I haven’t done a backhandspring in over 7 years, but when we walked out of our last home study meeting last week, I was so excited that I felt like attempting one! Mostly, we are done with our part of the home study, so the question a lot of people are asking is, “What’s next?” (That’s okay – we were asking that question too!).
Currently, our wonderful caseworkers are writing our home study. That should take about a month. Once the correct people in the agency read over it and approve it, it comes to us for final approval. The home study is sent off for CARA approval (initial approval from India), and then, we wait. The wait time for CARA approval could be up to 12 weeks. Once we have that, our agency can begin matching us. They will match us with our daughter according to some parameters we have prayerfully set. All we really know for now is that she will be a girl that is 0-2 years old.
Once we are matched (this could take up to 12 weeks), we will begin working on our dossier. Honestly, I had never heard of such a thing until we began researching adoption. A dossier is basically a fancy word for a whole lot of paperwork that includes our home study among many other things that will be sent to India for more approvals. Even after we are matched, it could be 6-12 months until we are able to travel to meet and bring home our daughter due to several approvals at the national and local levels in India that we have to have before we are approved to travel.
Right now, we are running our t-shirt fundraiser again! We had several people who said they missed out the first time, so we wanted to re-open our online store one more time. Since the weather has finally cooled down, we added a long sleeve and crewneck sweatshirt option. These shirts say “Great is Thy faithfulness” and “1 less orphan; 1 more loved”, which basically sums up our story. Because of the Lord’s great faithfulness to us through Mom’s cancer and death, ministry, this adoption process, and much more, we want to give an orphan the love of a forever family and change her status from “orphan” to “daughter”. What a beautiful picture of the gospel the Lord is allowing us to be a part of! Our t-shirt store closes tomorrow (Tuesday, 11/27), so click here to purchase- https://pattilloadoption2.itemorder.com/
We appreciate your prayers so much as we continue through this process. Here’s some specific ways you can be praying for us:
- Pray for our daughter! It’s very possible that she has already been born. Pray for her safety and care. Most of all, our biggest prayer is for her salvation.
- Pray for our case workers as they write our home study that they would have strength and clarity. I’m sure that’s lots of hard work!
- Pray that the Lord would continue to provide financially. We will have 2 big agency payments due soon, along with other expenses. We can begin applying for grants as soon as our home study is finalized, so pray that we would receive some of those.
- Pray that our adoption would give us opportunities to share the gospel, and that we would boldly take those.
Of course, I can’t leave here without praising the Lord for how He is working:
- Our home study process was smooth and way less intimidating than I thought it would be! It was an encouraging time of getting to know our case workers and them getting to know us. Our agency has been such an encouragement and support in answering our questions and talking through things with us.
- My Palmetto Twist business has been busier than usual this time of year. I owe all of that to the Lord! I know He is using this to provide for us financially.
- Our wonderful family, friends, and church family that have been so supportive through this process and love our daughter already.
If we can be praying for you, friends, let us know! As always, we are so grateful for each one of you. We hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!
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