We're going to be parents!!!!
In the last few posts, we have talked about some of the more difficult parts of the adoption process knowing that Joy Comes in the Morning. And today, we get to share one of the most joyful things. Late last night we found out, we are going to be parents of a beautiful 13 year old girl, and we couldn't be more excited. We can't share much more info than that right now, except to say, that we believe that in 4-6 weeks our home will be a little more full!
We are excited to be working with a program called Second Chance Adoption (you can find more info about them on Facebook). Because this isn't a typical adoption (i.e. through the foster care system) we are expecting a few extra fees that we hadn't planned on. But that's okay, we know God will provide. Of course, if you'd like to help, feel free to go to our go fund me page at https://www.gofundme.com/stephen-sarah-adopted . We will be working on a budget over the next few days, and will get our goal number updated (it may be more or it may be less... until we run the numbers, we wont be sure).
Hopefully, over the next few weeks we will sharing more updates... but for now, we wanted to share our joyful news!
Thank you all for your prayers and support, we love you all!
Stephen and Sarah
Adopt(ed)
He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will…
Ephesians 1:5
Stephen & Sarah
Shumate
Our Adoption Journey
The Second Hardest thing to do...
Hello Everyone,
It's been a while since we have posted anything to our blog, but the truth is, there hasn't been anything to tell. Exciting isn't it 😝. However, recently we have seen a little activity in our journey of adoption, because we were finally chosen to take the next step for a little girl in TN.
So, we took the next step of getting more information and we went through a phone call with all of her case workers and such. After the phone call, the team let us know that they would still like to move forward with us. However, we weren't so sure. So, we began to pray.
After much prayer and meditation, we felt like God was not calling us to adopt this child. So, we had to let her team know that we did not wish to move forward. This was perhaps the second hardest thing we have experienced in our adoption journey. The reason it was so hard, is not because we knew that when we said no, we would have to go back to waiting, but instead it was so hard because once we got more information about this child, we knew her history. We knew how she had been treated. We heard about the abuse.
Hearing these things will absolutely break your heart. But knowing what she has been through and how that has affected her, makes it even harder to say no. After hearing these things you want to desperately love on that child and help them heal. But God, in his infinite wisdom has not prepared us for her wounds and has not called us to be her parents. So, it is wise for us to follow God's plan and not our hearts.
The good news for us is that we know from Psalms 30 that "Joy comes in the Morning." So yes, we go back to waiting... waiting for our Joy to come in the morning. But between you, me and the fence post, we believe that our joy may come sooner than later. But even if it doesn't, we'd rather be in God's will, than in our wants.
We love you all and appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers!
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
It's been a while since we have posted anything to our blog, but the truth is, there hasn't been anything to tell. Exciting isn't it 😝. However, recently we have seen a little activity in our journey of adoption, because we were finally chosen to take the next step for a little girl in TN.
So, we took the next step of getting more information and we went through a phone call with all of her case workers and such. After the phone call, the team let us know that they would still like to move forward with us. However, we weren't so sure. So, we began to pray.
After much prayer and meditation, we felt like God was not calling us to adopt this child. So, we had to let her team know that we did not wish to move forward. This was perhaps the second hardest thing we have experienced in our adoption journey. The reason it was so hard, is not because we knew that when we said no, we would have to go back to waiting, but instead it was so hard because once we got more information about this child, we knew her history. We knew how she had been treated. We heard about the abuse.
Hearing these things will absolutely break your heart. But knowing what she has been through and how that has affected her, makes it even harder to say no. After hearing these things you want to desperately love on that child and help them heal. But God, in his infinite wisdom has not prepared us for her wounds and has not called us to be her parents. So, it is wise for us to follow God's plan and not our hearts.
The good news for us is that we know from Psalms 30 that "Joy comes in the Morning." So yes, we go back to waiting... waiting for our Joy to come in the morning. But between you, me and the fence post, we believe that our joy may come sooner than later. But even if it doesn't, we'd rather be in God's will, than in our wants.
We love you all and appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers!
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
"Not yet, keep looking. Be patient."
Hello Everyone,
We just want to give you a quick update on where we are in the adoption process, or perhaps we should say and anti-update since there hasn't been any real change since the last one. Don't worry though, our frustration in not hearing anything has turned into patience and peace.
The reason I say that it has turned from frustration to peace is because there have been several children that we could have followed up on (that doesn't mean we would have been able to adopt them, but we could have moved to the next step of getting more info). But every time we consider a child, we just don't feel like we would be the right fit for them.
