Bake Sale and other musings

We had our first official fund raising event this weekend at a local craft and vendor fair.  I was very pleased with our success, especially considering what a small crowd ended up being there.  Gabe and Jonah came to help me set up in the morning and then left with their Gran.  Andrew spent the day with my dad working on a new (bigger) dining room table.

Many many thanks to those that baked goodies and to those that purchased.  Each time someone chose their treat and put a donation in the box I nearly teared up.  I also had the opportunity to talk with many people about the foster care system and adoption.  I had a wonderful chat with an older lady who was adopted herself.  It was very touching.  The whole day was a great treat for me.

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Tonight I got to talk to a dear friend that is expecting her first child any day.  I reminisced with her about my own anticipation of having my first and the anxiety and worry over becoming a mother and not knowing when it was going to happen.  Trusting the Lord and waiting patiently, or not so patiently, was so hard!  It was hard every time.  And it's hard this time too.  I'm doing every thing I can to prepare, but there's no labor for me this time.  It's just waiting.  And I don't know what's coming at the end of my wait.  

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Today at church we had a guest speaker for the Sunday school hour.  Pastor Richard from the Glory Gang, and ministry to inner city kids, came to share with us about the work Glory Gang does.  Several people from our church have gotten involved in this ministry recently and I loved hearing about their work.  His stories brought tears to my eyes several times.  He told us about his own father referring to the kids he was working with as "throw away kids" and how that really bothered him at first.  Then he realized that we were ALL "throw away kids" without Christ.  We were worthless.  But in Christ, God adopted us and we became worth something!  

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.                        I John 3:1a

And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.     I Cor. 6:11

 

What's new?

There's not really a whole lot to report right now.  We are in another holding pattern until December 19th.  Between now and then we have a couple of online trainings to complete and some more paper work to gather.  For those that are interested in the details, here's a list of some of the documents required by Buckner.

1. Drivers License
2. Marriage Certificate (if applicable)
3. Divorce Decree (if applicable)
4. Death certificate of spouse (if applicable)
5. Birth certificates
6. Diploma or GED (all of them)
7. Current liability insurance (auto)
8. paycheck stubs or tax return
9. 10 year residency form
10. background check release
11. FBI fingerprint criminal history clearance
12. DFPS history clearance
13. DPS criminal history clearance
14. TB skin test for all household members over age 1
15. pet vaccinations
16. house rules (including rewards and consequences)
17. health inspection (done by Buckner)
18. fire inspection (done by Buckner)
19. Floor plan
20. pictures of home exterior and surrounding areas
21. home child-care plan
22. home schedule (summer and the school year)
23. evacuation plan
24. tax return
25. verification of health insurance
26. will
27. proof of life insurance on husband and wife (50K minimum)

We have a lot of leg work to do in the next couple of weeks!  I think we've completed the first 10 or so on this list.

The online classes we have to complete are:

1. Medical consent training
2. Psychotropic Medication
3. Trauma Informed Care

There are more classes for Foster parents that we don't have to take like CPR/First aid and a few others.





This Saturday we will have a fund raiser bake sale at a local vendor fair.  We've asked several friends from church and community to help by baking items and have had great responses.  Thank you to all who are helping!   If you'd like more information about this event, please let me know.  There will be lots of great vendors there.  I know I plan on doing a little Christmas shopping too, if I can break away from my booth.  I'd love to see you there!  I'm very hopeful that this will be a great starting place for our fundraising efforts.

Thankfulness

As we anticipate the start of the Holiday season, specifically with Thanksgiving this week, I am thinking a lot about what the next year holds.  Our family will likely look very different next year!  While I'm very much looking forward to our family gathering this week, I can't help but be a little sad that our whole family isn't together yet.  I don't get to shower ALL of my kids with love and gifts this year.  Next year will be so sweet though!

This year I'm thankful for all the wonderful people the Lord has put in my life.  Grandparents that love the Lord.  Parents that taught us to love continue in that faith.  And now my children are growing up knowing that Jesus loves them and they are His children.  We are living out many generations of gospel love.  We have all been adopted into Christ's family.  I eagerly await the day that we add to that kingdom.

I looked through the TARE website today at the Waiting Texas children (http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Adoption_and_Foster_Care/Adoption/update.asp) .  It breaks my heart to see all those children waiting for their forever families.  Consider what you can do to help them.

Second PRIDE class

Today we completed our PRIDE training.  This class was much more informative than the last.   Today's topics included discipline and sexual abuse.  Did you know that 1 in 5 kids are sexually abused in some way?  I was absolutely shocked at that number!   We talked a lot about how to deal with the effects of this type of abuse and some of the reactions. attitudes, and acting out that kids do as a result of such trauma.  It was a difficult day!  We pray that wherever our future children are that they are safe from this and loved.

In all likelihood, the child/ren we will get are already in foster care.  The only children that will come into our home are children that are already available for adoption.  Birth parents typically get an absolute minimum of 6 months before their case turns towards termination and ultimately it takes at least a year before parental right termination.  That means that our kids will be in foster care for at least a year before they come to us. I hope and pray that the foster family they are with is loving, affectionate, and Godly.  I pray that God is protecting them.

The next step is "Orientation."  I told the PRIDE teacher that it seems like each step is just the beginning.  We thought the informational meeting was getting started.  Then we thought this class was REALLY getting started.  But with the next class being called "Orientation" it seems that we aren't even started yet.  We are though.  Getting through this class was a big deal.  This may have been the biggest hurdle.  After talking to the ladies at Buckner, I'm not really worried about the rest of the training and licensing.

Orientation will be December 19th.  I'm not sure yet if we can schedule our health and fire inspections before that or if we have to wait, but I should find out next week from the case worker.  After that will be an adoption class and the home study.  Before the home study though we will have to make our first payment to Buckner.  Hopefully some of our fundraisers will be successful before that is due.

