From Dr.'s appointments to finger printing to online training to background checks to a gazillion questions about our pasts, our parents, our marriage, and our financial status....... Shew...... We are glad its in our counselors hands now. But we know that is just one small hurdle. Our next hurdle once our Home Study is completed is the dossier (which is pretty much a bunch of more paperwork for Ethiopia).
The biggest hurdle for me personally is the financial burden. God has thus far faithfully provided at just the right time but I am a planner and a control freak so you can only imagine how uncomfortable and unsettling this makes me feel. I like to be ahead of the game I guess you could say but God doesn't always work that way. My faith is definitely being put to the test and I am not proud to say that I have questioned God and doubted the path we are on most of the way. But at every turn God has been patiently reminding me to just trust Him & continue walking through the open doors in front of me.
As soon as our Home Study is approved we will owe our next payment of $3,550. We are probably about 2 months away from its completion and amazingly we have already raised about $2,500 of that amount!! But probably the most nerve racking thing for me right now is upon the completion of our dossier we will then owe 1/2 the Ethiopian country fee which is about $6,000. God is definitely teaching me how to trust Him more.
With all that being said I have to ask..... If cost wasn't an issue would YOU adopt a child?? Did you know that if ONLY 7% of the worlds Christian population would adopt just 1 child the orphan problem would be eradicated? I have people say to me all the time that they don't have that kind of money. Well guess what....... We don't either! But we believe that with God nothing is impossible and that He doesn't always call us to whats easy. God keeps reminding me that He didn't allow the "cost" of our adoption into the family of God to stop him.
"he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will" Ephesians 1:5
I absolutely cannot wait till I lay my eyes on this sign again coming off the plane in Ethiopia! Pray for us as we walk through this process and pray that in all of this God's glory and grace will be made known.
