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I think the name of that list our kids need to be on is the “Special homes finding list”

Still no action on our passports at the State Department.

We bought Brenda a late birthday gift – a sewing machine. Her old one was not working very good at all. She’s excited to become a sewer (isn’t our English language wonderful?)

While on our way to an Independence Day parade in Eagan, our rear side-opening window exploded. Mitch was sitting right there and it sure surprised him. It made a mess in the van. We couldn’t find any rock or other item that may have been thrown at it, so it looks like it was just one of those things. A trip to the junkyard, $30 and a little time and it’s all back together again.

Church is at our house tomorrow. We’re (mostly Brenda, since I’m working this weekend) frantically getting the house ready.

Some families fight to stay out of the world, to not be influenced by it too much. I think our family has a tendency to fight to not become too legalistic, like the Pharisees were. Our family is around very conservative ideologies, which is good – and I don’t mean to sound like we’re not also striving against the world’s influences on us, but it seem we also really have to watch the other extreme. Here’s an example: more children, either biological or adopted does not mean someone is more holy or worthy of salvation in God’s eyes. More children just means more children. I think the correct position to be in , is to welcome what God has for you and not to judge others.

Only a month? It seems much longer than that! But it has been 7 days since my last entry.

I talked to our adoption counselor yesterday. It went pretty well and we learned a little more about where we’re at in the whole scheme of things.

All of our initial paperwork is in – nothing is missing. We’re not waiting to take an “Adopting Older Children” class at Hope Adoption Services the first week of August. We’ll meet with our adoption counselor the day before, I think for the 2nd meeting of the home study – the Office Visit.

We will be going to a get-together for people who have adopted and those waiting to adopt from the Philippines. It’s on the 29th of July. There will be 2 ICAB (Inter-Country Adoption Board) people there. We’re not supposed to say anything to them about CSC (Children’s Shelter of Cebu) or that we found some children that we want to adopt.

In Sandy’s Blog (LINK) she mentioned that 7 children will be going to Manila for paperwork in anticipation of adoption. We found out that the 5 children are not part of that group. That is comforting, though we’re not even anywhere near getting any children yet. We just hope and pray that the group of 5 will still be available when we’re approved and waiting to be matched.

Crossroads is trying to find out if those 5 children are on the special list where we can choose the ones we want to adopt. I can never remember the name of that list. I’ve heard it a few times and thought I received an email with the name of it, but can’t find it anywhere. I’m sure it’ll come up again. I guess that CSC decides which children get on that list. Maybe, since they know we want to adopt them….  If they’re not on the list, we’re at the mercy of ICAB to pick children for us. We would rather not have that happen. We’re sill praying for, and believing that God will let us adopt the family of five from CSC. But we need to trust that God is doing what’s best for everyone.

I just checked our passport status at the State Department’s website. They don’t have us in their system yet. It’s only been a week.