Today Josh and I had our second home study! I can't believe how fast everything is moving. We were also officially placed in the Ethiopian Program!! This is also exciting but means more paperwork! Yippee!!...major sarcasm!! LOL! Little did we know that when we started this process it was going to go by SO quick!! Our third home study is next Tuesday...this one Barb is coming to our house! I'm so glad Josh doesn't need to take another whole day off work...those suckers add up fast! She reassured me that I don't need to do to any cleaning, no white glove test. Little does she know that I have too much of my mom in me! I'll be doing an overhaul on the house on Monday to prepare! She pretty much just wants to make sure our house is stable, not a shack and not falling apart!! (If she saw it 2 years ago she might be a little worried!!)
There's a lot going through our minds right now. We did our individual interviews with Barb today and she brought up some really good things to think about. Our community has a majority of Caucasian people with VERY little black. And if you've seen Josh and I...you know we are VERY white!! We need to learn to cope with the looks, comments and just surviving as an interracial family! With that said, we understand there are a lot of people who are very uneducated about adoption, especially international! We are seeing this just with our family and friends! So please, if you have questions, just ask! Adoption is such a beautiful thing and all the hard work now is going to pay off in the end when we have our little girl!
There are SO many tools to educate yourself if you are just curious, thinking about adopting yourselves or just wanting to be able to understand the trials and struggles couples are going through. One way to do this is to go to www.stuckdocumentary.com. Or click on the big heart link to the left of the text. There is a documentary you can watch with a $12.99 donation. It will give you SO much info on international adoption and how you can help and support others. Once you've watched the documentary, go to www.bothendsburning.org and sign the petition. If you haven't watched the documentary, pretty much it educates people on how messed up the system is with adoption. The average adoption process is 3 years and about $20,000 (give or take). This is absolutely ridiculous!! There are children all over the world who are starving, craving attention, dying from mosquito bites, etc and no one in authority is doing anything to make the process quicker and cheaper so willing families can take those children out of those horrible situations! SO...the people of STUCK and Both Ends Burning are coming together to get 1 Million signatures and will be presenting the petition to President Obama on May 17th to try and make a change. If you have not signed the petition, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do so! I cannot express how much change can come from this if everyone just electronically signs this petition. So many lives will be saved and so many children will be able to be adopted by families who desperately want them! How can we live with ourselves knowing there are children dying from the simplest of things and not do anything about it? That could be our future daughter. I know I'm not sitting by and watching!
To wrap up this post, until a change is made, the cost for adoption is constantly rising. And personally, ours is a lot more than the average $20,000. Josh and I are trying to exhaust all avenues before looking into loans. If you are feeling led to help out financially, you can click on our GoFundMe link to the left of the text which will direct you to our personal site where you can donate! Or you can give to us in person! With a minimum of a $15 donation, we will give you a special MudLove bracelet that was made specifically for our adoption as a thank you! If you cannot help financially, your prayers are greatly appreciated! Without the power of Christ behind us, we wouldn't have the strength to finish this process!!
Thank you again for reading this post, for hopefully signing the petition and for supporting us with your love and prayers! Until next time!
We love you all!
-Josh and Renee
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