More answers...

Why did you choose Rwanda?

The reason for choosing Rwanda starts with why we decided to adopt in the first place. Jonathan and I had been really challenged to take care of the 147 million orphans in the world back in August. We thought that actual adoption would be down the road for us. So with that, we decided to really take seriously supporting other families who were adopting and going on mission trips that involved orphan care. Our church is highly involved with a ministry in the Yucatan that has built, and is now running, a home for children (Jonathan will be going there this month!). One night at church the man who heads up the trips to the Yucatan came up to us and handed us a piece of paper with the names and ages of the children who would be moving into the children's home that next week. Most of them where available for adoption. It was the first time that Jonathan and I had really been faced with the decision to actually adopt (The man had no idea we had been challenged to take care of the orphans). We decided to press on with looking into all options of adopting. We explored the options of adopting from the Yucatan and even met with the director of the children's home. We talked to some people about domestic adoptions as well. We were still unsure as to when we would actually start the process but wanted to educate ourselves for the future. Through exploring the potential in the Yucatan we got plugged in with CAN (Children of All Nations). CAN was very good at educating us on the adoption process as well as answering the millions of questions we had. Through prayer, a strong conviction, and a challenge to put our faith and trust in the Lord to the test we decided to step out. We chose Rwanda because it chose us. Each country has many requirements and Rwanda's requirements we felt like fit our family and our current situation best.

Answers....

In the next few posts we will attempt to answer many of the questions that are often asked of us, as well as give you pray requests.

Will you be adopting a girl or a boy?


We are planning on adopting a girl from Rwanda. We decided on a girl after fasting and praying for over a week. We were totally overwhelmed about filling out the 6 page form on the child that we desired to adopted. The extent of the questions on the form ranged from : "What do you expect from your adopted child intellectually?" to "What age range and sex do you want you child to be?". We did not want to "play God" but at the same time wanted to make the most wise decision based on our family and family needs. We trust and know that no matter what we might put on paper, God can and will give us exactly what He knows is best for us! That is why the WHO for us is a girl! We are so excited to dream about bringing her home and making her a part of our family!

How can you pray for us? We are currently taking online classes to complete our 10 hours of parenting classes required by our adoption agency. We recently completed a class on attachment disorder. Please pray that our little one will trust us and that we will learn how to cultivate trust quickly. THANKS!!!

Over the past year or so, we have seriously been contemplating what our role is in James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” For a while, we really questioned (and doubted) if our role in caring for orphans was to ACTUALLY adopt. Through that process, we have had the opportunity to pray for families in the process as well as to support financially those adopting. In August of 2009 we felt pretty certain to seriously consider taking the step of faith to start praying about and dialoging the possibility of adopting.

We are very excited to share with you that we have officially started the adoption process! We are going through the agency, Children of All Nations (CAN). We will be adopting a little girl from Rwanda (a small country in Africa). What a fantastic opportunity this is to offer at least one child-in-need a family to love and the opportunity to learn about Christ! Hopefully, if everything runs smoothly, we could get our daughter by the end of 2011.

We would greatly appreciate your partnership with us. First and foremost, please join us as we pray through this wonderful (and, at times, EXTREMELY stressful and confusing) journey.

Our journey thus far has consisted of lots of paper work. We have gotten our passports, filled out a child profile letter, and now we are working on completing our dossier. The dossier is the most intense part of the early process. Please pray that we are able to get all the documents needed and all at the right time.

Please check in often for updates on how you can join us in the process!