Anyone who has adopted or is currently adopting knows how daunting the paperwork can be. It seems like it never ends! That said, in hindsight, we in some ways miss having tangible things to do because it gave us something to focus on. Now that we are done with paperwork at this stage, the waiting has proven to be the most difficult part of this process by far. There are days and weeks where we do not hear anything…at all. That is why we were thrilled to attend the Rooted in Love conference!
Rooted in Love is a conference put on by our adoption agency, Lifeline Children’s Services. The goal of the is conference to help adoptive parents be informed of the needs that children adopted from trauma have and to provide tools that we can use to win the heart of our adopted child(ren). The conference took place over Friday, January 24th and Saturday January, 25th. Day one was approximately 9 hours long and day two was about 6 hours long. Each day we opened up with a brief time of praise and worship and a plenary speaker. We also participated in multiple breakout sessions throughout the two day period. We were one of 13 families adopting from Latin America (12 families from Colombia and 1 from Costa Rica). There was also a ton of other families adopting domestically and from other regions around the world. Much of the Lifeline staff was present and assisting with the conference and there were also several vendors present to assist families with adoption fundraising.
We attended so many wonderful sessions and in some ways it was like drinking from a fire hose, but the information will certainly come in handy once we bring our little one(s) home. We won’t get into all the specifics, but we learned about creating healing homes. We learned about managing our response to the disciplinary issues of our adopted child(ren). We reflected on our own trauma and ways in which we attach with others. Above all we learned about the role that the Gospel plays in our parenting of all of our children but specifically our future adopted child(ren).
What was most amazing from this experience was the people that we met. The adoption process can, at times, feel very isolating. To be in a room full of people that have a love and commitment to the fatherless was inspiring and comforting. It was an oasis in the desert. A respite from the stress of waiting. We were able to connect with several families and look forward with great anticipation to seeing how God weaves their stories of adoption with that of our own.
One of the most surreal and amazing aspects of the conference was being there with our good friends Jennifer and Hernan. God in His sovereignty has knit our hearts and lives together in such an amazing way. Our relationship was born out of sorrow, but now we get to experience the joy of new life through the gift of adoption…TOGETHER! We are so grateful for the time we had with them and look forward to the day when our little Colombianos will meet!
There is so much more to say. For now we will express our immense gratitude to our agency Lifeline Children’s Services and the Lifeline Latin America team. We are so extremely blessed to be on this journey with them. Our team is fiercely loyal to us as a family and has loved us so well. There are not enough words to truly express our gratitude to the Latin America team!
How You Can Be Praying for Us:
- We will keep it short and sweet this time. WE WANT A MATCH…SOON! Pray that God be gracious and reveal to us our sweet daughter(s). We are ready to meet them and have them in our arms!
As always we will keep you updated as things happen. Thank you for your continued support and prayers!
P.S. Here are a few pics of us and our good friends Jennifer and Hernan from the conference!
Beautiful In Time 
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