RobertsFamilyBlog

For those of you who do not know the "history" behind our adoption process - this is for you...a brief run down of where we have been, why it has happened, and how God has continued to be faithful to us even when we didn't understand.
Our story began at Family Camp Labor Day weekend of 2004 - when the speaker that weekend was Christian Fiction writer Karen Kingsbury. She was there with her family - husband and 6 children - in tow. They have 3 birth children, and 3 children adopted children from Haiti. God started working on Scott's heart - much to his dismay that weekend. He literally fought with God for 2 weeks - never saying a word to me. Adoption was the last thing he wanted to do, and it scared him TREMENDOUSLY. On our anniversary - Sept. 11 - he tearfully told me what he had been feeling over the past few weeks. Of course I was VERY excited, but told Scott not to worry, we don't have to start right away, our David was only 3 weeks old! As months passed, the "fire" that God had put in his heart began to fade, and it would be another 2 years before we even started the adoption process. August of 2006 we began our paperwork to adopt a little girl from China. We went through the agency PLAN (Plan Loving Adoptions Now) because that was the agency I worked for at the time (just a few hours a year). Our homestudy was done through International Family Services because it would be a conflict of interest to have a home study done by my employer. Fast forward - our dossier was logged in the China Center for adoptions April 13, 2007 - that is our official log in date. Since that time, we have done nothing but wait, renew fingerprints (like they are really going to change), renew our homestudy 3 times, and wait some more. It was a VERY frustrating time for us! China adoptions has all but come to a complete halt. At their current rate, we probably wouldn't get a referral for 10+ years! I would ask Scott every once in a while if he wanted to consider changing countries, but he never ever felt led to do that - and so we just kept waiting...fast forward to October 2008. We got a call from a local foster mom, whom we knew casually from another church, wanting to know if we might be interested in a little baby that had been in her care since the day she was born. At the time she was 7 months old. After praying, we thought, the door was opened to us - we will proceed and see what happens. We found out the beginning of March that we were not selected for little Hailey, and the state not only sent us a rejection letter, but sent one to International Family Services too - since that was considered where our social worker was. Even though I wanted a little girl SO bad, I felt a total and complete peace about the decision. I just knew that God was in control, and I didn't want anything to happen that was not in his will or timing. At the time, I was really irritated that they even sent them the letter - personally, I felt it was none of their business that we weren't selected for a little girl through the State! But, as we find out so many times, our plans seem to never line up with God's - his are even better! The very next day after IFS (International Family Services) received that letter from the State, they received Shakti's referral from India. Rachelle Staley (now the youth superintendent for the NWYM of Friends) was still working at least a little with IFS. She knows a few of my sisters, and thought since we had opened our options other then China with the State, that maybe we would be interested in her. Before she even called us, she sent our homestudy to their contact in India to see if we would be considered and approved. After a "yes"response, she called us out of the blue the evening of Thursday, March 26. Wow - talk about a change of plans!! It just felt right - right from the beginning. So, another HUGE amount of paperwork, doctor approvals, a million notaries, another updated homestudy, it never seemed to end that paper work!! But, finally, we completed it, and the dossier was sent Tuesday, June 23. There you have it - a very brief over view. My next post I hope to go into more detail about Shakti (Kahlia) and her medical prayer requests - but, that is for another day - thanks for all your prayers! :-)
-Michelle