Home Study Completed - in review process!

Where has the time gone?  The summer has gone by so quickly.  We completed our home study a couple of weeks ago.  One last piece of it was to consult with a doctor regarding the possible special needs of a waiting child.  We feel very fortunate that CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) has an International Adoption Program - we consulted with a doctor in that program and she was very helpful in explaining the various special needs and their severity.  That was the last piece to submit to our social worker, who then finalized the home study report.  We have seen it, but it needs to go through several levels of review before it is finalized, so that is where things stand right now.

The next step is to work on our dossier paperwork.  A lot of it has already been completed because there is some duplication of documents between the home study and the dossier.  That helps make the dossier paperwork a little less overwhelming.  We also would like to start completing grant applications (in order to submit applications for grants, our home study needs to be finalized, but it would be good to have most of the work done so when the home study is finalized, we will be ready to go).

We also have realized we will need to continue our fundraising efforts.  That is an area where we would especially appreciate prayer.  The costs can get quite overwhelming at times, especially when you add the financial demands of everyday life.  I have struggled with the idea that so many people need to raise funds because of unforeseen circumstances (i.e. serious illness or injury, natural disaster, etc).  Even though we do not have control over the fact that it is extremely unlikely for us to have a biological child, we have chosen to adopt, and that perspective makes me struggle with the idea of fundraising.  At the same time, it seems virtually impossible to do all of this on our own.  We know no matter what, we are not on our own - we strongly believe the Lord is calling us to adopt from China and we know He will provide no matter what.  The challenge is to keep our focus on that when the costs we encounter get overwhelming.  We appreciate prayers that we will keep our focus on the Lord and allow Him to guide us in the financial aspects of adoption - it is not for us to control, but we need to have faith that He will work everything out.