Still waiting...

Yes, we are still adopting and still waiting....

I get that question a great deal, Hows the adoption going?
What I have come to realize is that there is a great deal of waiting invovled in this process. The amazing thing is the more we wait, the more our hearts are getting excited to welcome our children home.

We finished a long course in our adoption education (parenting class) called with Eyes Wide Open.
We learned so much about bonding, the difference in parenting natural children as opposed to adopted children. We also learned a great deal about how people can react to our family. Since we will have afirican children, we will stand out, but we know we are a family. We learned how to talk to our kids about it, and also about their past, and how it affects where they are now. Also there was talk about the grief they experience coming to another country, how they will act.

I am so grateful for my friends who have taught me so much about parenting. You know who you are.

We still have 5 other courses to complete but the one we started with was the longest. We are still waiting on things to come back. We are almost done with the homestudy things.

We went away last week to emotionally rest, and to spend some time with our friends Jeff and Candy. We felt refreshed from our times there. Wow, what a great place to catch up.

Till later-

time away

so we just returned from vacation where we went to a retreat house within our mission in the Black forest. During our time, we did some personality tests, and evaluations to see how we are doing. This was such a great time of relaxing and decompressing. We went to a thrift store in France, and stumbled upon a winery town.  This was filled with about 20-30 wineries. They even had a Haas winery. We went there just because its our name. We went about a half hour from the place we were staying into Switzerland and enjoyed a date night and also got a BASEL mug!

While on vacation we continued our training courses for adoption.These were on rejection, and grieving. Its was a great time to stop and think on who we are and our parenting style. We have been apart of some great families who parent well. We glean knowledge and experience from them. Also we have been around people who have not parented well and we process that as well.

All this to say, God is working in our hearts preparing us emotionally for our children. I know you can't be really ready for what will happen but at least we are letting go of past issues that have been holding us back, and processing hurts along the way.

Woot woot! God is good!