Adoption and Orphan Care Conference

It's Tuesday and on Saturday Martin and I went to our first adoption seminar. It was nothing less than amazing. It's taken me this long to process it. I learned so much I felt like I had been beat up inside. Martin and I were both exhausted. And what did I do all day? I cried.

I cried and cried and cried. All day. I walked in the lobby of Fellowship Baptist and the lump started in my throat. Don't you start crying and look like a crazy lady, I told myself. I've always been one to care what other people think of me. I mean, I've been like that since I can remember. I was always aware of people around me. But 20 minutes into the opening session I finally let that go. The tears started. I did withhold the sobs but all day the tears came. And let's just say I'm not a Hollywood crier. No wait I am. Have you seen Steel Magnolia's? You know when Julia Robert's character Shelby had her diabetic episode on the morning of her wedding at Trudy's salon? And she says, Stop talkin' about me like I'm not here! Well, if you haven't seen it - it ain't pretty and that's who I look like crying. Before lunch I went to the bathroom and realized that people were not staring at me because they thought my make-up looked good. It was because my face was splotchy and my eyes were swollen and red. I guess I should have been nicer to the photographer that met me in the hallway and asked if I was okay.

Moving on, I cried, you get that. I can't say enough about Fellowship Baptist Church in Mt Laurel. God truly blessed the day. It went perfect and it was free. We learned so much. One of the biggest blessings was the finance workshop we went to. I've been concerned about that (that's the Christian language for worrying) and God was so gracious. We were able to see all the different ways we could raise money and that our government actually does help (after you pay out of course). Martin and I both cried through that one. There was a burden lifted off of both of us.

We were able to sit in one workshop a Pediatrician led. He and his wife have adopted a little girl from Guatemala. He went through the medical process of international adoption. He offered his services as we choose medically what we will accept and not accept. He also offered his services to look over the referral medical papers of the child(ren) that will be chosen for us. We are so thankful for this man! And we found our Pediatrician out of it too.

So where are we now? Well, we ran into some people that used to go to church with us at the conference. They have adopted multiple children through a small adoption agency in Washington State. It didn't occur to me that it might be cheaper. We now have to decide do we go through a large adoption agency, where they will call and lead us through everything, setting up appointments and being there when we have questions OR do we go with a small agency that will take care of the process overseas but we have to take care of everything here. The difference is about $10,000 vs. 10,000 hours. Which is more important? Do we save time or money? Saving money would mean dropping out of almost every ministry at church and maybe postponing school for a season to focus on the adoption process. Money would mean that I might have to work part-time when the child(ren) gets here to pay off a loan we might have to take out. It's not an easy decision for us and we are praying about it and investigating both.

One cool thing is we have talked about adopting from Thailand for a couple of years but when we went to investigate, not many agencies were going there because of the low number of children that were allowed to be adopted each year. But when we looked at the small agency, Thailand is available to adopt from. We don't want to base where we want to adopt on the agency because God has opened our hearts to more than what we originally thought we wanted.

This all has been such a picture of how we must live radically and step out on faith. He's faithful and wants to show off. And we want Him to in us.