Isn't 3 enough??

I have been asked several times "isn't 3 enough?" Or..."isn't your life crazy enough?" So I wanted to address these questions. Maybe you have thought them yourself about us...maybe you have even asked these questions! First I'll answer the 2nd question...yes, our life is fairly crazy. Jason and I both work night shifts (currently) around each other, our 3 kids are all involved in activities, and we try and enjoy our own activities as well. So yes, life can feel crazy. Is that reason enough for us to not pursue another child? No. We don't believe that is a good enough reason for us not to add to our family through adoption. Speaking for myself - I am excited, but I think I am definitely realistic. I have fears that I won't be a good enough mom for 4 (possibly 5) kids. I have fears that my house will never feel neat/clean again...but I struggle with that now. I have fears that I will fail. Don't we all? Regardless of the number of children we have! That is just part of being a parent! We don't know if we are always making the best or right choices for our kids...but we try! And we often fear we are failing. 

"Isn't 3 enough?"
Yes! Three kids is definitely enough! But our motivation isn't necessarily to just increase our number of children. I think actually some of our greatest motivators are the facts that we know about orphans that we are responding to. The fact that every 18 seconds a child becomes an orphan. The fact that there are over 147 million orphans over the world. The fact that many of those orphans live on the street. The fact that even of the children in orphanages, many do not get enough food in their stomachs, do not have medication they need, do not have clean water to drink, do not have a mommy or daddy to kiss, hold, comfort, scratch their back at night, put a bandaid on, laugh with and belong to. My heart hurts thinking of tiny children without hope. With no one on earth to delight in them and nurture them. Imagine your child in that position. Imagine not having the privelage of being born in America, but being born in Africa, into poverty. Imagine having children you can't feed, or getting sick and not being able to care for your children. Really imagine that. It is devastating. And we are choosing to do a small thing. To love and care for the "least of these." Another huge motivator for us is that we believe God has called Christians to care for the poor and the orphans. One verse widely used is this:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27
We believe a way we can show our love for Jesus is by adopting an orphan and loving them. We don't feel like we are super stars or awesome incredible amazing people...we just feel like we are being obedient and trusting God. :)

Update on our paperwork...we will be mailing the last of our paperwork for our Homestudy tomorrow and our Social worker said he is almost done with our home study. Hoping to be done in the next week or so. Now we are working on getting the rest of our paperwork ready. 

Gotta start somewhere

First post on our new blog :)

I feel a little overwhelmed at where to start here...so I guess we'll start with what most of you already know. We are adopting from DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo, in Africa. In this country, there are over 5 million orphans and 5 out of 10 kids do not make it past the age of 5. For those not math savvy...50% die before they are 5!!! Thats crazy sad. The more I read and immerse myself in learning more information about this country, the more saddened I am. And excited that one (maybe 2...more on that later) orphan will have enough food in their bellies and arms to hug them and a warm bed and the knowledge of how much Jesus loves them under our roof.

Are we a little crazy? Maybe.

We think its awesome God has chosen this road for us. 

Right now we are finishing our Home Study...lots of paperwork, medical exams, 2 social worker visits, adoption training...to prove we could safely add another (or 2) child. Ok...so we are being "certified" for 2 children. We are going into this planning for 1, but if that child happened to have a sibling, we would happily adopt the sibling as well. We have no idea if that will be the case or not, but we are open to it.

We do not know the gender, or the age, or anything at this point. We are still in the "paper pregnancy" part of adoption.

A few recent changes in DRC have caused a stir among some adoptive families because a 3-6 month investigation is being enforced (maybe it always was?) and that may delay going to Congo to pick up our child by a few months...at first I was bummed, knowing it would be a longer process that originally thought, but Jason reminded me - its better to know for sure that its ethical! How awful would it be to find out we adopted a child that had a parent that wanted him/her?