A letter to this precious child...

Dear Sweet baby girl we've come to know and love,

This is a big week for you, yet you probably don't even know it. As three families prepare to have their lives forever changed as your prospective parents, I can't help but think of you, on the other side of the world, oblivious that your future is about to be changed forever. Today, you are an orphan who is lovingly looked after by your foster mom: the only mom you've ever known in your short 6 months. I think about you as she cares for you, plays with you and tucks you in at night and the bond you two must share. We are thankful for the love she and your foster family gives you each day until your forever family comes to bring you home forever!

This week, three families will all go through the grueling process of being presented at committee to be considered as your forever family. We can't speak for the other families and how they must be feeling, but we know that we are filled with anticipation. We are excited for you, sweet one. In just three short days, you will no longer be an orphan. You will no longer be 1 number of the 147,000,000 orphans out there. You are a cherished, chosen daughter of a family who is coming for you! For that we give thanks to our Heavenly Father! What a miracle indeed! On Thursday afternoon, we will have our answer and you will be the newest member of a family!

We are unsure of what the outcome will be, but we have HOPE in the ONE who does know the outcome already. He knows who your forever mommy and daddy are and He's chosen them just for you. We are continually praying for this week, as we know it will change the course of your life forever. If you are our daughter, we will thank the Lord that He has given us the daughter we've longed for for so very long. We will cry tears of joy for this abundant blessing and we will diligently work to get you home in our arms as quickly as possible. If you are not our daughter, we still rejoice knowing that you have a mommy and daddy who are perfect for you! We will always have a special place in our hearts for you because through you, we are one step closer to bringing our daughter home. Sweet girl, you've changed our lives forever. We honestly hope that you are our child and we can't wait to have you in our arms, but regardless of the outcome of this week: you will be someone's chosen daughter and that brings joy to our hearts!

As we pray over you, the committee, your foster family, the other 2 families and for fast paperwork: we are filled with such emotion knowing that you will have a great mommy and daddy regardless of which family is chosen. You are blessed, little one! I pray that God begins a work in your heart now and that He uses you in a mighty way throughout your life! You've got a lot of people praying for you, baby girl!

We love you and that sweet face and those almond-shaped eyes. Blessed is the family who gets to kiss that sweet face.

And because I prefer to post pictures on my posts, I thought I'd share this one. This is a picture of the locks at the top of the Seoul Tower. Couples (mostly) go up to the top of the Seoul Tower and place their lock on the cable wires and then throw the lock off the mountain. This signifies eternal love because the lock can never be undone. When we travel to Seoul to bring our baby home, we plan to place a lock signifying that the love of our family is forever!

In one week...

In one week we will know if this sweet girl is our daughter! We can't share her picture on here b/c well, quite frankly: it's not ours to share (yet), but let me assure you, she is PRECIOUS! I can't wait to get my hands on that hair and look out Becky Lollar, I'm gonna need some bows!

So, here's where we are. We finished up our questionnaires and sent them in (it took us 20 pages). I'd like to give a big shout out to my high school English teacher who made me write all those essays; I put those skills to good use over the last week. We need to schedule our phone interview for early next week and then ... committee meets NEXT THURSDAY (May 20th) to choose her family. Right now, there are 3 families going to committee for her and we should find out that day if she is ours or not.

I called our caseworker for our homestudy and touched base with her about getting that knocked out, ASAP. I really made a mess out of one of the forms, so she is sending me a new one. I'll give the credit to the nerves and sleep-deprivation and the end of the school year craziness.

How crazy is it that in 1 week we will know if we are the parents of a 6 month old little girl who is 1/2 way around the world? I think it's awesome - and terrifying - and exciting - and just about every other emotion all at once. But then I think about how none of this is unknown to God. He knew who her forever family would be well before she was even conceived. He knows exactly the child He has for our family. I'm finding comfort in the fact that He is in control.

So, here's where you come in. We need your prayers. Pray for this little girl. Pray for the committee (can I just say I would NEVER want to be on that committee). Pray for us and the other 2 families that are all eager to welcome home this little girl. Pray for super-dooper-ultra-fast paperwork with no holdups so she can be home with her forever family soon!

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." - john 14:18

UPDATE: Our phone interview is set for Wednesday, 5/19 at 4:00 Central (2:00 Pacific) and should take about one hour. Please be in prayer Wednesday and Thursday as these are critical times that will change the rest of our lives and the life of this precious little one!

