The Start of a New Chapter

       It has been a long time since I have updated our blog.  We have had to do a lot of praying and healing before we were ready to start on this new journey.  We are now moving forward with the certification process to become foster parents.  Back in October we went to an orientation meeting and chose our agency that we wanted to work with.  We had a few issues with our paperwork getting lost so it took until after Christmas before they added us into their data base and sent us paperwork to move onto the next step.  At that point I had to take a step back and really start to understand what we were getting ourselves into.   How would fostering work for our family?  How would I handle bringing these children into our home, getting attached to them, and having to give them back to their families when their parents were able to take them back again.  How would Logan be able to handle that?  We have been talking about it with him for a while and he knows that the children coming to stay with us most likely will not stay forever but how can we really prepare him for what we are about to do?  The paper work stayed on our piano for months while we came to terms with all of this.  It is funny how after IVF failed I felt like we needed to do something right away to move forward but then once we got into it I needed to pause.  I guess I just needed to take time to make sure I was ready for it and that my motivation was to help the children that would come into our home and not just to fill a void that not having any more babies myself left.  I joined a Beth Moore bible study in May with my girlfriends and the first week was about listening to God when he is telling you to wait and listening when He tells you to go.  We discussed what things in our lives were we not listening to "go" on and turning in the paper work was the first thing that came to mind.  It was time to move forward.  So when I went home we filled it out and sent it in.    
       We were contacted shortly after to set up an intake interview.  We had to schedule it a couple weeks out because I had just started a training for a new job and had to wait until that training period was over.  We had more paperwork that needed to be filled out including a budget form.  On June 3rd we went in for our intake interview.  I was kind of a mess the entire ride into Phoenix.  It was overwhelming to be putting ourselves out there to see if we would be accepted as foster parents.  We went through the interview and the workers were very warm and loving which made it a little easier.  We had to fill out paperwork asking what type of children we would be willing to take into our home.  What gender, race, age, and different disabilities and behaviors that we would be willing to take on.  That was pretty difficult deciding what we were willing to consider and what was not a possibility for us.  I felt like by selecting "no" for anything I was taking away a child's chance to be in a foster family instead of a group home.  But we knew that we have to put Logan's safety above all else so that was what we based our responses on.  After an hour and a half of questioning we were told that our file would be presented to the board that Thursday and we would hear either that Friday or Monday if they accepted us.  I keep saying that I think I am being taught patience over these past two years more than anything.  We have been doing a great deal of waiting!  Well we got a phone call Thursday afternoon saying that we were approved by the board!  What a relief that was!  It was so nerve wracking waiting to see if they would accept us.  At that time we scheduled our home visit and second intake interview.
       For our home visit we had to fill out more paperwork to turn in when the case worker got there.  We handed it to her and then she gave us a folder as thick as a novel of more paperwork to fill out.  We discussed all of the paperwork and asked a few questions.  Even Logan has paperwork to do.  He has to draw a picture of what our family will look like with the foster children in it.  I asked him how many children he will draw in our family and he keeps telling me 10.  :-)  We would need to get a school bus if our family ever got that big!  We had to take the case worker on a tour of the house and she told us the only things we needed to change were to put locks on our medicine cabinet and the cabinet that we keep our bleach in, get rope ladders for the upstairs bedrooms, and  to organize the tools in the garage a little better.  Overall not too bad!  We scheduled our classes that we need to take so from July 10th-September 11th we will be taking a class one night a week in order to obtain our fostering license.  After that we will have our home study done by the state and we should be able to have children placed with us by the new year.  Logan feels like that is SO far away but I know it will get here quickly!  But for a child time does seem to go by slower, doesn't it?
       James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  I know this journey will not be easy but I just know that this is the path that we are meant to take.  I am so excited to see what God has in store for us and how He will use our family to look after the orphans in distress.

Here is a picture of our family on a trip to Fossil Creek.  :-)