Journey to Adopt - February 17, 2014

God is so good. God is so good. God is so good, He's so good to me!

This has been K's theme song since coming to our home. It's her favorite song on her nighttime CD and she will sing it on queue when prompted. This has also been the theme in our home since accepting K. We are reminded daily of God's goodness in our lives as He continues to comfort us, encourage us through the body of Christ and provide for us in ways we hadn't even thought to pray for.

Over the weekend we made the decision to go ahead and enroll K at Addie's school (finally with CPS approval). We knew this meant that some of the cost for her to attend would come out of our own pocket. The state gives us a certain amount per day for fostering little K but a month of that amount wouldn't fully cover a month of her attendance at Primrose. We knew we could manage it somehow but just decided to 'make it work' financially. How awesome is the Lord - Travis went into work today and was told he was getting a raise. A what? A raise y'all. Totally unexpected. Just amazes me the Lord's timing and detail to take care of us. He Is SO GOOD.

This past Saturday CPS picked up K for her required visitation with her bio family. She will have a 1 hour visitation weekly. We will not be transporting her to the visits. CPS has made the arrangement for K to be picked up and dropped back off for these visits. The CPS worker informed us K would be seeing her mom and dad. From what we were told the visit went well. K returned home happy to see me and jumped into my arms - which was sweet because we had no idea what to expect. K would mention her mom and dad a few times later in the day but we were quick to distract her and give her extra hugs and kisses. We all stop breathing for a minute when we imagine a precious 3 year old longing for her parents don't we? I know I do. And I cannot stop thinking about them. I find myself praying for them - especially her dad. They told us she is a daddy's girl and he cried really hard when they put her back in the car after the visitation. My heart really does break for them and it's a weird hard thing to hope to be able to keep K forever but then wish for her and her daddy that she could return to him.

We still have lots of questions regarding K's parent's rights and what the plan is for her. We were initially told her mom is on a 12 month plan to work towards gaining her rights back - but we are not sure what that means for dad. Nor are we sure that plan is accurate as we have learned that CPS sometimes gets information wrong and mixed up. We're not sure if mom and dad are married, living together or not. We plan to ask those questions this week.

So you might need to sit down for this next part...

We were also informed after we agreed to accept K into our family that her mom is expecting a baby. Due in March. The baby will need to be placed in foster care as well. This is the one thing I said the other day that I wasn't ready to post about. I'm still not. Our agency was even shocked at the information when K was brought to our home and heard it for the first time when we did. We have not had a chance yet to fully discuss this with our case manager. But at this point Travis and I do not feel we could additionally care for an infant. We love us some babies but we do not feel that is the right fit for our family at this time.

So what does that mean for us and for K? We are not sure how long K will remain with our family. We're not sure if CPS will want to move her to another foster home to be with her baby sibling. We're not sure if it's ok that she isn't placed with her sibling - I mean we even just learned Saturday that she already has a half brother and half sister (not in foster care). We're not even sure until we further understand her parent's rights if she has a chance to become adoptable in the future.
What we are sure of is that the Lord has called us to this - all of this. We are hoping the Lord will allow us to eventually adopt a child from this experience. If it is K --- I will be THRILLED. I love her so much and she is so precious. If it is not K ---- I trust in a Sovereign God who has her in our lives right now for a reason. Travis and I feel our biggest job right now is to pour Jesus into K's life. We are teaching her as much as we can about God. We are planting as many seeds as we can cram into that precious little black baby body. I feel the Lord has SUCH a great plan for her life! I just know it!

I didn't intend for this post to be so long! But I've talked to so many friends who have indicated they look forward to these updates! I went for a run today and my mind was spinning with thoughts so I could tell I needed to write and clear my brain. So thank you for listening!