Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We survived the home study visit!


Mike and the social worker pressured me into doing the home visit on Wednesday evening - even after I explained that Wednesday is my absolute busiest home school day; understanding that I had been out of town for five days the previous week and had just returned; and, even knowing that the last of three straight weeks of house guests had just left on Sunday.

My house was a wreck. But since I let them bully me into doing the visit right away, we just went into overdrive and cleaned until we dropped.

A couple of major disasters were averted just moments before the social worker arrived. As we waited in our sparkling house, feeding pizza to our spiffed up kids, I noticed that Mike kept grimacing.

"What's wrong, honey?''

Turns out he'd had stomach problems all day. He desperately wanted to visit the facilities in his own home, but the problem was that this woman was coming to inspect our house (every room) at any moment. He solved the problem by hopping in the car, racing to a nearby MacDonald's and visiting THEIR facilities, before making a mad dash back home. (Now I totally realize that this is TOO MUCH INFORMATION for my blog, but I want to communicate how nervous we were about getting this visit right!)

Waiting for him, I noticed that Silver was missing. Silver is a pet -- one of the two fish that our neighbor just gave us. Pumpkin was still swimming around the aquarium, but Silver was GONE! He's not a tiny fish. And I couldn't find him anywhere.

As Mike drove up from his quick trip to MacDonald's, I raced out onto the driveway yelling, "Silver is missing! Silver is missing!" We looked high and low and finally found Silver in the kitchen sink, under the dish drainer. Silver apparently made a suicide jump from the aquarium (he's done it before) and flopped all the way over to the sink.

We were still a little harried when the social worker arrived, but soon settled down to business. And by the way, Silver survived, and as for the social worker, she didn't even set foot in the master bath.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Wise Counsel


Mike arrived home and we began to talk and pray. Up until this point, we'd pursued adopting Wenxin, but had not officially signed with Christian World Adoption and had put no money down.

Grandma (Mike's Mom) was in town. She was so sweet -- she said that she didn't want to get her hopes up, that this was our decision. But the twinkle in her eye indicated her excitement and approval.

To be honest, Nathan, Julia and Katherine weren't that encouraging. They like our family the way it is. They fear the changes that adding another child will bring. We had them so close together that they don't ever remember life without each other. So getting a new sibling seems like a brand new thing to them.

Mike and I continued to feel like God was saying, "Yes." But Mike wanted us to make a phone call to a friend who's a seasoned adoptive dad. This family has adopted 5 children internationally -- all as infants or toddlers. His counsel calmed our heart and gave us the final green light.

While he couldn't speak to the challenges of adopting an older child, he said that he felt that it was a confirmation that both Mike and I felt led to this particular child. He said that our kids would come around. And he encouraged us to think long term. He talked about the impact that this decision could have on future generations -- that as Wenxin comes into our home and hears the gospel, he will be able to reproduce that in the lives of his children and grandchildren. God can use this little boy in a powerful way to change the world.

We hung up the phone and hit the ground running. We applied to Christian World Adoption that night and did their Orientation Webinar the next morning. We signed lots of papers and had them notarized. We hired a social worker to do our home study. Now that we know for sure, we want to bring Wenxin home as soon as possible.

Monday, October 12, 2009

October 12, 2009, Pre-Approval for our Family to Adopt Fan Wenxin Granted by the Chinese Government


The ball's in our court now. This child is officially available to be adopted by our family. Mike's out of town at a family wedding. We've talked briefly by phone. I'm excited and scared. I wonder how God will provide the money? I want to do more research on Christian World Adoption. Can we get our kids on board? I'll be glad when Mike gets home and we can talk face to face.