Some folks get a dog or cat, others a goldfish or hermit crab, us – well we just go out and try to get a kid from the local baby store. At least that’s what Emma and Eliza may tell you. This past winter we began the process of talking about adoption again. It just hit me today as I was preaching that three weeks from today (Sunday) we will celebrate 7 years of being given one of the greatest gifts God could possibly give us. On September 18, 2004, Emma Claire was born and we couldn’t wait to get to the hospital in Memphis to meet her. And so began our journey putting together our family puzzle! Three years later we were met with another surprise and blessing as we almost couldn’t wait to get to the Jackson hospital to meet Eliza. No, literally we almost couldn’t wait -- we were there about 30 minutes before Gina gave birth to Eliza! Talk about cutting it close!
Now we are looking forward to welcoming our third child into our family. This time it won’t be Memphis, Jackson, or even somewhere in our own time zone. We are literally going half-way around the world!!! The next piece of our family puzzle will be coming from Taitung, Taiwan. The reasons why we are going to Taiwan are several and we’ll post a blog soon that will talk a little more about some of those specific reasons, but for now we’ll let it suffice to say we are simply pursuing what God is calling us to do.
After coming to a point of understanding that we were being led to adopt from Taiwan, we began searching out an agency who operated there and we found All God’s Children International (AGCI) and we immediately knew we’d found the agency for us. We began some initial paperwork, followed by a home study and lots of online education. We have now completed tons of paperwork – certain that we are responsible for some small forest being decimated in order to make enough paper for all we’ve done. We now have completed our Dossier (this is the paperwork that gets translated into Chinese and is sent to the Taiwanese government and court system).
And so our waiting period begins! We guess all great puzzles take some time to put together.
We’ll take some time over the next week or two to fill in some of the other gaps here including details about our anticipated timeline, some specific needs we have, how you can help or even begin your own process of adoption finding your missing piece, as well as some general thoughts and reflections about all things pertaining to life.
Blessings!!!
