Well, it is Sunday night and I am happy to report that all went well with the Home Study this afternoon. Phew! I must admit that as the time drew closer I started to get a little nervous about it. I think it was just that I didn't really know what to expect.
As soon as I met our social worker, though, I was put at ease and knew that the meeting would be just fine. She is so nice and has adopted from Korea herself! She asked us a few questions about how we ended up pursuing adoption, how we decided on their agency etc., and then shared with us about the process, what to expect, time frames and things like that. She talked to us a lot about the "training" we will need to do - reading books and articles, an online training session, and workshops. Now for those of you who know me, you will know that I am very excited about the reading part. And for those of you who know Brad...well, you will know that he is more excited about the online class! I have just ordered a couple of books and a subscription to "Adoptive Families" magazine. I can't wait for them to come in the mail! The book on the right, "I Wish For You a Beautiful Life" is a compilation of letters from Korean birth mothers to their children. That is going to be a difficult book to read I think. I am already praying for the mother who will give birth to our child, because I'm sure the next few years are going to be very hard for her.
Another book we are going to read is called "The Seed from the East" and I believe it is written by the couple who began adoptions from South Korea. I am excited to learn about the history of adoptions from Korea.
The social worker also took a look around the house (which was not nearly as intensive as I feared!), and that was it!
We are having our next meeting on July 22nd, which happens to be the night before we leave for Seattle. Yikes! I think I am going to be stressed out. Or maybe if I have everything packed it won't be too bad. We'll see I guess! After meeting with our social worker that night we are also going to a meeting for waiting families (all the families working with our agency who are in the process of adopting internationally.) It will be so good to have this support during the looooooonnnnnnngggg wait! We have a long road ahead, but at least we are officially on the road at last!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Surviving (and Enjoying) Our Homestudy!
Friday, June 27, 2008
On Our Way to a Homestudy!
We got the call this week - our first meeting for our homestudy will be this Sunday at 2pm! Our social worker said they normally do the home visit at the end, but she will be in our area that day anyway so wondered if it would be okay if we did it first. There will be some major cleaning going on at the Hunt household tonight and tomorrow morning! I feel like I should be more nervous - I really just feel excited to be starting after such a long wait. I know that lots more waiting is looming in the future, but for now it is nice to be doing something.
Tomorrow we are going to a wedding in the afternoon and then Brad's family is coming over for a bbq in the evening to celebrate Brad's birthday. I am looking forward to a fun weekend!
On another note, my Mom, Dad, and sister Sarah are heading to England today for 2 weeks, and they will then be heading to France for a week. Yes, I am jealous! Please pray for them as they travel. Thanks!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Happy Birthday to my Brad!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
The Story of Daisie...
It was so good to have Brad's mom with us.
She loves to sleep! She slept all the way home!
Most of the time she sleeps with her tongue sticking out!
Loves to chew...
Loves sticks...
Hates baths...
Loves to lay in the sun...
Gets along really well with other dogs...
Did I mention loves to sleep????
Loves to have her belly rubbed...
Yep, she's pretty much the cutest thing ever!
Friday, June 20, 2008
Bringing a smile to my face...
It's been a crummy week, but there are a lot of things bringing smiles to my face. We have wonderful friends and family who have been so sweet to us this week. Thanks to everyone who has hugged me and not thought I was crazy for being so sad about Sadie!
And then, there is a puppy who has won our hearts....
We are going to get her tomorrow! The house just seems too empty, and we are total suckers for basset hounds. Look at those ears!!!! I can't wait to hold her! She is 9 weeks old tomorrow so we are in for lots of fun with house training and puppy energy again...but looking forward to it all!
We don't have a name yet, but I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to post next week once we have her home, and hopefully a name to go with the pictures!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Sad News
Last night after our happy phone call, we got a very sad phone call. Our sweet dog, Sadie, had lymphoma, and we had to have her put to sleep. We are very sad and miss her a lot already.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Starting Our Home Study!!!!!
Yey! The call came today - we are starting our home study!!!! I am so excited!!! I'll write again when I have more details, but for now...PRAISE THE LORD!!!
Poor Puppy :(
Poor little Sadie is at the vet for the second time this week, and this time is spending the day there having bloodwork done. She has been acting strange and is having trouble seeing, and her heart has been racing. I felt very sad leaving her there but the vet is very kind and I know they will take good care of her. Hopefully we will find out soon what is wrong.
Spiffy Saturday
Saturday was a lovely day for a motorcycle ride, so Brad and I headed out with no plans of where we would go or how long we would be gone. We ended up stopping in a lovely little town not too far away from here, where we stretched our legs (after riding for about 2 hours I had no feeling in my behind!) and walked around the town. We also shared a small ice cream cone...I found $2.00 in my pocket and it was all we could afford! We sat by a fountain and enjoyed the beautiful day. It was very relaxing, and at one point I said to Brad, "Doesn't it feel like we're on vacation?" To which he replied, "No, not really." He is such a bubble-burster! Oh well, I found it relaxing anyway!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
My Olympic Experience
I am so excited! It's happening! Our youth group is becoming a family and it is amazing to see the transformation.
Last night we had our Summer Olympics at a nearby park and it was so much fun! The weather was perfect - not too hot and no rain. We had a variety of team and individual events, including a tug-of-war, balloon race, crab soccer (complete with enormous red ball of course), water balloon toss, sack race, and three-legged race. Pastor planned things so well, and the students had a great time hanging out together with nobody being left out. I saw smiles on the faces of students who usually sit off to the side, and students who never seem to talk to each other were laughing and goofing around together. The Olympics really do bring people together!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Learning to Worship in the Waiting
(Disclaimer - I am very long-winded! Sorry!)
