Finding Clarity…

Three of our four family members wear glasses/contacts. It’s so interesting how much clearer we can see when we get just a little help. Everything is blurry, we put on the glasses and then…bam…we can see things so much better. We had such a moment with our adoption process recently.

We will spare you the many details, but we had a very clarifying conversation with the Director of the Colombia program at Lifeline and our social worker on last week. It was evident once we hung up the phone that the path forward for us as a family and the best way to complete our adoption process is to shift our age range from younger ages to older ages.

Let us state this in no uncertain terms…WE ARE NOT SAD ABOUT THIS. Confused maybe, but definitely not sad (lol). Back at the end of October and during the month of November we asked you all to join us in an intentional time of prayer to seek God’s will for our adoption. While we are still coming to terms with where God is leading, we do believe he is leading us in this direction. So to answer the question that you may be asking, in terms of an age range, we are now willing to consider up to the age of 12. Once again, we will spare the details, but based on the feedback from Lifeline, we feel confident that an expansion to age 12 from our previous age cap of age 7, puts us in the best position to be matched.

There is a great need around the world and specifically in Colombia for people to step up and give families to children who have sat in foster homes and orphanages for years. Most of these children are not given a chance simply because older child adoption is not the “cute” story; they are not the sweet, little baby that is a blank slate that can be molded. Adopting older children is hard and most of the time, people do not want to deal with hard things. But the beauty of the Gospel is that when we were in a hard place, Christ entered into our trauma and pain and chose us to be a part of his family.

If Christ has done this for us, why would we not be willing to do this for an older child.

So to keep a short story, short, we do not know how our process is going to play out, but we wanted to be transparent with you about our shift in thinking and priorities.

How Can You Be Praying For Us?

• Please pray that God will give us peace regarding what he has called us to do in seeking to parent an older child.
• Please pray that God will give us peace surrounding the potential impact of bringing in an older child into our family dynamic.
• Please pray for Titus and Asher. Pray that God grants them the peace, the willingness, and the desire to be good siblings to whomever God adds to our family.
• Please pray for our ability as parents as we have no idea what it requires to parent older children. Pray that as we wait, God will equip us with the skills, the knowledge, and the community that we will need to be successful in our endeavors.
• Please pray for our marriage. Pray that God will continue to grow us in our love for each other as we seek to be faithful to His call.
• Finally, please pray for our Colombian family. God knows them by name. He knows their story from the past and He knows how their story will yet play out. Pray that he guards and protects their hearts and ours. Pray that He keeps them safe. Pray that they do not lose heart. Above all, please pray that God bring us together soon.

This is a short update, but we felt it was important to keep you all informed and to manage your expectations moving forward. As always, we appreciate you all walking out this journey with us and we look forward to the day when we have more exciting news to convey (#match)!