This is a monumental post, as we have made a decision about our adoption path! In all of our research over the past couple months, we were frustrated by dead ends and closed doors at the end of the paths we hoped to follow. It seemed like no agency had the same goals that we had--adopting children from foster care. We eventually found an agency that did have a specific adoption program that focused on foster kids and were so thrilled to talk with them and hear our vision matching up with theirs. As we prepared to apply with them, we had just a few more questions and found out that they are based in the mountains and only have offices as far east as Raleigh. They did agree to work with us, but we would have to attend 40 hours of training in Raleigh, which would be pretty difficult and exhausting. We really wanted to work with them and prayed about the decision for days; however, neither of us were feeling peace about that decision.
In the meantime, a sweet lady from Pitt County Social Services called, responding to a voicemail I had left a couple weeks before. I had already received a call back from another person and had a lot of my questions answered, but since we were hoping to work with the other agency we didn't really think too much more about working with Social Services. But, after this second call we started to think and pray more in that direction. She presented their program with such care and a personal perspective, and it really touched us. She explained that most of their foster parents have adopted and they need more parents to become licensed. The thought of working with an agency and kids solely from our county was exciting, as they would really get to know us and work to match kids who would feel comfortable with us. We took a day to both pray about the decision and both came to the conclusion that it was not best to work with the agency out of Raleigh. Since all the other doors in Pitt County were foster programs with adoption as a prospect, we decided that Social Services will be a direct line providing for kids in need and we wanted to be part of that.
Throughout this whole process, we have always thought it would take so much courage to be foster parents. Loving and caring for a child as your own and pouring into his or her little life, only to see them go back into a situation you may view as less than perfect would be so tough. This is still a very scary thought for us, but we have tried to change our focus: since the goal of foster care is reuniting a child with his birth family, we have to choose that as our goal too. With this in mind, I am choosing to think of our friend Alana whose daughter was placed in foster care temporarily. Alana worked so hard to follow the court's plan and bring her daughter back home, which was obviously the best outcome for her little girl! She did just that and now I want to think of these birth families as working hard to be reunited with their kids.
Of course, we do want to adopt and that would mean a child cannot go back to his birth family. There will be situations we encounter where that is the reality and, whether our family is the best fit for that child long-term or not, we will love, support and encourage as much as we can while we have the opportunity to do so.
Another intimidating thought with foster care is that we really don't know when we would be matched or what the situation will be (although we can set certain stipulations, and the final decision to accept a placement is always ours), as these placements usually arise out of an urgent need or emergency situation. Since we don't have any other kids, and aren't sure what age or gender we will be paired with (although we will request only kids 7 and under), we can't really purchase clothes, toys, diapers (yikes!) or anything until we get the call! This post offers a picture into what that may be like when we do get the call.
Even with needing to shift our focus and wrap our minds around things we haven't envisioned before, we have already been excited to see the Lord provide for us... we made new friends at church a few months ago who were planning to adopt from foster care! They're around our age and also don't have any other kids. We were in the same stage when we met--knowing we wanted to start this process but not sure where to begin. They went through the same researching we did over the last month or two and we were all busy and unable to catch up for a while. When we made our decision to work with Pitt County, I reached out to Rachel to see if they had made any progress. They had also made a decision... to work with Pitt County as well! It's so neat that neither of us had planned on going in this direction but now we will be able to complete the training together and support one another throughout the process, as well as letting the kids get together with another family like their own!
The timeframe for our process in a nutshell is this: we will attend an informational meeting with Social Services next week, complete our application, background checks, homestudy, etc., and then in February begin our training through Social Services which will last 10 weeks. After that, everything will be submitted to the state for our licensing and within a month or two we should be able to be matched! A placement may take a little while, depending on the needs and ages of kids who come into the state's care and how they fit with available families.
Although this journey is going to be different than we initially expected, we are really excited and looking forward to getting started and finally meeting our child! We know that the Lord will provide for all our needs, give us strength to offer support to the child He brings our way, and provide wisdom as permanent decisions are made for this child's future. We fully trust Him in this new adventure and are so very thankful for the encouragement and support that we are surrounded by, which can be shared with a child very much in need of such love! We can't wait to share the blessings of our family and friends with a little one who has likely faced many difficulties during his or her short life.
~ Buzzy & Buckwheat
No comments:
Post a Comment