Questionnaires

Holy, moly! I don't think I've EVER written so much in 24 hours and I'm only done with the first set. There are 3 sets in all that need to be completed before committee.

So far, I have completed the Adopting a Child of Color. This form is specifically for families who are adopting children outside of their race. One of the questions is: How will you keep your child in touch with her cultural heritage? That's an easy one, but it still took 3 good paragraphs. The other two forms are the Child Specific Forms (that one has 20 questions) and the last one is Child Behaviors Worksheet. It'll probably take me the rest of this week (and maybe the next) to complete these.

Once our forms are in, we will have our phone interviews. After our phone interviews are done and our answers to these questionnaires are reviewed, the committee will meet to choose a family for this child.

So far, we know that 5 requested the file and as of 5/5: 3 families have decided to proceed and one family has declined. We are still waiting to hear from the last family to either proceed or decline. So, potentially we would be going to committee with 3 other families who also want her just as much as we do.

That catches you up on where we are and what we can expect next. Keep praying mighty prayer warriors! ~Paula

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding"

I've known this verse practically my whole life. I've memorized it many times during my school years and ran across it at many times over the years. Proverbs 3:5 instructs us to trust God. Why is that so hard? I think most of us have difficulty trusting God from time to time. But God knows what He is doing. He knows the future, He knows everything, so why do we have so much trouble trusting the One who knows everything?

There are probably many reasons why trusting is difficult. God's ways don't always make sense to us. God told Noah to build an ark. It may have never rained up to this point and the nearest body of water was probably many miles away. It could not have made much sense to Noah at all. We want life to make sense. We always want to set our own terms and timetables.

We have another file of a precious baby girl. We've had it reviewed by two pediatricians and both said "looks like everything was done right and we have every reason to expect a good outcome". So it's time to kick in that mega-trust. Okay, God, we hear You. We trust You. We have decided to proceed with this baby's adoption. We are uncertain of the outcome. We know that other families have her file and that considering her good health, we are prepared for many families to decide to proceed to the committee process. We are not sure if we'll be chosen or if this is just another marker on our road to bringing our daughter home, but we do know that God has asked us to take a leap of faith in this and that He is in control. We are trusting Him and not leaning on our own (limited) understanding. We know that He knows what is best for this child and what is best for our family.

We need your prayers over the next few days as we proceed. We hope that a decision will be made by the committee over the next couple of weeks. This is one giant leap of faith and a scary one, but I'd rather trust God to work "all things for our good" than to not trust Him at all.

Baby girl, this is a whirl-wind journey to bringing you home, but we know that the end result of having you in our arms will be worth every minute of it! We love you with a love so deep that it has to be from God. We're coming baby girl and we can't wait to welcome you home. love, mommy and daddy

~paula

Pictures!

We needed to send in a few recent pics of our family and of our house for our file and thanks to a great friend (and photographer), we have a few new ones to share! Thanks Donny and MaryBeth for your friendship and for offering your services to help bring our baby home.

Paula & Michael

The Sloan 4

The House of Sloan

His mercies are new every morning

I've been in a real funky mood about this process lately. I know it's ugly; I know if anyone has the right to be in a funky mood: it isn't me. How must those 147,000,000 orphans feel daily? I have 2 beautiful children, a wonderful husband who is my partner in this life, a house, 2 cars, and the many conveniences we have as Americans. I didn't struggle with infertility like so many of my friends have. We have wonderful extended families and a load of friends who bring so much joy to our lives. I've been blessed and the Glory be to God! The last referral we had was the file of a little girl and her situation broke my heart. There was a lot going on with her that I will not share here, but it got me down; it took the wind out of my sails.

I finally decided to give it to God. He has called us to this. He has promised He'd be with us the whole way, but why do I feel like I am swimming upstream? Why is it so hard? Why do I feel like I'm doing it alone? I've been praying Lamentations 3:22-23 lately over this. I love these verses: "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." Praise God His mercies are new every morning. I sure need them every morning.