So, after much prayer and meditation over the last few weeks, Sarah and I feel that God is telling us "Not yet, keep looking. Be patient." This gives us peace because we know we are still on the right path and we know God has a plan. And if there is one thing that I have learned in the last 10 years of my life, is that God's plans are ALWAYS better than our plans! He definitely knows what He is doing.
Needless to say, at this point in our Adoption Journey, we haven't made any progress lately, but we are continuing the search and we are doing it with a peace we didn't have before. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we continue our journey.
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
We just want to give you a quick update on where we are in the adoption process, or perhaps we should say and anti-update since there hasn't been any real change since the last one. Don't worry though, our frustration in not hearing anything has turned into patience and peace.
The reason I say that it has turned from frustration to peace is because there have been several children that we could have followed up on (that doesn't mean we would have been able to adopt them, but we could have moved to the next step of getting more info). But every time we consider a child, we just don't feel like we would be the right fit for them.
So, after much prayer and meditation over the last few weeks, Sarah and I feel that God is telling us "Not yet, keep looking. Be patient." This gives us peace because we know we are still on the right path and we know God has a plan. And if there is one thing that I have learned in the last 10 years of my life, is that God's plans are ALWAYS better than our plans! He definitely knows what He is doing.
Needless to say, at this point in our Adoption Journey, we haven't made any progress lately, but we are continuing the search and we are doing it with a peace we didn't have before. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we continue our journey.
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
Not Hearing Anything is the Hardest Part
Many of you have been asking how things are going. In a word... Frustrating, but we were expecting it to be. As you may know, we have already completed everything we need to do, to be able to adopt. Now we are just waiting to find the right match.
The average time for people like us to find a match is 6 months and we have only been looking for 2. Although we expect that it could take longer for us, as we have set some pretty specific parameters of who we would like to be matched with. So, now it is just a waiting game for us. But this is not what has been the most frustrating.
Part of the process of finding a match is that we search for children on Adoptuskids.org. When we find someone we think might be a good match for us, at this point we can submit an inquiry. Once we submit an inquiry, we wait. Eventually a case worker will respond and sometimes they ask for us to submit our home study. Once our home study is submitted to a case worker...depending on the state, they typically forward our home study (along with everyone else who has submitted a home study) to a committee. That committee then looks through the home studies, and picks which family they think will be the best match for their kid.
The frustrating part is that if they don't find you to be a match, they typically don't tell you, instead you just don't hear from them and then you have to assume that you haven't been chosen. Not hearing any response is what is the most frustrating. In this day and age when you can track an online order from shipping to doorstep... minute by minute, it's hard to not be able to follow up.
So far, we have submitted our home study to a handful of kids. Some of the case workers have taken a few weeks to respond to our inquiry and then ask for our home study. And then some have taken a few more weeks before they email us back to let us know that our home study has been forwarded to the committee. Other's we simply haven't heard anything at all. At the moment we do know that our home study (along with many others) are being considered in two cases. One case in Georgia and one in Texas. So now we wait, and we have no idea if we will hear anything or not.
So that is where we are in terms of finding a match.
In the meantime...
We continue to read books and study about older child adoption. There are two books that we have read that we ABSOLUTELY encourage everyone to read, whether you have children or not. The first is The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis, PhD. This book has given us invaluable insight to children and their behavior and how we should approach these behaviors. This book will be at our side at all times, once we have a child in our home. The second book is Boundaries by Townsend & Cloud. This book is valuable in every area of life. There is a good chance that after Christmas we will have a few extra copies of these books for people to borrow.
The other thing we have been working on is applying for adoption grants. We have currently applied for two of them. One is for Southern Baptist Pastors and Missionaries and is managed by the North American Mission Board arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The other grant we have applied for is Show Hope which was created and is managed by Steven Curtis Chapman. We have not heard yet if we will receive any grant money from either of these groups yet. The SBC Grant has responded and said once we have a match placed in our home, to let them know, and our application will move forward at that point. And our application for Show Hope is currently under review and can take up to 3 months.
We are also currently looking into a few fundraising options. One that we are excited about and will likely do in the spring is called Both Hands. For this fundraiser, we will work with the Both Hands organization and essentially what we will be doing is getting a few friends who are handy at doing projects around the house to commit to helping us. Then once we have a team we will ask everyone we know and everyone they know to sponsor us as we are connected with a widow in the area whose home needs a little TLC. We will then spend a day, fixing up her home and visiting with her. It really is a win-win situation because a widow's home gets fixed up and we raise funds to help with our adoption. You can find more info on Both Hands at bothhands.org. Of course you are also welcome to donate to our adoption at www.gofundme.com/stephen-sarah-adopted or give to us directly. All donated monies will be invested until a time that it is needed.
