Guyana!!!

So, after much prayer and lots of discussion and research, we've narrowed our list of countries down to ONE :)

Guyana (pronounced gy-AN-ə), previously known as British Guiana, is on the northern coast of South America. Guyana has been a former colony of the British, Dutch, French and for 200 years the Spanish. Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries which are not islands and

the population of Guyana is approximately 770,000. About 90% of people living there live on the coast(approximately 10% of the total land area of Guyana). The rest of the country is thick jungle, with little or no roads going into the interior.

The population of Guyana is made up of groups with ethnic backgrounds from India, Africa, Europe, China, with Aboriginal. These groups of diverse nationality backgrounds have a common language, English and Creole.

Some of the biggest problems the Guyanese people are facing are poor health care (with many people dying from AIDS, malaria, and because of bad drinking water...intestinal problems), also poverty is a huge issue.

The reason why we chose Guyana is pretty simple. We had narrowed down our choices to a few countries. Due to the fact that we already have 4 children, a lot of the countries wouldn't look twice at us. We were seriously considering Ethiopia as an option, but in the last few weeks the program for Ethiopia closed. We were also approved to go to South Africa, but the wait list is quite high and they prefer young childless couples. So, the choice left was Guyana and we are very excited about it!! We are happy that God laid out a clear choice for us because we were very uncertain which direction to take!

So, now we wait again. We haven't officially signed any papers, but we have to wait until the homestudy is done to make the next real move. Until then, we will be filing for citizenship or immigration, doing more research, making connections.

Adoption Course Weekend!!

This weekend Derek and I have the second half of our adoption PRIDE course (It stands for something....Parent Resource...It escapes me right now). Anyway, it's a required course for the government of Ontario. You have to have taken this course in order to pass the homestudy. So we are taking it in Toronto this weekend. I am so excited!! When we went to the first half a couple weekends ago I was very skeptical. I was prepared to have to sit through a boring course and get a certificate at the end. But it was a great course. I think a lot of that had to do with our presenters. They are so knowledgeable and they were answering many of our questions. It was very practical.

We learned a lot about how to care for infants who spend their first year in an orphanage. If a child has not had physical touch, or affection during the first year of their life it actually affects how they form attachments to people later on. They need to be shown how to attach themselves to people in a healthy way. It's a huge deal and I will go more into detail after this weekend. But definitely there is a lot of things you have to consider when taking a child from an orphanage and putting them into a home with a family. It's not easy.

Anyway, more about that later....I think I will have lots to talk about on Monday so stay tuned :)

8 Years Ago Today.......

8 Years ago today:

• I was a nervous bride getting ready to marry my best friend
• It was the coldest day of the year (-23!) but I wore sandals because I thought they were cute
• I had to leave my home, my family and my job to live in a new place, which has now become my home
• The words "diaper change" were not part of my every day vocabulary
• I had 200 of my family and friends together in one place at one time!
• I began the most memorable, fulfilling, incredible 8 years of my life so far

Happy Anniversary Derek! I love you more and more everyday!!!

Adopted For Life

A friend sent me a link today for this and I had to share it.

This book, Adopted for Life, by Russell Moore is AMAZING. It was the turning point in our decision to adopt. Every person who is thinking about adoption, has family or friends who are thinking about adoption, or really just if you are part of a church family, or community should READ THIS BOOK. Really, if you are reading my blog I guess that puts you into the "friend or family who is planning to adopt" catagory. So you need this book. It's free, and it's an audio download so you can listen to it while you work.

But it's only available for February. So, get going ;)

http://christianaudio.com/free/

Some Basic Info

I just wanted to give you a little overview of what we will be working towards in the next couple years. Yes, years. This is not going to be a quick and easy thing. Actually the more I read about it, the more I suspect that this is going to take a lonnnnnnng time.

But, that's okay. We are ready for a wait, (although ask me again in a year and a half and I might not be so optimistic).

So here's the quick version:

• Decided to adopt internationally
• Researched agencies to see what options were out there (still doing that!!)
• Contacted an adoption practitioner in October and were told to call back in January
• Met with an agency in November just to get some info
• Met with 2 couples to talk with them about their adoption experiences....learned a lot from that!
• Booked a Homestudy in January and had our first meeting the 2nd week of Jan.
• Had police checks done, fingerprinting done, wrote autobiographies about our lives, answered a hundred questions on questionnaires, wrote financial reports, had medicals done, etc. etc. etc. all part of the initial homestudy meeting.
• Enrolled in PRIDE course (government required course for adoption) and finishing course next weekend.

next step....finish homestudy.

So it's just the beginning, but there is a lot to be done. I have a feeling that we are doing a lot of hurrying up, so we can wait. But that is the way it seems to work!

And it begins......

Many of you already know this, but for those of you who don't:

About the end of September, Derek and I started seriously considering and praying about the idea of adopting a child (baby/toddler) from another country. We have been thinking and praying about it ever since that day and now we are started on our homestudy, taking courses and getting things done!! We are so excited to go through this process and I hope that this blog will be a good way to keep a record of it all. I hope also that this will be a good way for our family and friends to be updated, kept in the loop about the whole journey.

Right now we are in turmoil trying to decide on a country to adopt from. It's a really difficult thing to do. There are so many factors involved and actually where we thought there would be an abundance of options out there for us, there really isn't. We have it kind of, sort of narrowed down....but not really close to making any concrete decisions. Funny because we are really hoping to make a real decision on this issue....by next week. Hmmm.