Here goes nothin'

I am so excited to be starting this process toward adoption! And how fun to be able to blog and have such a great outlet with which to share all that God will do throughout the process. Just to give you a little history, God has been working in our hearts about this for some time now. Even before we were married it had definately been on our minds, it's just crazy we are actually pursuing it now. It just seemed like the right time, although in many ways from the outside it doesn't. We have a very modest income as my husband is in school and I am a stay at home mom, we have two small boys under the age of three and have so far not had any problems with conception (by God's grace). But still we felt this call and a softened heart toward orphans. The scriptures speak clearly about caring for the fatherless and we feel that this is our response in light of God's work in our lives and what the word of God has to say on these things. Well how does one go about adopting?? Good question! Here's what we did: first of all we contacted the agency we were interested in, we chose Gladney for various reasons. One was that they seemed to have a great amount of experience with adoption, and so far it has proved to be a great decision. Everyone has seemed so nice! We had to let them know we were interested first by sending in an information sheet and family picture, the same one I put up on our page, and then they contacted us and we had a formal phone orientation. That was very helpful and gave us a good overview of their Ethiopia program. It also got us excited as we realized we are on the road to trusting God more and more as we see that we will need much grace throughout this whole process!!! So we recieved Gladney's application and went to town on it, and although we still are not finished (not even close) it's one step closer to where we want to be. Monday I go to the post office and mail out our I600A forms to the proper peeps, with my boys in tow the whole way. Today we went and made copies of Paul and I's passports and birth certificates. The boys were great! They are so much fun and I am so glad I get to have them experience even these minor tasks with me, it's a comfort and joy. So that pretty much sums up all I need to say for our first "official" post!