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// October 30th, 2007 // Comments Off // Adoption, Children, Colombia

Answers to the Questions.

Q: Why International Adoption?

A: We chose international adoption because of the ability to adopt siblings and the fact that we love other places in the world.

Q: How will you afford adoption?
A:
With the grace of God! If he ultimately owns everything, we believe
that we can trust him to provide for us. We have saved, taken out a
loan, and asked for your help.

Q: How Long will it take and what is involved in the process?
A:
About 6-12 months for us. However, there are many factors that
contribute to bringing children home through adoption. I’ll break it
down into 6 parts for you.

1st-gather lots of money/resources

2nd-you need to fill out lots of paperwork, more paperwork than
buying a house, or applying for the US President (it sure feels like
it).

3rd-you need to have a home study completed, where you pay an agency to evaluate you, your home and finances to approve you for an adoption.

4th-You and/or your agency compiles the mountains of paperwork and homestudy into what is called a dossier and it is then sent to Colombia.

5th-Wait for the country to send a referral

6th-We go and get our children.

Once we get 1-4 done (takes 2-6 months) we will wait around 3-12 months for #5

Q: What is a dossier?
A: Compilation of papers about us
that gets translated for the country we want to adopt from and it says
that our government, the US, approves us to adopt internationally.

Q: What is a home study?
A:
Merely a means of assuring all concerned that the adoptive family is
able to provide all the necessary means to give the child a good home.

Q: Why do you have to wait so long for a referral?
A:
Every country has different limits, regulations, and procedures.
“Sometimes” governments don’t move that quickly or don’t have enough
children cleared and available for adoption.  Because we want to adopt
a sibling group of 2 and possibly 3 our wait is reduced because there
aren’t as many families wanting to adopt multiple children at a time.
In Colombia the wait to adopt a single infant after a referral is given
is 9-18 months and for a sibling group of 3 the wait time is
significantly reduced to 4-9 months.

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What is it?

// October 29th, 2007 // No Comments » // Blogging, Music, Updates

  I had a list toward the bottom of the sidebar that gave you a rundown of some of the music that I am listening to right now.  But I thought about you and how that may not be beneficial to those that don’t know where to look for the music on the web, so I made it easy.  Just click any of the songs in the little player on the top of the sidebar and you can hear some of my most listened to music on my iPod.  I love offering my readers some good easy listening music, that I love.  I hope you enjoy.

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Different?!?!

// October 28th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

Jesus…Different….

Adoption…Different…

Why?

One of my favorite verses on adoption comes from Romans 8 verses 14-17 which say…

¹⁴For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" ¹⁶The spirit HImself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

   Adoption is different but not for the reasons we commonly associate with it.  Yes, it is different in that we as couple didn’t "create" a tiny person with some of our genetic sequencing. Yes, it is different because we miss out on "X" number of years in our childs life.  But in all honesty, what is it but pride to think we actually "create" anything.  I am reminded of the story of the great inventor who said God was outdated and was no longer relevant and that we had the capability to create a smarter, more advanced "AI" (Artificial Intelligence).  He was upset with how God had messed up in creating us, so he challenged God and bragged that he could create humans better than him, so the conversation goes.

God: Well okay then, lets go.
                        
Inventor: OK
                        
God: Let’s see what you got for me.
                        
(Months pass, God waits)
                        
(Inventor is almost finished)
                        
(They meet to explain what they’ve created)
                        
God: Well, I took some dirt this morning clumped it together in my hand and breathed life into it and Adam was formed.
Inventor: Well, I too took some dirt and began to heat it and melt it down….
                        
God: Wait, wait, wait,
                        Inventor:  What?!?
                        God:  Go get your own dirt!

   We don’t own exclusive rights to anything, we are stewards of what the Lord has given us, the bodies we are blessed with, the children we are blessed with, the wealth we may be blessed with, the creation all around us.   None of it exclusively belongs to us.  We only "create" things with the tools and methods God has given or revealed to us.

   I can’t tell you or explain the looks of awe and wonder that we get when people find out we have adopted 3 children.  It’s kind of like we are from outerspace, to us we feel rather normal.  Normal has been redefined in our lives.  I’m sure after a couple years, when our kids our speaking fluent english, when they behave like angels, and when our kids are 45yrs old we will begin to look normal to other families.

   And that brings me to my first thought.  Adoption is different, I think it is different because of this one verse, verse 17, that people resonate with the most when they look at us in awe and are confused why we would choose to mess up our good lives with having this many kids at once. It is because when you adopt a child, you identify with someone that is not genetically "you" and you give them birthrights, they inherit your name, your money, your family, and likewise, as parents we inherit their hurts, their joys, their pain, their attitudes, their neediness.  Just like God.  Isn’t adoption wonderful. 

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New Features

// October 27th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Updates

We have added a few features to our website that should make it more enjoyable for you to surf around and get a taste of our blog world and part of our lives.  Quickly highlight the changes you will see on our site.

#1- Better Archive Searching!—(by far my most favorite)  The new way you can look through our Archives by category or by month.  The little drop down menu box on the left side under the Google button is where you can find these.

