Home Study Ready

Hi Friends!

A LOT has been going on and I wanted to catch everyone one up!

First of all, thank you so much for praying for us through the legislative scare I wrote about in our last update. We found out through our agency that the law has not yet passed and if it does, it will likely take up to two years to be implemented. With all of that said, we are prayerfully moving forward until the Lord says to stop! This did light a fire under us to get our paperwork done and we finished our home study paperwork at the end of January- YAY!!  Also, can I just stay that the home study was like doing your taxes to the 10th degree!! So. Much. Paperwork. BUT God is faithful and we got it done! 

We also had a super awesome silent auction through Facebook on Valentine's Day weekend! There were SO many amazing items in the auction. I couldn't believe how generous people were with donating such great stuff. It was so fun to watch the auction and see people out bid each other. We were able to add another $3,000 to our adoption fund!!

We also just started our puzzle piece fundraiser and it's done SO well! Basically you can buy a piece of this Noah's Ark puzzle for an amount on the chart above. When you do, we will write your name on the back of the piece. Once all the pieces are sold, we will be able to put the puzzle together and will hang it in the baby's room in a double sided frame, so we can always remember who has a "piece" in bringing home baby Scott. If you want to buy a puzzle piece, you can do so here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0d45ada92fa7f58-puzzle

In just a couple days, we almost sold half of our puzzle pieces! We've already raised about $2,000 from that fundraiser, which mean's we've raised about $20,000! 😮 Tha't AMAZING PEOPLE!!

So with $20,000 down we still have $30,000 to go to get to $50,000. Our biggest payment is getting closer and we are really reviving up our fundraising efforts. Thank you for grace, as I know it might get old to see our continuous fundraisers on Facebook!! We are hoping we are not "totally" annoying! 😉

So the next step in the process is our home study and we are SO ready! Our social worker is scheduled to make two visits this week to our home to interview us and check out the house. We have been cleaning and getting the house all baby-proofed. After she visits she'll write a report that will be sent to the agency and reviewed and reviewed and then finally finalized and sent to Korea! The home study process is estimated to take 2-3 months. 

Once our home study is finished, we will wait for a 💖REFERRAL💖! This is when they review your file and match you with a child. This part of the process can take about 1-3 months. Needless to say we are SO stinkin' excited to be this close to referral.  Once a child is referred to us, we will send their medical file to a doctor at Children's Hospital and let them review it and get more info on the child's needs. We will have about 1-2 weeks to either accept the referral or deny it. Once we accept a referral- THAT IS OUR BABY!! Oh, and we will immediately owe $20,000 (yeah, kinda a downer). This causes such mixed emotions! Of course, we can't even contain ourselves at the thought of finally seeing our baby's picture and learning all about them, but we are also nervous about that huge payment.

But the Lord has been SO faithful on our journey and we know He will continue to be. We are praying for greater trust in Him through this process instead of giving in to worry or stress. Please continue to pray with us that the Lord would provide the funds we need and that we would learn to trust Him more.  

One of my FAVORITE things that happened lately was this....

These are my two sweet friends who I met through mutual friends. We are all adopting from South Korea, through the same agency and are at the exact same place in the process. How awesome is that? I am so humbled by the Lord's love for us by putting us in contact with each other. We live all over the metroplex but have already gotten together several times. It's been SUCH a blessing to have friends to brainstorm fundraisers with, ask paperwork questions to and dream about the future with! We are looking forward to some pretty awesome play dates once we get our littles home! It's confirmations like these friendships, that keep us going on the hard days and remind us that God is with us on this journey. 

Thanks for continuing to support us, follow and keep up with our adoption journey! We are extremely thankful for the large community of support that surrounds us. Love you guys! 

XOXO

#heartandseoul