Long Story Short...
To make a long story...a little longer, right now we are in a hurry up and wait mode. Until a State decides that we are the right people for their child, there isn't a lot that we can do, except keep searching and sending inquiries (and learn to manage our frustration).
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers! We'll keep you posted!!
And be sure to let us know if you want to borrow one of our books OR if you are interested in helping us fix up a widow's home.
Love in Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
The average time for people like us to find a match is 6 months and we have only been looking for 2. Although we expect that it could take longer for us, as we have set some pretty specific parameters of who we would like to be matched with. So, now it is just a waiting game for us. But this is not what has been the most frustrating.
Part of the process of finding a match is that we search for children on Adoptuskids.org. When we find someone we think might be a good match for us, at this point we can submit an inquiry. Once we submit an inquiry, we wait. Eventually a case worker will respond and sometimes they ask for us to submit our home study. Once our home study is submitted to a case worker...depending on the state, they typically forward our home study (along with everyone else who has submitted a home study) to a committee. That committee then looks through the home studies, and picks which family they think will be the best match for their kid.
The frustrating part is that if they don't find you to be a match, they typically don't tell you, instead you just don't hear from them and then you have to assume that you haven't been chosen. Not hearing any response is what is the most frustrating. In this day and age when you can track an online order from shipping to doorstep... minute by minute, it's hard to not be able to follow up.
So far, we have submitted our home study to a handful of kids. Some of the case workers have taken a few weeks to respond to our inquiry and then ask for our home study. And then some have taken a few more weeks before they email us back to let us know that our home study has been forwarded to the committee. Other's we simply haven't heard anything at all. At the moment we do know that our home study (along with many others) are being considered in two cases. One case in Georgia and one in Texas. So now we wait, and we have no idea if we will hear anything or not.
So that is where we are in terms of finding a match.
In the meantime...
We continue to read books and study about older child adoption. There are two books that we have read that we ABSOLUTELY encourage everyone to read, whether you have children or not. The first is The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis, PhD. This book has given us invaluable insight to children and their behavior and how we should approach these behaviors. This book will be at our side at all times, once we have a child in our home. The second book is Boundaries by Townsend & Cloud. This book is valuable in every area of life. There is a good chance that after Christmas we will have a few extra copies of these books for people to borrow.
The other thing we have been working on is applying for adoption grants. We have currently applied for two of them. One is for Southern Baptist Pastors and Missionaries and is managed by the North American Mission Board arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The other grant we have applied for is Show Hope which was created and is managed by Steven Curtis Chapman. We have not heard yet if we will receive any grant money from either of these groups yet. The SBC Grant has responded and said once we have a match placed in our home, to let them know, and our application will move forward at that point. And our application for Show Hope is currently under review and can take up to 3 months.
We are also currently looking into a few fundraising options. One that we are excited about and will likely do in the spring is called Both Hands. For this fundraiser, we will work with the Both Hands organization and essentially what we will be doing is getting a few friends who are handy at doing projects around the house to commit to helping us. Then once we have a team we will ask everyone we know and everyone they know to sponsor us as we are connected with a widow in the area whose home needs a little TLC. We will then spend a day, fixing up her home and visiting with her. It really is a win-win situation because a widow's home gets fixed up and we raise funds to help with our adoption. You can find more info on Both Hands at bothhands.org. Of course you are also welcome to donate to our adoption at www.gofundme.com/stephen-sarah-adopted or give to us directly. All donated monies will be invested until a time that it is needed.
Long Story Short...
To make a long story...a little longer, right now we are in a hurry up and wait mode. Until a State decides that we are the right people for their child, there isn't a lot that we can do, except keep searching and sending inquiries (and learn to manage our frustration).
Thank you all for your love, support and prayers! We'll keep you posted!!
And be sure to let us know if you want to borrow one of our books OR if you are interested in helping us fix up a widow's home.
Love in Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
The Announcement that Everyone has been Waiting For...
We are Expecting... A little Girl!
Well sort of... As you have probably guessed by now from the title of the this blog, we have decided to pursue adoption. This is probably as big of a surprise to you as it was to us. We have always had the mindset that if God chooses to bless us with children, GREAT! And if not, that's okay too! But we never really considered that He may be calling us to adopt until He started to whisper adoption in our hearts separately in 2016.
It wasn't until January of 2017 when we were watching a TV show (Mike and Molly) that talked about adoption that one of us said "Hey, maybe we should adopt..." and the other replied "That's what I was thinking!", and it was at this point we realized that God had been laying it on both of our hearts individually. To make a long story short, over the last 8 months, we have prayed about and come to the decision to pursue adoption AND we have already gone through all of the training and approval process.
