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?