Ox Poop and the Messiness of Abundance

I've been waiting all day to write that title. :-)
This morning at church, our friend Mike shared this verse: "Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest." Believe it or not, this odd line from Proverbs 14 was confirmation from God that I need to accept the process of adoption and stop whining. I had a dream on Thursday that my dad told me to stop complaining about the complicated steps we have to go through to become parents. This verse was confirmation; oxen are messy. If I had a tidy barn that stayed pristine and perfect, I would have no harvest. Life isn't neat, short, or tidy; it is what it is. It made more sense to me in church, but that's the gist of it.

The next thing: It's time to step up the fundraising process for our adoption. Along with the official "You're on the waiting parents list" letter we received yesterday was an invoice for $3100. We have tucked away $1200 toward this amount, so we need to raise $1900 in order to pay for our home assessment that was just completed. Stan and I would like to ask our friends and family to participate in this process with us.

I have pictured in my mind a "family tree" of sorts. From the trunk branch out gifts from the people who want to help us fund this adoption. On some branches are $10 leaves from 20 people who just want to be a part of it all. Nearby are 16 thicker branches with $25 leaves on them. If there are 10 $50 leaves and 8 $100 leaves, our home assessment is covered.

Many of you donated items for our yard sale, so please keep those donations coming for the next yard sale. If you believe that God wants you to donate financially to help pay for our assessment, please contact us. Know that at this point your donation would not be tax deductible. We may have a way down the road to provide a deduction, so feel free to wait if you need to do so.

AT LAST!

Here are a couple of excerpts from the Bethany letter we received today:

"We are pleased to inform you that your family assessment has been approved for adoptive planning and the approval date is October 28, 2010. You are now included with families who can be actively considered for children available for placement."

"We are assuming that you are now prepared to accept a child and could assume responsibility at any time."

Hear the happy sighs.

A Portfolio for Baby K

Click here to view this photo book larger

RIL

As of September 14, 2010, we must fill out paperwork so that DSS can search for our names on the Responsible Individuals List in compliance with the Adam Walsh Law. Here's a blurb about the RIL: "The Responsible Individuals List identifies individuals found to be responsible for the abuse or serious neglect of a juvenile. Information from the RIL is available to certain authorized users for the purpose of determining current or prospective employability or fitness to care for or adopt children." It takes about two weeks from the time Bethany receives our forms for the RIL search to be done.

According to a message we received today from our social worker, our home study will be done as soon as this piece is completed. At that point, we will be in the "waiting pool". I love the phrasing. The first image I got was of the pool of Bethesda--desperate people waiting to watch God work.

I'm finding it harder and harder to tamp down the cynicism, sarcasm, and incredulity that wants to creep into the tone of these postings. The inordinate care that is taken to protect our future child impresses me to no end, and at the same time, I am paying into a public medical system that covers abortions. How does that make sense? God NEVER promised us that this would be fair or logical, did he? He called us to care for widows and orphans, not pick apart or even try to right a wacky system. The devil's not in the details; God is. He's still orchestrating, timing, working the universe so that we end up with the child he planned for us before he formed Adam from dust. God is in the details. God is in the details. God is in the details.

Encouragement

The fundraiser yard sale was a good experience. We cleared $370, not including a $300 donation we received just before the sale. The vast majority of people, when they heard about the purpose for the yard sale, were generous. We had a "no haggle" policy going into the sale and ended up pulling out two items (Stan's manual Pentax camera and Angie's flat screen monitor) because we couldn't just give them away. Angie's Alvarez classical acoustic guitar went for $20 to a man who showed up at 6:30 with a flashlight. Ouch. The coolest moment of the day was this: Three of my students helped out at the sale, and of them is doing a research paper on trans-racial adoption. She got the chance to interview Sarah, our friend who adopted a little boy from Ethiopia.

We both feel like we've been hit by a truck this morning but are so grateful for a gorgeous day and the support of friends and neighbors. I saw God's fingerprints on the event from the weather to the time we got to spend with three pretty awesome teenagers.

To date, we have spent $1385 on the adoption. We have about $1200 tucked away for a portion of the home study. I'll be blogging soon about future fundraisers.

The baby bottle fundraiser for The Abba Fund has netted about $50 so far. Go Academy Phoenix!

A Packed Living Room

Our living room is packed with the coolest stuff for our fundraiser yard sale! We have everything from record albums to a huge beach ball, and I'm so glad we made the call not to put prices on things this time around.

The students at The Academy at Central are running with the baby bottle fundraiser. Two classes (my third block and Mrs. Reid's third block) are neck and neck (get it? bottleneck? anyway...) for the grand prize (which is nothing; the kids are doing it for the right reasons), and they love the competition. A handful of kids now call me "Mama K", and I love it. :-)

Lovin' my students today

I have a cool teaching moment to report. One of my juniors is studying adoption for her Graduation Project, and I'm her mentor. She's having a baby bottle fundraiser to raise money and awareness for The ABBA Fund, a charity that offers interest-free loans to families that are adopting. Third block classes are competing to see which one can raise the most money by filling up the one baby bottle in each class. My third block students, most of whom I am teaching for the third semester in a row and know all about our adoption plans, got so excited today that they all took baby bottles home to raise money in their neighborhoods. When I casually mentioned that the money won't go toward our adoption, they protested and started brainstorming ways they could raise money for the Kratzers (car wash, etc.). Who says teenagers can't be selfless???!!!