Wednesday night I went to bed discouraged. I prayed that God show me a sign that He has this under control. I asked Him to show me that doing this with Him isn't impossible, but it is possible only with Him. I told Him that I can't be in control of this, that I needed Him to work it out. Fast forward to Thursday, I was working at the church pulling supplies for Sunday morning children's ministry with Jessica (who is also adopting a baby... check out her blog here) and Jacy and I heard my phone buzzing with e-mails. I have 3 e-mail addresses forwarded to my blackberry, so I didn't think anything of it. After lunch, I decided I would check those from my phone before heading home and I saw the words I "Waiting Children-New Referrals". Oh, Praise You, Jesus! I drove home, flew through my door and plopped down in front of the computer to open my e-mails as quickly as I could. There were 5 new children: 2 of them girls that we have a few questions about. We are requesting another file of a little girl. We want to take it one at a time, so we decided to start with the one that we had the fewest questions about.

TALK ABOUT AN ANSWER TO PRAYER! I am not going to get my hopes up. I am not going to start picking out baby names or decorating a room, but I am encouraged that God is faithful, God is in control and that God wants us to bring home a child that does not have a mommy and a daddy. Jesus said: "I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!'

Please continue to pray for us as we pursue this adoption. God is faithful and we're praising Him that His mercies are new every morning!

~paula

P.S. I couldn't resist sharing this pic. of my boys "Working Out" the other night. They must be getting buff for the arrival of their sister!

April Update

We decided to not go to committee for the little girl who's file we had. It was hard on me. Really. Really. HARD. The flood of guilt of saying no to a precious life, but we knew her medical needs were far greater than we could take on. We prayed for peace about the decision, prayed for a family to welcome her home quickly and we prayed for her medical needs. We prayed that God reveal His perfect plan, and the child that He wants to add to our family.

All at the same time, Michael's grandmother was placed in hospice and we were called to say our final goodbyes. We were told she wouldn't make it through the weekend, but to everyone's astonishment, she is still VERY VERY weak, but is still holding on. It's been agonizing on the family. It's gone on for over a month of her in hospice. She is not making blood or platelets, has refused further treatment and her numbers are too low to actually get a good read of where they actually are. This woman is strong. She is a fighter. She is amazing. I have to say that Granny is one of my favorite people in Michael's family. She is funny, brilliant, patient and kind. I don't think I've ever seen her without a smile on her face. She has faith in the Lord and is ready to go home (well, at this point, she is PAST ready to go home and is starting to get frustrated that God hasn't taken her home yet). We will celebrate for her when she is taken to heaven to be with the Lord, but we will cry for what we are losing. She is incredible. Her sickness and being put in hospice has been hard on us, even 3 hours away... especially because we are 3 hours away.


My boys, Robert and Andrew are at 2 different schools. Andrew goes to "preschool" that is 2 days a week from 9:30-2:30. It's what some would consider a "mother's day out". It is amazing and we love it. Robert is in Kindergarten at a private christian school and it's one of the best in the city. I'd actually say it IS the best in the city. We love it too and this year has been great for him! Juggling the schedules of 2 kids at two different schools and trying to keep my head above the water has been hard especially while trying to deal with work, pursuing adoption, completing paperwork, the start of t-ball and baseball practices for the season, volunteering at our AWESOME church, and a billion other responsibilities that we have as parents has pushed me to my limit. I love my life, make no mistake about it! I wouldn't change this busy life for the world, but who, this girl is worn out!

Add to everything that is going on, we have decided to homeschool Robert next school year. There is a lot involved in that decision, but let's just say that God doesn't like me to be comfortable. He likes to keep me on my toes. We are excited about this new adventure. In some ways it will increase my work here, but in lots of ways: it will simplify our lives. We're looking forward to turning the playroom into our school room and begin our learning at the Sloan Academy. I think Timmy (our cat) will be our mascot.

So, that about catches us up on where we are. I have to admit that for about 2 weeks after deciding to say "no" to that particular child, I couldn't talk about it. Not to anyone. I dug myself in a hole and refused to come out. I was in a real funk about the whole thing and I couldn't even bring myself to look at the Holt website; the wound was too open. It hurt too much. Seeing those faces of those children was too much for me. I'm just now getting back to checking my e-mail daily, checking the Holt site daily for updates and I'm ready to begin this again.

Here's a couple pictures from a recent visit to the Memphis Zoo! I can't wait to take our baby girl there. Our zoo is awesome and the boys love it and I know she will too!