Foster to Adopt

I took last Friday off because Andrew and I both had to go to the county meeting to get information on fostering to adopt.  We have definately not made any decisions yet, we just went to the meeting.

It was pretty boring.  Not inspirational (‘you can make a difference in a kids life”) purely informational.  But I do feel a little more aware and at least know where to start if we decide to go this route.  Here are a few things I found out:

– Whoever watches our kid on a regular basis, nanny or day care while we work, has to be liscensed and finger printed through the state, but if we just need a babysitter for the evening, they don’t.

– Everyone has to foster for 6 months before they can adopt.  However, we can choose to only take in children who are available for adoption.

– We can choose to only take a ‘relinquised’ baby (that means the parent willingly gave them up) but we run a risk of that parent having 30 days to change their mind.  We could prepare emotionally and physically, spend a month with a child, and have it taken away.  That part really scares me.

– We can choose to only take children who have been taken from their parents from the state, but in that case, the chances that the baby would be drug-exposed or abused goes way up. 

– To my understanding, during those months while we would be ‘foster’ until we adopt, the state would give us some money as a ‘reimbursement’ to help care for the child. 

– It is free.  We wouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars to adopt.

I am trying to process whether or not Andrew and I are willing and capable of our first child being one that could possibly come with such baggage.  I would love to say that my heart is completely open – “bring me any abused or special needs child and I will care for them” – but the reality is, I am not there.  To be real, it kinda freaks me out.  

I started reading a book about adoption that a good friend gave me.  On the first few pages, the woman who wrote the book (and had adopted her own) said that she and her husband had to decide “if they wanted to reproduce, or if they wanted a family.”

I don’t know the answer to that question yet.

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Melts my heart

The picture is a little dark ’cause I was taking it into the sun.

This is my nephew, Caleb (the other love of my life).  He is 3.  Whenever his older brother, Corbin (the other, other love of my life) leaves the house, Caleb sits on the couch and waves until he sees him leave.

How could you not be in love?

We found renters!

God has completely provided.

Through a series of unfortunate events…. wait… let me back up:

About a month ago, we put our rental house on Craig’s List to advertise.  We soon discovered that someone was using our house to commit fraud.  They took our address, pic, and specs, and were listing our house for $500 less a month.  No wonder people were interested.  He told people he was overseas at the time and so if ‘you could just wire the deposit…”

Well, he got one family.  They were at our house one day waiting for this man to let them in to show them the house.  Our neighbor got a hold of us and we found out that these people had already sent this man $800 for a deposit!

After our sincere apologies about losing their money, they were still interested in the house saying, “we love the house, we will take it as is, we will make improvements, will you please work with us?”

We prayed and decided to continue.  They have been the only family to follow through with everything we have asked, before they even got keys they weeded the entire back yard (which was an enormous job) and already have plans to landscape. 

They are a very sweet family and now it is just time to pray they will continue to be good renters.  For now, we feel very blessed that God has provided in this way.

Pie Heaven

When you die and go to heaven, and you stand before St. Peter, and he asks you which kind of heaven you would like to go to: pie heaven or regular heaven, you should choose pie heaven because he might be kidding, but if he’s not…. mmm, boy.

– Reminded today of a “Deep Thought” by Jack Handy.

I’m a Baker

Not normally, but this week I am.

My mom is a baker.  Cookies, brownies, pie… my mom makes it, and she makes it well.

Since I have been married, I can remember baking cookies (besides the put-the-already-cookie-shaped-dough-on-the-pan-and-stick-it-in-the-oven kind) 2 times. 

Mostly because, although delicious, I don’t want to spend time on something that I really don’t want in the house. 

But a couple weeks ago I made an exception.  Lori Jo gave us some friendship bread.  I only had to text her about 100 times to ask her questions about how to make it, but I got through it.

Other than the fact that the bread was a bit misshappen (I had to make it in a caserole pan because I don’t own any bread pans), it was delicious.

Thanks, Lori Jo!!

Check Your Conversion

“If God is only a means to your self-advancement and exultation rather than your seeing in Him something infinitely glorious as a God consumed with the manifestation of His glory, then you need to check your conversion.”

“He chose you that His glory and grace might be praised and magnified.  Your salvation is to glorify God… you were created for the glory of God” – John Piper.

I am listening to an older Piper semon this morning and am reminded of a statement:  ‘Its not about you, [Rebecca]”

Starting Over

I was getting so excited that my students were finally getting used to the rules/procedures of my class.  We were getting to the point where I didn’t have to explain everything  to them.  They were getting accostomed to Mrs. Boganwright’s class.

Then Thursday happened and one of my teacher nightmares came true.

The students got all new schedules.  We started off the school year with too many students.  We knew ahead of time that we were going to have more students than we had teachers, but the district would not allow us to hire another teacher until we could prove that those extra 100 kids actually showed up on campus.  So our administration and staff had to create 1,100 schedules they knew they would have to do all over again.  We had up to 45 students in some classes and we had about 5 weeks to figure things out to get class sizes back down to 35 per class. 

But this was 7th grade.  I thought 8th grade would not be as affected.

Wrong.

Starting last Thursday, about 75% of my students are brand new to my class.  I have to start all over while trying  not to lose days for instruction.   I’m a little stressed.

Poor me, but poor kids too.  They need consistency and for now, they have chaos.