Adoption!

     Adoption! What an exciting time! We have chosen to take a giant leap of faith and trust that God will provide for us the finances necessary to bring home the child that He is calling us to adopt. My husband and I have been thinking of adoption for a few years now. We have 3 biological children, all wonderful, healthy boys. We are NOT adopting to get a girl! Although we would be fine with one, we would be equally happy with a 4th boy. We are adopting to help a small soul who doesn't have a family, to listen to the word of God in which we are called to defend the fatherless, and to further the Kingdom of God.
     I look at the Loving Shepherd, Cancer Redemption Project, or World Vision websites and see such need but am still in need of persuasion. I am afraid to come out of my comfort zone because we will be giving up our a lot to make ends meet for this adoption. Our spending has been put on a freeze, no vacations, no landscaping, no new vehicles in the near future. This adoption has already cost us $26,000 and our agencies are estimating another $12,000 in birth mother expenses, not including legal fees ($4,500) or travel / living expenses while in California to pick up the baby. If you're wondering, we do not have that sort of money lying around.  As for California, I should explain. We are with an agency in Ohio. We were matched with a birth mother in California. We paid our and her agency fees, and a few months later her agency found she was not being truthful. They advised us to back out of the contract. We lost a bit of our birth mother expenses, but not as bad as it could have been. Sadly, we cannot be reimbursed our agency fees. They will transfer to another birth mother, but we are locked into that agency in California unless we want to eat the $26,000 and start all over. The worst part is California does not have a limit on what a birth mother can ask for expenses. Ohio has a cap of $3000. BUT, that is okay. God is in control and He knows why we are waiting on a baby from California.
     The point of this first post was not to say the overwhelming cost but to say that we are excited to be trusting that God will bring us a child that not only needs us, but that we need. Like our other children, we will not be able to imagine our lives without him/her and there will be no monetary value that we wouldn't pay to ensure health and safety. It would just be nice to get to that point!