Consider It Pure Joy

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

 These words of wisdom have been my mantra these last few days. Tony and I have faced more challenges in foster parenting than we anticipated...but I've been trying to see this as a blessing rather than a nuisance, as God is maturing and completing us. Only by God's grace is it working! Only when we persevere through the trials can we see the blessings that follow.

 

 One of the trials we are persevering through right now is one that I have only hinted at to some of you...but I suppose it's time to come out with it. Tony and I are trying to adopt! We have fallen in love with two amazing kids: 6 year old boy TS, and his 7 year old sister TC. This has been in the works since November and I will write a much more in-depth post later about the series of events, but I wanted to share with you, our friends and family, about where we are at in the process.

When adopting kids from foster care in Franklin County there is a team of people involved in the decision of matching adoptable kids to potential parents. For these two kids, dozens of families were interested in adopting them (which should tell you how AMAZING and ADORABLE they are)! Out of these dozens of families, the adoption worker narrowed the choices down to four. We are one of those four families.

Then there was a matching conference this past Wednesday (2/25/15), in which the adoption worker, adoption recruiters, the kids' therapists and advocates, their foster parents, and the agencies representing the potential adoptive parents met together and discussed the needs of the kids, as well as how those needs might be met by each family. We were told that there would likely be a decision made within 24 hours of that meeting. So we sat by the phone and waited.

I got a call Thursday afternoon from our agency...and she told me we would have to wait some more. Boo!! The committee of people in charge of this BIG decision want to be very thorough, and have decided to hold off on their decision until they have interviewed the TWO families they have now narrowed the search down to (that's right, we are now one of two). This meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, March 3.

Our hearts and minds are in limbo, but we wait knowing that God has already decided which family they kids are meant to spend forever with. Of course we hope that it is us, but we also trust that He has a plan for their lives even if it's not. Until then, we will try our best to "consider it pure joy" through this waiting period. Will you pray with us while this decision is being made??

A Roller-Coaster, Zero to Sixty!

That's what it feels like has happened to our lives over the past 2 weeks...we went from lazy evenings at home together to evenings filled with homework, appointments, bio family visits, video games, phone calls with case workers & therapists, hour-long tantrums, cartoons, and laughter.

The first day that Joc moved in was chaotic. I picked him up after work at the county facility, and boy was he energetic! He told me how excited he was to be discharged from his residential treatment facility and come to live with us. We saw new energy from him that night, most likely from all the excitement of the transition. When we got home we had 3 visitors within the first hour - Joc's caseworker, our agency case manager, and Joc's guardian ad litem. We signed a bunch of paperwork, received a bunch of documents & instructions, and finally they were all on their way out the door. We spent the rest of the evening having fun together.

The next few days we spent getting him ready for school - going clothes shopping, supply shopping, getting him used to our family schedule, introducing a chore/behavior chart, etc. In addition to school, Joc started at Latchkey before school and did great at both for the first 2 weeks...we got nothing but good reports. He was good for us at home for the first week too...then the honeymoon ended.

I'll write some future posts about behaviors we have seen and how we have used our social-worker brains to come up with interventions and solutions, but for now all I will say is that we have been struggling. Everything culminated on Friday when I got a phone call from his school saying that I had to come get him. After some intense interventions on our part, the part of our foster care agency, and the police...we have had a very peaceful couple of days! I'm praying as we head into another school week that God continues to provide us with supernatural patience, wisdom, and love for this amazing and hurting child he has placed in our lives. Will you partner in prayer with us?