What's the adoption process like?

This is a question I get quite often. The other question is where are we in this process. I'll try and answer both of these questions as concisely as I can.

First off, the adoption process, I definitely came into this process with some ideas of what it would be like. Some of them were right and some were wrong. I was warned about all the paperwork, but still wasn't prepared by how overwhelming it can be at times. So much of it seems to be the same thing over and over. Our financial information, our work information, what is our home life like, our testimonies...on and on. We have to repeat things a lot, but worded slightly different for different applications, I've gotten better at being able to do some copy and pasting and using what we've already written. Today I'm getting our applications for financial aid and grants put together and sent off. I hope it's all how they need it. One of the things that probably surprised me the most about the whole process was that it's not as simple as wanting to adopt a child from a specific country and automatically being able to. Different countries have different qualifications. Some countries won't let you adopt from there unless your youngest child is at least 5 years older then the child you're going to adopt. Other countries base it on how much money you make per child in your home, including the child you will be adopting. Some countries won't allow you to adopt based on your ages or based on if you've been divorced. The cost didn't surprise me, but having it explained to me did help me to understand. For one there are a lot of people out there that try and adopt children to use as slaves for either work or sex. It sounds awful, but it's true. So, because of those type of people in our world they need to make the process more difficult and as a result more expensive because you need to go through a lot more work for them to know that you are a good candidate to adopt a child. Of course not all adoption agencies are exactly the same. There will be some differences, but not really when it comes to the amount of paperwork and such. We chose to go with Bethany Christian Services because of there reputation and we like what they stood for.

So, where are we in this process? Well, there are basically three parts to this process. We have finished the first part, which is the home study. This consisted of 10 hours of education for each of us, 4 interviews with our agency, a visit from our agency, background checks, and A LOT of paperwork. We're on to the next step which is filing with the government for approval, 10 more hours of education, more paperwork, fingerprinting by the FBI, and being approved by Ethiopia for adoption. Then we'll move on to the last step which is more paperwork : ) 10 more hours of education, having a child chosen for us and two trips to Ethiopia which will of course end with being able to bring our new child home!

Today I'm finishing up with gathering the papers for some financial aid and grants and getting those sent in. We have been so blessed with the friends we have to surround us with encouragement, advice and help through this process. We experienced some of these same things when our oldest daughter was in the hospital. It's exciting and encouraging to see the body of Christ doing what the Body of Christ is supposed to do. We have wonderful family and friends that are here for us and helping us in any way they can and we feel truly blessed by this! God is faithful and will continue to show Himself faithful through all of this. I know things won't always go as smoothly and quickly as we would like, but if we take time to enjoy the process and learn what God will have us to learn through all of this we will come out of this having seen His faithfulness shown to us over and over.

That's all for now!
Hannah