an office in the city of Accra since 2011. In 2013, the government placed a moratorium on international adoptions in an effort to centralize and strengthen their social service system.  Despite the moratorium, Bethany has been able to place children with families by seeking waivers to the moratorium. The government is open to providing waivers under certain circumstances—for older children and those with special placement needs.

The waiver must be secured by Bethany from the Government prior to referral given to a family, so this provides a level of comfort for us that the child matched with our family will truly need to be adopted.  The process will be slow, but we feel confident that things will be done ethically and that is very important to us.

To see where we are with adoption funds, please view our details provided in Adoption Expenses.  We appreciate your prayers as we continue our adoption journey!