We have an answer.

I am so glad that we asked you all to pray concerning our agency, Lifeline Children’s Services, giving us permission to adopt two children concurrently! The leadership team met today and discussed our request. We received the disappointing answer that, no, they did not give us permission to pursue adopting a second child on this same trip to China. We really felt this on our heart and wanted to follow through on it, but with so many praying that the leadership at Lifeline would make the right decision, I am resting in the idea that this must be what is best and that God is sovereign in this situation. This is an encouragement to me! They mentioned that in part, they felt that Sparrow would be best served by coming home alone as she is an “older” child. Our social worker explained to us that any child over 3 years of age is considered to be an older child. They also mentioned that since this is our first international adoption, they felt a single adoption would be best. We appreciate them being so thoughtful in this situation and looking to what is best for our new daughter! Thank you again for your prayers, we appreciate you!

For now, we are excited to continue on our journey to bring our Sparrow home! Our I800A was submitted last Tuesday on February 4. Typically it is a 2-3 month wait to receive that approval from US Immigration and during that time, we will be fingerprinted again and also finish our Dossier so it can be sent to China. The Dossier includes our medicals, criminal clearances, family pictures, passport photos, birth certificates, marriage license … and finally we will add our I800A approval when we receive it.

We plan to send some pictures of our family to Sparrow this week and appreciate your prayers that God would be preparing her heart to join our family and become a sister and a daughter.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

1 John 5:14

There is something we haven’t told you.

OK, here’s the deal. We have asked our agency to allow us to adopt 2 children. This is a big deal to them because they have seen families struggle with simultaneous adoption. Not just struggle, struggle and suffer and break apart and fail, so they are VERY cautious about allowing it. This means they spent time talking to us about what adopting 2 children concurrently looks like, and asked us to answer questions about it.

Lots of questions. (Our official response to them was 16 pages long).

And actually, we appreciate that quite a bit. Struggling is no fun and we know they want what is best for us and the children, they have a tremendous amount of experience in this area, and they are seeking the Lord’s will, as are we.

So, please pray with us in the coming days that the leadership at Lifeline would make this huge decision for our family with prayerful and Godly wisdom.

Many Thanks, Jason and Kirstin

Whys

Why? Those who go outside of the mainstream of society hear that question a lot; I thought I would answer some of those whys.

We knew before we started the journey to adopt Michael that adoption would be a lifestyle for our family for a while. We just decided that background checks and homestudies would be our normal for a few years (perhaps til we’re 45?). We recently looked at doing another local adoption, but were compelled by circumstance to look beyond Omaha. The more we looked at international adoption, the more we were drawn to it. Though the red tape and incredible expense were appealing to us, it was actually the reality that there are children in orphanages waiting for families that made this decision for us.

We found a great agency (Lifeline), and chose China, out of perhaps 20 countries that they work with, for many reasons.
We chose “Special Needs” because those are the children who are waiting. They are the children that society says are damaged and broken (just like us before Christ).