This was not an easy secret to keep and we apologize that we kept it a secret, but we wanted to make sure that this was something that was actually going to happen before we got everyone excited. Of course, there is still a chance that we will never find the right match and end up not adopting. However, if we do, there is still a long road ahead of us, but at this point, we are approved and are beginning the matching process in the hopes of adopting a child into our family!
Now, we know that some of you can't wait to see us with a baby, but before you get too excited, you should know that we have chosen "Older Child" adoption (or foster to adopt). So the likelihood of us ending up with an infant is very small. The thing is, there is not a huge need for parents who wish to adopt newborns, in fact, many parents choose to adopt internationally because of this, however, there is a GREAT need for parents who wish to adopt older children. So, the reality is that we will likely end up adopting a little girl between the ages of 8-12 years old who needs a forever family. Fortunately, we have gone through many months of training that will help us be prepared to bring an older child into our home. Besides that, babies scare us a little...
Not only do we have the desire to be parents but we also truly believe that this is what we are called to do. Scripture tells us to take care of the widows and the orphans (children who need family) (James 1:27) and it tells us to be generous with the things that God has given us (Matthew 10:8). God has given us a loving family, including our parents and siblings, a nice house with an extra room, and jobs with good income. We can think of no better way to fulfill this call, than to share these things with a child in need.
We know that you probably have a million questions and want to know how you can help, so we invite you to check out our FAQ page and The Adoption Process page for more information. If you still have questions, feel free to ask. We will be happy to answer your questions as we are able! And don't forget to Follow Us By email using the link on the left side of this webpage, so that you will get the latest information directly to your email inbox. We will do our best to send updates as things progress.
We are completely excited (and a little terrified) about this next season of life, but we are so grateful for this call on our lives. We are also very thankful for you, our friends and family, who will be our support system through years ahead. Thank you all for your love, support and prayers!
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
Well sort of... As you have probably guessed by now from the title of the this blog, we have decided to pursue adoption. This is probably as big of a surprise to you as it was to us. We have always had the mindset that if God chooses to bless us with children, GREAT! And if not, that's okay too! But we never really considered that He may be calling us to adopt until He started to whisper adoption in our hearts separately in 2016.
It wasn't until January of 2017 when we were watching a TV show (Mike and Molly) that talked about adoption that one of us said "Hey, maybe we should adopt..." and the other replied "That's what I was thinking!", and it was at this point we realized that God had been laying it on both of our hearts individually. To make a long story short, over the last 8 months, we have prayed about and come to the decision to pursue adoption AND we have already gone through all of the training and approval process.
This was not an easy secret to keep and we apologize that we kept it a secret, but we wanted to make sure that this was something that was actually going to happen before we got everyone excited. Of course, there is still a chance that we will never find the right match and end up not adopting. However, if we do, there is still a long road ahead of us, but at this point, we are approved and are beginning the matching process in the hopes of adopting a child into our family!
Now, we know that some of you can't wait to see us with a baby, but before you get too excited, you should know that we have chosen "Older Child" adoption (or foster to adopt). So the likelihood of us ending up with an infant is very small. The thing is, there is not a huge need for parents who wish to adopt newborns, in fact, many parents choose to adopt internationally because of this, however, there is a GREAT need for parents who wish to adopt older children. So, the reality is that we will likely end up adopting a little girl between the ages of 8-12 years old who needs a forever family. Fortunately, we have gone through many months of training that will help us be prepared to bring an older child into our home. Besides that, babies scare us a little...
Not only do we have the desire to be parents but we also truly believe that this is what we are called to do. Scripture tells us to take care of the widows and the orphans (children who need family) (James 1:27) and it tells us to be generous with the things that God has given us (Matthew 10:8). God has given us a loving family, including our parents and siblings, a nice house with an extra room, and jobs with good income. We can think of no better way to fulfill this call, than to share these things with a child in need.
We know that you probably have a million questions and want to know how you can help, so we invite you to check out our FAQ page and The Adoption Process page for more information. If you still have questions, feel free to ask. We will be happy to answer your questions as we are able! And don't forget to Follow Us By email using the link on the left side of this webpage, so that you will get the latest information directly to your email inbox. We will do our best to send updates as things progress.
We are completely excited (and a little terrified) about this next season of life, but we are so grateful for this call on our lives. We are also very thankful for you, our friends and family, who will be our support system through years ahead. Thank you all for your love, support and prayers!
In Christ,
Stephen and Sarah
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