Home Study Complete!

It has been a long time since we last updated you all on our adoption process, but quite honestly there hasn’t been much to update on until recently. However, we have some exciting news to share… our home study is officially complete! The home study process required a lot of paperwork, expenses, medical appointments and social worker visits so it is a huge relief to be done with this step of the process! While our home study took much longer than we had hoped, we trust that this adoption process is in God’s sovereign hands and His timing is perfect. Once again, we are so thankful to those who prayed for us over the last 6 months as well as those who gave financially to help us with the cost of our home study! Your prayers, encouragement and financial support mean more to us than you will ever know!

So what’s next? We have sent copies of our home study along with other needed documents to both the U.S. government and India’s government and we are waiting to receive approvals of our eligibility to adopt from both countries. We have already filled out and mailed in a preliminary application to U.S. Customs and Immigration. While we’re not exactly sure how long this approval could take, on average it seems to be taking about 4-6 weeks.

Our case worker from Lifeline is also working now to register us on something called CARINGS which is the India approval side of things. Once we are registered (hopefully in the next few weeks), India will look over various documents we have submitted, including our home study, to determine our eligibility to adopt as well. This approval is extremely important because once we have, Lord willing, been approved we will be able to be matched with a child! This is so exciting for us! This approval is taking approximately 12-20 weeks right now. We are praying that God would allow us to move through this approval quickly, but once again, we are trusting that His timing will be perfect.

At this point, there is not much we can do aside from waiting for these two approvals. Waiting is hard, but we are excited to be on to the next steps now that our home study is done and we know that God will be faithful and at work even during this time of waiting. While we wait we also hope to apply for as many grants as possible to help offset some of the upcoming costs of our adoption.

We are also excited to be traveling to Alabama for a few days at the end of July to attend an adoption training that is required through our agency. We have heard great things about this training and we are excited to fellowship with other adoptive families and hopefully learn a lot about what to expect when we bring our adopted child home and begin the process of bonding and attachment.

We would love your continued prayers as we move on to these next steps of this adoption process. Here are some specific ways you can be praying:

1. Please pray for the approval process to move quickly. We would love to be approved as soon as possible so that we can begin the wait for a match with a child! Please pray for us to trust God’s timing and wait patiently.

2. Please pray for us as we continue to raise funds and apply for grants. Depending on a variety of factors, we still have approximately $20,000 left of adoption fees and expenses. This number can feel intimidating but we know God has provided for us so far and will continue to do so. We are praying that we might be blessed with many grants to help offset some of this cost. Please pray with us to that end!

3. Please pray for us as we travel to Alabama for adoption training. Pray that our time in Alabama would be fruitful and a great time of learning for us! Pray that it would prepare our hearts well to welcome a child into our home and also give us great tools to help us attach and bond with our new child. Pray that this would also be a time of refreshment and encouragement for us as we fellowship with other families who are also in the adoption process with our agency.

4. Please pray for the child that the Lord has prepared for our family. Pray for that child as he waits as well to be part of a family. Pray that God would be preparing his heart already to join our family.