#2 Google Search our site…as of right now it is not fully operational since Google has not indexed our site yet.  This will hopefully be working in the near future.  (I’m waiting on google to do it’s job)

#3 Better RSS—-Changing over from Feedblitz to Feedburner You will see 3 ways to subscribe on our site either by following the links on the left where it says we have "(x) readers" you can subscribe via email or by plugging it into your RSS feed reader from the menu bar.  (if you have a typepad blog and you want to know how to get a drop down menu bar like this one see this link to Typepadhacks.org  and the 3rd way to subscribe is by clicking on the recent posts that are scrolling in the top of the sidebar. 

#4 Share Posts via email or on Facebook—You can finally share or email me or email the post that you find interesting to a friend by following the links at the bottom of each post.  I have made it easy to share favorite posts on facebook by following the link at the bottom of your post. 

Enjoy and let us know what you think.

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My Next 30 Years…

// October 24th, 2007 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

                ”My next thirty years will be the best years of my life.
                 Raise a little family and hang out with my wife.
                Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear.
                  Make up for lost time here, in my next thirty years.”

      Those words from the song by Tim McGraw resonate with me because I along with almost anyone who meets a big mile marker on the road of life tend to reflect on what your past has meant and what your future holds. I just received a wonderful, probably the most thoughtful, gift I have ever received for a getting old party. Meg just handed me a picture book that had my friends, family, and significant people from my history write happy birthday wishes and memorable pictures professionally bound in a book I will treasure forever. I wish you all could see it and appreciate the wonderful job my wife did, and the fact that I had no idea what she was up to and how talented my wife truly is.

               ”I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age,
               the ending of an era, the turning of a page….
              maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears…
               Lord have mercy on my next thirty years.”

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1st Family Video

// October 18th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Funny

After reading another adoptive families blog, www.skrebs.com, we were inspired to try out our own video editing and display of video for you to enjoy.  Thanks dearly to Freevlog.org for helping me look like a genius in my first attempt to add my own video to my blog that doesn’t require the use of YouTube or Google or some other less than perfect or slightly diluted video posting. 

This is a video of our recent trip with the Church and our family to a local Orchard and Winery where we were able to pick our own pumpkin, although it was more fun and less expensive at Jeff and June’s place, we got to play with tractors, ride fake porcelain animals, and have a scrumptious meal.  We enjoyed the nice weather and we were dying to try out our new video camera.  As you can see the filming may be a little shaky, I promise to get better with that in the future.  This is a short recap of what our time was actually like last Saturday. 

Click me to Play

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They made it

// October 16th, 2007 // No Comments » // Colombia

Download Fall_07.pdf  They made it.  Our kids made the front cover of our adoption agency magazine.  You can read more about them by clicking on the  download fall_07 PDF at the beginning of the post and reading on to page 9 of the magazine where you will find our article.

This is the picture that Meg took that they used on the cover of the magazine.  So in one shot, I got something I wrote published and Meg had something she photographed published again. 

We love sharing this with you and are excited to have your support. 

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The Mom

// October 12th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Funny

I know that many of you out there have maybe seen this little video and Meg made me aware of it a few months ago.  I just ran across it again in an email from my mother.  The "Mom tell Overture"  is very funny and true.  I can just hear my wife saying those things and it makes me smile to think that my wife loves our children without strings.  Without mothers to love, care for and rear us as little children; we would be lost souls, floundering young men not sure what a real woman is supposed to look like, or confused little girls not sure how to behave as young women.  Most of us had the love and support of our mothers, they were our greatest cheerleaders, most sacrificial Queens and our steady rocks.  I know Meg is that for our kids, so I thought this little video portrays that very well.

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Daily Quota…

// October 3rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Funny

We had the privilege of going and speaking at an informational meeting for our adoption agency.  To see the adults there interested in adoption was very encouraging to us.  Those days seem so long ago. 

About half way to Louisville Meg and I noticed that "Monkey" had not stopped talking once since we left the house almost 30 minutes prior.  From introducing us to the "twinkle twinkle little star" song in spanish to having conversation with her brothers she just kept talking.   Meg turned to me and says, "she hasn’t stopped talking." 

Then being the intuitive mother she is; she quickly pointed out how it was my fault that our daughter was talking incessantly in the car trying to get her daily quota of words in for the day.  You see, usually she gets to have books to look at and tell stories to her baby dolls during siesta time after lunch but she was disobedient to Papi and stubborn about brushing her teeth so I, being the wise father, sent her to siesta without books, to which she sulked and whined about but eventually fell asleep instead of reading and imagining stories through her books with her dolls. 

Then we took a drive for about an hour and she just kept talking, over the podcast that was playing, over every one, leading the conversation in the car and not breathing between paragraphs.  So I came to the conclusion that a.) girls are different than boys in many ways b.) I love my daughter but will make sure she gets books for siesta in the future and c.) I’m glad I have a wife that is so awesome and is my interpreter of my children’s world.    

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