Drumroll Please...

We have made a decision! After praying and discussing it, Josh and I have decided to apply to Christian Family Care Agency. We had a chance to look through the information they sent us this weekend, and I was blown away by how perfectly they seemed to fit our criteria.

CFCA is a Christ-centered agency and requires that the couples they place children with be born again Christians. We are asked to sign their very detailed statement of faith (which included a lot of wonderful Scripture), write out our testimonies as well as answer essay questions on what we want our children to understand about Christianity, send in a pastor's reference form, and be actively involved in a Christian church.

We were so impressed with all of that, plus the fact that they offer and require a series of classes on adoption, charge their fees on a sliding scale based on your income, and seem to really care about and take care of their birth mothers. We felt completely drawn to this agency and felt like they perfectly fit what we were hoping for in an adoption agency.

What's even cooler is after Josh and I decided to go with CFCA, a person I don't even know who found my blog through another adoptive mom commented on my post and recommended CFCA as that is the agency they are working with right now! I browsed through her blog, as well as another I found who is going through this agency as well, and both families are strong believers and are much further along in the proocess than we are so will be a wonderful resource as we move ahead!

Josh and I have also decided to pursue a domestic adoption, which I will explain more on later, but basically it is an adoption of an infant that has been surrendered by their birth mother. I want to emphasize that this is the direction we feel led in at this time, but we are completely open to whatever God has in store and know He might lead us somewhere else as we continue on this path!

We finished our initial application this evening and will be sending it to CFCA tomorrow! Things are definitely happening fast, but I will not get used to that because one thing I know for sure is that adoption is a huge lesson in patience and waiting on the Lord. We have waited this long, and we are ready and willing to wait some more. :)

We now just wait for them to review our application and give us a call. I don't know what will happen from here, but I definitely find myself very self conscience already about what they will think of our application and if we will be "good enough". But I am handing it over to Jesus and asking Him to close this door if it isn't right, and I know He would!

If we did get approved, we would meet with someone from the agency and then if we decided to go forward, we would start our classes and begin the very long and involved process of a home study. We would also get serious on raising money to fund our adoption! (Who am I kidding, I've been writing down ideas since we made this decision!) I won't go into detail yet on what it is going to cost us to bring our baby home, but wow God is really going to get the chance to show His provision! It is overwhelming to even think about, but I have complete peace that if this is the road He chooses for us, He will no doubt provide a way for us to walk it!

If you are praying for us, we are asking that God continue to light the next step in this process and give us peace about each decision if it is right. We are asking that He will close the doors that are not right and give us patience as we figure all this out. If we are approved by CFCA we are praying specifically for a kind social worker and for God to provide the funds for our required adoption classes and our home study, which will be about $1700 up front.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support as we try to be obedient in our call to adopt!