Home Study Update

It has been over a month since we were assigned our Case Worker, and I'm happy to report that we have now completed THREE of the four home study interviews!  The visits are not at all what I expected; they are actually a lot easier!  We basically sit at the table talking the whole time, answering questions about ourselves.  At first it drove me crazy because ALL of the questions are ones that we have already answered on paper for our home study agency, which took hours to write, and our case worker has them in her file.  But I suppose that was mainly for us to think about the topics and be prepared to answer them with her.  (And if that's all it takes to complete this home study it's fine by me!)  She did take a quick tour of the house and met our kids, but she didn't seem to be inspecting the place and didn't mention or point out anything that we need to change.  So overall, things are moving along great!!  Thank you all for your prayers!

Our most recent visit ended with our case worker telling us that she will spend the next week typing up the report and making sure she has all of the necessary information, and then she'll give us a call to schedule our final interview and sign some papers.  Our home study packet will need to go through several levels of review before it's officially approved, but she was optimistic that we could get our entire paper-chase done and sent to China by Christmas!  SO EXCITED!!

The best part is that once we are "Logged-In" with China (which means they have received our dossier file and approved us for adoption) we will have about 47% more children available to us on the waiting list.  These kids are still labeled "Special Needs" but they are more minor cases, so China figures they should be easier to quickly to match with a family, and requires that it be a "Logged-In" family so that the rest of the adoption can happen swiftly.  This means that our Child Match could come quite soon after that.... maybe even Christmas or New Year's time! 

Ok...I'm getting way ahead of myself, as usual.  :-)   I am so thankful to the Lord for giving me peace in my heart during this time of waiting.  I know that everything will happen in HIS time, which is the BEST time!

A lovely autumn sunset, driving home from my parents' house