Adoption Update

This past Monday we had our last evaluation from the psychologist in our home.  Here is a summary:
Liam slapped the psychologist butt to welcome her into our home (y'all he has slapped E.V.E.R.Y persons butt that has walked into our home the past month including the grocery delivery man, first time visitors to church, the construction man working on the house across the street etc..), Maddox climbed onto the couch and went airborne onto our giant bean bag after he told the woman that he wanted a boy so that the new kid and Liam could share a bed and Maddox could FINALLY have his own bed (cool.) Then as a grand finale, Sofia tried to help me out as she saw the panicked look on my face and took the boys out in the front yard (that is, the 5 feet of grass we have in the front of our house) except they ended up tying a rope to the top of the garage opener and were trying to swing from it and then as one fell over the other all I remember were tears, some yelling and the psychologist telling me I should probably check on the kids.... help me Jesus.

Needless to say that when the lady left, THIS is what happened at our house-

Lee had a come to Jesus meeting with all 3 kids about their behavior.  I sat back, took the picture and just laughed imagining what she was writing in her report.  

I thought about the fact that my family isn't perfect.  My kids scream,  I scream.  They fight, we fight.  We jump across furniture and sometimes get hurt.  We play basketball in our living room because we have no yard.  We also skate in the house for the same reason.  We get mad.  We hug.  We cry.  We laugh.  We talk about why so many kids don't have homes.  We pray about giving kids a home.  We have dance parties.  We have time outs.  We give and we take away.  We fail some days and we learn the others.  One thing I do know for sure though-we gotta lot of love and we got Jesus.  We don't do perfect well at all and that's why some kid or some kids are going to fit great into this crazy thing called family.  

We have a month to wait for them to go through ALL of our evaluations and declare us "Eligible to Adopt" (or not:)  At this point we will go through all the legal business and paper work (can't wait...ughh.)  Once we have gone through all the legal work we will be on the waiting list.... My heart skips a beat every time I say those words.  We wait.  We wait to get a call to tell us that they have a child they think might fit well into our family (which will probably include some tears, smiles and a little hyperventilation:) We have around 5 days to decide (sometimes you get lots of info, medical/family history and pictures and sometimes you only get a name.)  If we decide YES, then we would all fly to the region of Peru that the child is in and we stay for about 5 days to get to know the child's environment and then bring them (or him/her) back to Lima.  

Everything about time-frame, visas, passports etc... just makes my head dizzy so we have just taken it one day at a time.  

This is all we know for now.  We would love to have you all partner with us in prayer about a few things:

• That God is preparing/protecting the hearts of the child or children right now as they wait for a family
• That God is preparing our hearts (especially our Sofia, Maddos and Liam) for the child or children that He is getting ready for us
• That my birth certificate from Switzerland gets to Lima and that the proper steps have been taken to get it ready (y'all, this is taking FOREVER and it's a lot harder than you can imagine!)
• Timing.  God only knows the timing but because of our departure from Peru early next year (next blog post:) we are obviously in somewhat of a time crunch to get our kids!  We would love prayers that kids are chosen quickly and that the paperwork all works out in a timely manner.

Thank you for your prayers and your constant encouragement!!!  This is an adventure for sure!