Something to Think About...

Here is something that I don't think people realize (and I was one of those people until very recently)... Adoption, especially international just because the paperwork is so intensive, is really like a part-time job. I got up this morning and started working at 9:15. I have updated my auction donations sheet, responded to various messages, sent donation requests via email to companies, planned my next few days of featured items, created a fb group for the adoption, gone live with an ongoing fundraiser for superhero capes and princess dresses, decided to create a fundraising fb PAGE where I can link everything, shared our auction event on various pages, updated our donation records, strategized for my next fundraiser, finalized the shirt options for our shirt fundraiser, checked more grant deadlines (which we STILL aren't eligible for due to an as-yet incomplete home study) and revised my mapped out long-range fundraising plans. For the past three hours, I have sat in one place and completed all of these tasks. (My people are gone on a middle school hike today, which Kraig chaperoned.)

None of this counts the hours upon hours upon hours spent on the paperwork to get us to this point, our current point being the phase that I call "waiting and raising". The rest of my plans for today include working on thank you cards for donors and continuing to work away on this monstrous task of rearranging this house to make it seven-people-appropriate. :)

I don't say any of this to get pity or to sound like I begrudge it. I say it to say that none of my work today would even be possible if it weren't for the amazing people who have walked this road beside us, giving money and time and prayers and support. I say it to say that every minute I spend working on the details, I am also praying for the kids and the transition for all seven of us. I say it to say that I am SO STINKING EXCITED that I get to plan all of these events and carry furniture and organize bedrooms because all of that means that my heart's dream, my God-dream, since the time I was 12 years old, is coming true. I am going to get to add adopted children-- childREN!!! not just a CHILD, which had before been my most desperate hope!-- to this family. My girls are going to have brothers and another sister, we are going to have sons and another daughter. Our house is going to bustle. I can't wait. And I also say it to give even more glory to my Father, without Whom my life would be purposeless.