2 By 2 They Come...

Our big announcement is that.........





WE ARE GOING TO PURSUE THE ADOPTION OF TAEVION AND T'AEJA!!!!!!!





Yup! You read that correctly! Steve and I have been praying and thinking about this for many weeks and we feel that it is time for us to be obedient to God's calling to have Taevion and T'aeja find their forever family with our family. There are still so many doors that God can shut but until He closes the door to them being our children, we are going to pursue adopting them. It's been amazing to see the Lord work in this case and we find ourselves wanting to chuckle that God thinks He can use us to parent 2 more kids but we feel honored (as well as a tad overwhelmed at the responsibility of raising 4 kids).





On Wednesday, September 2nd, Sarah, our caseworker from the county, came out to our house like she does every month. We have a very good relationship with her and a tremendous amount of respect for the work that she does. Well, she mentioned while she was here visiting the kids that it looks like Taevion and T'aeja's older brother, Lametri will most likely be put in a separate adoptive home. I was heart broken for him because I think it's important that siblings be kept together but when she shared with me the concerns of placing them together, I completely understood. She casually said that if we were interested in adopting just the babies, that she would be in touch with an adoption caseworker in her office. My heart did a little flip flop and I asked her, "What exactly are you saying?" She was saying exactly what I thought she was saying. I laughed about it and said that I would mention it to Steve. Little did she know that we had often said that if the Lord had it so that just Taevion and T'aeja could be adopted, we would snag them up in an instant. Now that this was the case, did we really mean it?





A few days later I was on the phone with Ikysha who is our caseworker from Bethany. She asked if I heard the news of Lametri being adopted separately. I told her that Sarah had shared that info with me and that I was sad for him. She said that it is going to be so good for him to be in a different home and again listed the reasons why. I told her that if it was true that he was going to be adopted separately then Steve and I would like to talk with her more about pursuing an adoption of the babies. She was so thrilled that I think she screamed into the phone. We were both laughing and talking a mile a minute and she came out to our home on Thursday, September 17th. For those of you who read the blog posting about Taevion and T'aeja's court hearing on Tuesday, September 15th, you may notice that it was kept fairly short but filled with excitement. That's because Steve and I had already decided that we would like for the Taes to be our children and the court hearing that was held on that day was a huge day for us. We were on the phone celebrating and carrying on with Lamteri's foster parents, Stan and Dawn and with our caseworkers who knew that we were open to pursuing the Taes adoption .





The hardest part about this whole thing is that we had decided to keep the news from our families. This wasn't done to hurt their feelings or make them feel out of the loop... we just knew that there were (and are) so many doors that the Lord can still shut and we decided to wait 'til things looked a little more sure before sharing the news with everyone. It's similar to finding out your pregnant and wanting to share the news with the world but know it's a good idea to wait a few weeks. Our families love Taevion and T'aeja so much and we know that their hearts would over flow with happiness if we told them that we are pursuing and adoption but they would be so devastated if this fell through and the babies had to go to another home. So as I write this right now, our families don't know that 2 more little ones are going to be calling them Nana and Pappy, G-Mom and Poppy, Auntie and Uncle, Dee Dee, Grammy, Dadu, and are going to be a part of our family forever (Lord willing). We have talked very vaguely with Ethan and Andrew about what their thoughts are on adopting the babies and they are ok with it. Andrew just says that Taevion is too loud when he's trying to watch TV and that frustrates him but we don't think that's a good enough reason to not adopt. Ethan said, "Oh great! I'm going to have to change Taevion's poops for the rest of my life." Mind you, he's only changed one poopy diaper and that's because he wanted to and I don't really foresee him changing Tae's poops for the rest of his life. That would be a bit strange and again, it's not a good enough reason for us to pass on this opportunity to adopt.





So, please pray for us and for the babies. We are trying to keep an open and level mind but our hearts are so involved with these little guys and we can't imagine them not being a part of family now. We've been talking about changing their names (our caseworkers have advised us that this would be a very good idea and are encouraging it) so now we are making lists of boys names and girls names...


We are cautiously optimistic and are trying to remember that things can change in a heartbeat since the county is involved and a bunch of caseworkers' opinions are what determine the future of these little guys. It's comforting again to know that God is the ultimate decision maker and already knows the outcome. "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 We're just taking it a day at a time and praying through each day...