Yet Another Adoption Update

Y'all...

You may or may not have noticed that I have been pretty absent from the Interwebs lately. There is just a lot going on in my life and trying to balance real life and blog//online life just made me a little nuts.

See?

I know that my last few posts have just been updates about our adoption process, but that's what is going on in my life right now, so that's what I'm going to share. 

So here we go...

Today was part 2 out of 3 of our Homestudy. Things went pretty well. We were sent home with another mountain of homework, which includes the start of our Profile/DVD making....so that will be interesting. 

We have continued to receive generous support from friends and family and seriously feel so blessed! We don't know how we'll ever be able to thank everyone who has contributed through prayer or by giving financially. 

Speaking of fundraising, we have decided to open up another option for giving. If you or someone you know would like to make a tax deductible donation, you can check out our profile on PureCharity.com

Pure Charity allows people to raise money through ordinary online shopping or simply through donations. It works sort of like a cash rewards program, where you get to decide which cause your rewards money goes to. I invite you to check out their website for more information/a better explanation. Our personal profile link is: purecharity.com/spenceradoption

Prayer Requests:

{1} Praise! We are now 22% of the way to being fully funded! Like I mentioned before, people have really stepped up and given so generously. We can truly see God's work.

{2} Prayers as we continue navigating the "homework" from our agency. There are so many big decisions that we have to make regarding our profile and what kinds of children/birth mothers we want to open ourselves up to, [[race, disabilities, etc.]] that it can be overwhelming at times.

If you have any questions for us, please do not hesitate to ask! We love being able to share our story/experiences with others!

With much love,

Adoption: Where We're At & What's Next

This year, Josh and I got way behind in writing our "Generally Around Christmas" letter. We were just having trouble deciding what to write. No real new changes happened in 2012 that we hadn't already shared in our previous letter, and we didn't really have any funny anecdotes to share. I just kept putting it off, and next thing I know, it's April and no longer generally around Christmas. Oh well...

But, because we didn't send out a letter, people are kind of in the dark as to what our current plans for our future as parents are. 

Here is the quick run down:

-We are quitting the foster parenting program. For some reason, unknown to us or anyone else, we haven't received a single placement call since last August! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the system, this is pretty unheard of. Needless to say, we are pretty discouraged. We joined this program to begin helping children in our area, and that hasn't been the case for us at all. Also, we were told by our fostering agency that we couldn't adopt until we turn 25 because that's the law in Illinois. Come to find out, that is completely untrue and you only have to be 21. [[Thanks a lot, guys.]] 

-We have now switched agencies and are moving forward with a domestic adoption. We have mountains of paperwork to fill out, a video/profile/scrapbook to make, and a lot of waiting to do.

-We are in the beginning stages of fundraising. If you would like to help us out, you can either buy something from my online shop or you can simply click on the "Donate" button in my sidebar. We need to raise somewhere around $13,000 [[we don't actually have an exact figure right now, but that's our estimate based on the averages our worker gave us.]]

How you can be praying with us:

1. Fundraising - The money isn't all due at once, which is a blessing, but we will need help reaching our goal. We're really praying for God's provision here.

2. Patience - Adoption is definitely a waiting game. Once our profile is in the system, we wait until the birth family chooses us. Our worker said that we should be prepared to wait at least two years. [[say what??]]

3. Community - We're really looking at this process as an opportunity to draw us closer to other families who have adopted, are in the process, or want to adopt in the future. We also want to use our story to educate others about adoption. Although it has gained popularity in the last few years, there are still many who think that adoption is just for those who can't have children of their own, or for the super rich. This is, of course, a complete myth, and we just pray that our story can be one that encourages others to walk this path as well.

If you have any questions, leave a comment, or email me at fayaknits {at} gmail {dot} com

Much love!