Do you ever have those times in your life when you find yourself so wrapped up in what is going on in your life that you can't seem to stop having a giant pity party for yourself? That is where I have been the last few weeks. It is an ugly and selfish place to be, but it's where I've been nonetheless. I am not sure exactly what took me from a place of contentment and trust to a place of hopelessness and anger about my circumstances, but it seemed to be a quick trip and a hard place to get out of. The waiting at times feels unbearable. This is not what I expected my life to be. I expected to be a mom. I want to be a mom. But I just can't seem to get there. It is easy to question, to doubt, to feel that God either does not hear my prayers or that He does not care. It is easy to be consumed with my sadness, my hurt....my, my, my, me, me, me. Like I said, I know it's an ugly place to be, but it's where I have been.
But God is good, and He has helped me to lift my eyes away from myself, and to fix them once again on Him. He reminded me in the sermon on Sunday that it is not about me. He reminded me in small group Sunday night about how much He loves me and wants to have a relationship with me. He reminded me this morning how blessed I am to have people in my life who care about me and pray for me. And at lunch time, I was amazed to find a passage of Scripture that said it exactly. Our Pastor spoke about this passage two weeks ago, and as I looked it over today, I just knew that God understands, and that He hears and cares. Isaiah 40:27 says, "Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God'?" Wow. That is exactly what I have been feeling - that God does not see, or that He does not care. Verse 28 goes on to say, "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and His understanding no one can fathom." And there it is - take your eyes off yourself, Rachel, and look to the Lord. Remember who He is. Remember that He is the Creator, that He sees so much more than you do. And to put any further questions in my heart to rest, verse 29 says "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." He does care. I am not alone in this.
It has been a long lesson, but the Lord is patient and is continually showing me just how much He loves me. I don't always understand why, but I can trust. I don't always get the answer I want, but I can trust.
There is a song that has really encouraged me over the last few months. It feels like exactly where I am - in the waiting. Here is the chorus - this is the prayer of my heart, that I would truly learn how to worship in the waiting.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Thankful
It has been an interesting week in the Hunt household. Yes, that is our new car...we had not had it one full day before the battery died. Hours after replacing the battery, I noticed a very strange noise appeared every time the car was put in gear (if you were here I would make the noise for you but since you're not, try to imagine a very loud cat purring under the hood). Needless to say, I was not a happy camper. I am pretty cheap (okay, very cheap) and don't really like spending money anyway, so to find out that something we had just spent a bunch of money on might have something wrong with it made me...well, ANGRY! I was instantly stressed out about it. Brad's reaction, however, was quite different. When I got home and he listened to the noise, he started laughing! I couldn't believe it! I expected him to be ticked off and in a bad mood, but he took it all in stride and reasoned that getting mad wouldn't fix it anyway, so why waste the energy? My dear husband never ceases to amaze me. He managed to calm me down and we spent the next few days trying to figure out what was wrong (when I say "we" I mean that Brad tried to figure it out and I kept asking if he had figured it out yet...). Yesterday he replaced a part that he believed was the problem, and VOILA - no noise!
I have been reminded this week several times of how blessed I am to be married to Brad. It amazes me that he knows how to fix cars and do all kinds of useful things. It blows my mind that he was not angry or stressed. I have seen so many examples of times when he could have been angry or in a bad mood, but he has chosen instead to not stress out, and to be encouraging and loving towards me even when I have not chosen such a good way to react.
I have also been reminded this week that I have a wonderful husband who cracks me up all the time! We laugh so much together and can have fun no matter what is going on. I love that he can make me laugh even when I am mad - he has quite a gift for that.
Speaking of gifts...this week Brad's (early) birthday present from the family arrived in the mail. He had been talking about it pretty much non-stop since March so I finally gave in and went against all of my beliefs (that birthday presents should NOT be given until the actual birthday) and ordered it for him. He seriously was like a little kid opening this thing up!
Don't worry, we did not get him an airplane...
We got him his very own bass guitar and amp! Woo hoo!
I never would have imagined that he would be a bass guitar player, but last Sunday morning, we found ourselves on the stage together playing on the praise team at Church for the first time! He did a great job and I was so proud of him!
Happy (early) Birthday, Brad!
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Adoption Update...but not very exciting
This morning the lady from the adoption agency called...all of our paperwork is completed now and we are ready to start our homestudy as soon as the program opens! Also, she said that she believes that should be "very soon"...hopefully we will know a date in a week or two. It has been a LONG wait and I am ready to be moving forward. We found out a few weeks ago that the wait time after the homestudy is completed is getting shorter (praise the Lord!), so if we do our homestudy this summer it is possible that we could have our referral next summer or fall (the homestudy is the interview process, and the referral is when they match you with a child). After the referral it will be 3-6 months until we can go and get our little one. I can't wait to have him or her in my arms!!!!
New Car!
With gas prices on the rise, we have been thinking for a while of trading in the truck and downsizing to a smaller car. We had been looking around and on Saturday we found a car that seemed to fit what we were looking for.
It is a 2005 Malibu and it is very fun to drive :)
I didn't know it, but I actually felt really sad leaving our truck at the car lot. It was like we were abandoning it or something! But I just reminded myself that it does not have feelings and is not feeling abandoned...and then I felt much better!
Baseball Fun
Spending time with Chuck and Karen and having some snuggle time with my neice, Abbey.
Emma's adorable "cheese" face!
The food! Shawn enjoyed some interesting looking nachos.
The boys together again.
Emma snuggling with Grandma
Kind of random...there was this really strange guy that kept coming out and dancing. It was really funny, but the best part (for me) was how excited Brad got every time he came out on the field! As long as I don't catch him practicing any of the dance moves, I think we're safe!
It is good to be with family!
