adoption update

Our social worker came for a visit on Tuesday. We have finished our MAPP training and are scheduled to take our Medication Administration class on September 13th. If all goes well, we'll be licensed by the end of the year.

Yet to go:
- Med Admin class
- Fire inspection
- Physicals
- Finger Printing (6-12 weeks)
- Filling out forms (medical history, discipline, background check permission etc and so on)
- Home study interviews
- Environmental inspection check list
- Home study document
- Family profile (a photo and word description of our family written to our future kids)

Anyway, hopefully we'll be licensed by the end of the year. HOWEVER, in talking to our social worker, we found out that, given Jonah's age and how selective we (and they) will have to be in finding a referral for us, we could wait a year or more (an indefinite amount of time, really) for our kids. There are families like ours, with small children and open to legal risk (like we most likely will be), who have been waiting well over a year. It's disheartening, to say the least. BUT, we're trying to keep the perspective that any time we have to wait is just time God is giving us to prepare. To prepare our marriage, our family, our home, our finances, our hearts, our minds, our everything to successfully give this kid (or these kids) the life and home they deserve. We know it will not be easy, and we know that we can't fully prepare ourselves for it, but we can read books, pray, hope, trust, budget, spend time in the Word, rely on God, and do as much as we can to ready ourselves.

I'm excited, apprehensive, anxious, hopeful, but surprisingly at peace and fully trusting. God led use here, and as we continue on this road, I know more and more that this is where we're supposed to be. And I haven't said this in a while, so I'll say it again. God is not in the business of bailing.

We just trust and take it one day at a time. I found this Martin Luther King Jr. quote today: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." This is going to be a long staircase. But it's worth it. We just keep on climbing.