Never short

“The hospital settled for less, and the difference between the two amounts covers our home study fees exactly!” Mike and I just stared at the numbers on the paper, in awe of God’s calculations.

After living through financial disaster years earlier in our marriage, including bills from two surgeries with no insurance coverage, fears about money issues consumed me. We lived through days without money to pay the bills or even buy groceries. We couldn’t even afford to keep a phone in our home, and we had to pick and choose what to pay each month. Creditors constantly contacted us, and my self-worth fell extremely low. I couldn’t even fathom a day where we could financially pursue something like an adoption.

Thankfully, our God is faithful. He allowed us to suffer for a while to learn a few valuable lessons. Then, in His perfect time, He rescued us from the pit and set us on solid ground again. Several years later, when we felt the call to commit to the El Salvador adoption, we finally climbed our way back out of all past debt. When we obey His leading and follow, when we step into the waters, He parts them and provides a way. His time arrived for our children to join us, and He would provide the necessary resources to complete this adoption.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised when each time we wrote a check, paid a fee, swallowed the expenses for an evaluation, paid extremely high postage for overnight mail to and from, paid for gas to drive four hours to apostille our documents, (and then drive four hours back), etc., I never found a shortage of money in our account. It reminded me of the widow in the Bible whose flour and oil never ran out (I Kings 7:7-16). Not a single instance existed where we didn’t have the money we needed in time for the next step. Nor did we find ourselves in need. We walked each step by faith. God never let us down.

God’s constant faithfulness reminded us we chose the right path. We faced a financial monster. Yet now, face to face with the monster, God trumped our fear. I will never minimize the incredible ordeal involved in an international adoption process. I now have the utmost respect for anyone who has gone through it in order to bring home their child. But God used the experience in countless ways to show me His greatness in comparison to the fears I face. He strengthened my faith, and He grew in me a patience I didn’t know I could possess, a patience I desperately needed for the road ahead.

Finally, after several months and various trials, we had a complete home study and psychological evaluation in hand. We liked the way the social worker portrayed us as a Christ-centered couple (which I did not expect, coming from a secular agency). We did not see any areas of concern in her report. Our psychologist pleased us by the way he described us, carefully showing how we overcame family history issues and allowed past struggles to help us find our way as a couple and a family with David.

The results of the personality assessment, however, did not settle so well with us. They pointed out the good, the bad, and the ugly. They suggested behaviors that can appear common among certain personality types, such as drugs and alcohol, manipulation, low self-esteem, insecurity, etc. I read through it several times before I understood it said we may show some of those tendencies due to our personality types, but if we did, it would likely be reflected either in the psychologist’s findings or the social worker’s. Once I realized that, I felt better because neither our psychologist nor our social worker portrayed us in any sort of negative light in their reports. That “realization,” unfortunately, would come back to haunt me later.

Once the social worker finished her final report, she turned it in to the agency to put the official seal on it. However, the lady from that agency then e-mailed me with her own concerns after she read through the report herself.

“The financial information you provided only answered the basic questions. Due to your financial history as a couple, I need you to give me a detailed budget of your living expenses to prove your ability to take care of the special needs of two more children. Don’t forget, they will need new clothes, shoes, and other accessories as soon as they come home.”

My heart sank. If they worried about our financial status, why couldn’t they bring that up in the beginning rather than wait till now? But, as we sat down to look at all of our expenses in detail, it actually helped us to take a good look at the physical, psychological, and financial needs of older adopted children.

We made room in the budget for not only their basic needs but also their mental and emotional needs. We found exact numbers for the cost of counseling, the cost of a special activity for each child to help them fulfill an emotional desire, and we still accounted for the cost of food, clothing, shoes, etc. Once again, God proved faithful and showed us ways to live frugally enough so the numbers would work out on paper. We received approval shortly after completing it.

Finally official, the state of Texas qualified and approved us to adopt up to two children from Colombia. Six whole months already passed since we met them. Once again, we felt like we stood on a mountaintop!

Now we could move on to the immigration stage. Once we received our official home study report in the mail, we could set up our appointment to get fingerprinted on this new level. It included another hefty fee of over eight hundred dollars. These prints passed through the immigration stage to approve us to adopt a child from another country. This part could take months of waiting, the last step on the U.S. side of the process before sending the completed paperwork (dossier) to Colombia for approval. It amazed me how many levels you had to be approved on, another reminder of our complete naivety when we began.