A new road to travel

One of the most frequent questions that we get from people when they find out that we have/are adopting is
"Why didn't you adopt a child in the US?".
Simply put, the reason is because that's not what God called us to do.
God put the burden on our heart to adopt a child internationally and then led us to Reece's Rainbow and our children and the desire to continue to be a voice for children all over the world. We have walked this walk because that is the path that God put us on.
Through all of that, He also opened doors for me to learn more about adoption, to have the honor and privilege of assisting other families in their adoption journey and to use my degree and training as a special education teacher to help not only my own children, but other families who need someone to listen and/or help with situations with their children. Recently, I have also had the opportunity to begin to build relationships with families in another country that have chosen to raise their children with Down syndrome, despite the cultural pressures to put their children in orphanage. You'll all be hearing much more about that very soon.
I consider all of these things to be such a blessing in my life and all of it came from the initial calling that our adoption journey was to take us across the ocean, to children in other countries.
I still believe that there is an extraordinary need for advocacy and adoption of children with Down syndrome all over the world. I still plan to be a big part of that voice.
But, I also know that
I can't advocate for the adoption of children with special needs abroad- specifically those with Down syndrome- and ignore a child in my own back yard that's also living in the "system".
About 6 months ago, I received information about a boy in our state who was in a situation that sounded very similar to what children with Ds in other countries experience. I could have easily deleted the email and rationalized by saying that 1.) We were/are currently in the midst of an adoption and 2.) We don't "do" domestic adoption and we are not licensed nor do we have any desire to be licensed as foster parents.
But then, that statement in bold hit my heart like a ton of bricks.
So, I picked up the phone and made a phone call.
I can't share all the details right now, except to say that after a series of phone conversations, a whole lot of information on the above mentioned child and a whole lot more praying and soul searching, we have now come to this point:

Because of the specifics of this child's current circumstance & his background, the child's social worker made the decision that the child needs to be in a foster care situation before adoption is even considered.
We agree with the reasoning behind her decision.
So, we need to become licensed to provide foster care in the state of Alabama. Since we already have experience raising children with Down syndrome, adopting children with Down syndrome who have been in institutionalized settings, are very familiar with the other needs that this little boy has AND the fact that the state wants to place a specific child in our home; we are not going to have to take 3 months worth of classes (which is the typical way to get licensed for foster care in AL). Instead, we will be doing a program in our home. We will be reading through 6 booklets of information (the photo above is the first booklet) and answering a packet of questions at the end of each book. When we are done reading each book, we will call and schedule a home visit with the social worker who is doing the training(we read book 1 this weekend, so we will be calling to schedule the first visit on Tuesday). The social worker will come to the house and go through our answers with us. Once the foster care license is obtained, we will work with the state to begin the transition of moving the child into our home. There is a process to making this happen, but I have not even begin to understand how that works just yet.
So, NO, I have no idea what the time line looks like for all of this.
At the same time, we will be doing all of the fingerprinting for back ground checks (yes, we have to do all of that again even though ours are still current) and all of the paper work needed for adoption. The 6 visits in our home to complete the foster care requirements will also count as the home visits for our adoption home study. Once we are licensed for foster care, the social worker will then complete a home study for domestic adoption in the state of AL for us.
At this time, we are NOT committing to adopt a particular child. But, everything will be in place so that if the opportunity presents itself, we will have all the paper work done that is needed to adopt. For now, we are commiting to fostering a child...the rest is up to The Man Upstairs.
This is all new territory for us and I will not even pretend to have all the answers.
I know very little about foster care and domestic adoption.
What I do know is what I said above: I can't advocate for children in other countries and ignore a child in my own back yard.
We are very familiar with the needs that this particular child has.
We are more than willing to provide a home for him.
If that is temporary or permanent is not for us to say at this time.
But, we're moving forward to be available to help in whatever way we are needed.

We're open to where ever God calls us to go....
across the world or right here in our own back yard.