In the mean time, we are gathering more documents such as life insurance, health insurance, a floor plan for our house, and photos of the outside of our house. We are also discussing names.  We would like to give our adopted children names that mark them as Shipps.  Just as we have been marked with our Heavenly Father's name when we were adopted by Him, we would like to set our children apart.  We want to be prepared for this change when they come home to us.  We have had an extra boy name for a few years, but no girl names.  And we may need more than one girl or boy name, so we've got some thinking to do.


I am thankful for how far we have come in this process.  I am thankful that our friends and family have come alongside us in prayer and support.  I am thankful for the Lord's provision for our family and the grace He has given us thus far.  Please continue to pray for us, for our current children, and our future children.  Please pray that God would protect us all through this process and bring us together into one BIG HAPPY family.  Please also pray that the Lord would provide the means to this end.

The first PRIDE class

I finally found out what PRIDE stands for.  Parent Resource for Information Development Education.  I'm thinking they could have come up with a more memorable title for the class, but that's what it is.    Here's what the book says:

For people like you, who wish to become foster parents and adoptive parents, Foster PRIDE/Adopt PRIDE is a resource, or a support.  Its goal is to share essential information for your development into a successful new adoptive family or foster family.

This process includes education for all of us.  We'll help you learn the knowledge and skills you need to make an informed decision about fostering or adopting, and to get off to a healthy start. You need to educate us about you and your ideas about adopting or fostering. 

 

 I must say I was a little disappointed with our first class.  I thought we would walk away feeling much more informed than we did.  Maybe it's because we've been preparing for this for a while and had many friends walk this road before us.  There wasn't anything really *new* to us.  Some of what they presented did make us think more about origins and beginnings for the children in foster care.  We have homework to complete before the next class.  We have to fill out information about our own families and history and tell how we were nurtured and by whom, how we nurture those in our lives, and how we would nurture a child placed with us.  Then we have to make a family genogram, or basically a family tree.  (I have a feeling ours is going to look a little boring compared to many.)  This will include births, deaths, marriages, divorces, "cut off" relationships.  There's even a symbol for listing someone who's gender you don't know...Like I said, ours may look pretty boring.  Then we have to make an Ecomap.  Again, this is similar to a family tree but it also shows people outside the family that you interact with.  This one will be a bit more.  In fact, I may need a poster board for this one.

One thing that the instructor/trainer said really stuck with me.  She said that Buckner is in the business of finding families for children, not children for families.  That really got the point of CPS Foster/Adopt across well.  Of course we knew that already, but it still hit home.

We talked about emotions, connections, developmental delays, etc.  We also talked about general child care, fetal alcohol syndrome, SIDS, and behavior issues.  Next week will be the most challenging portion I think, when we talk about sexual abuse and discipline.  From what she told us, these will be the most heated discussions as people generally have the strongest feelings about these topics.

After the class I asked her what we could be working on now in anticipation of the home study.  She told us that while there are things that will need to be done, there really isn't any reason to start on them now.  I wanted to schedule our inspections and such but they told me to wait.  This is me though.  I want to know what needs to be done so I can do it.  I don't like waiting.  I guess I'm going to learn to wait.  We also will have to be ready to write the first check before we start the home study process, so hopefully our first fundraising efforts will go well.  (If you would like to be a part of this, please let me know!)

I've also recently started reading the book The Well Connected Child.  It's been sitting on my night stand for weeks and I've kind of been dreading reading it.   Many friends have recommended it and one even sent me a copy.  I've been afraid to read it because I'm afraid it's going to change my preconceived notions.  And it already has.  It's a good thing, and I suspected it would be.  But I wasn't ready for it until now.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Anticipation

Tomorrow it all starts.  We turn in our official application and we start PRIDE.  I'm sure I'll come back with a wealth of information.  I'm already tired from a long and busy day today.  Here's hoping for a good night of sleep, no back pain, and an attentive mind tomorrow.

Getting Started

In just a few days we will start our PRIDE training.  This is getting very real.  We've made an official announcement at church about our plans to adopt, and we've told most of the people we need to tell in person.  We have a few remaining calls to make before we make it completely public, or "facebook official." Ready or not, here we go!

We are working on a few fundraising ideas to ease the financial burden.  The first will be a bake sale table at a local vendor fair in a few weeks.  I've already asked several friends to donate to this and have had great response.  I hope that many others will purchase baked goods and make this a success.  We are also working on an idea for t-shirts.  I'm really excited about this one and hope to market them well.  I'm not really sure how this one will work out as far as doing a pre-sale or just buying them and hoping we can sell them all.  Any thoughts on this are appreciated!  We've also started a GoFundMe page (http://www.gofundme.com/56ut9o).  This is the first I'm advertising this, so there aren't any donations yet.  I did see on that page many other families with a common goal.  I even found another bigger family that is going the same route we are and is trying to raise money for the same purpose.

That brings me to our purpose.  While the costs for Waiting Texas Children/CPS adoptions are not huge, we will have a few other expenses that we would like to cover.  The biggest cost will be to purchase a 12-15 passenger van.  With 5 kids under 8, we still have everyone in some type of child restraint.  Since we are planning to adopt young children, we will have even more car seats.  Our expedition technically seats 9, but only 6 are in the back and it's tight with 5.  Plus there's NO extra space for strollers or suitcases.  It's time to move up!  We have no intentions of buying anything new, but we need to raise some money to help towards that investment.

If you have any other suggestions for fundraisers, please let me know.

I hesitate to say this "out loud", but right now, we think that best case scenario is that we are licensed by April or May.  That doesn't mean that we will have a placement right away by any means.  But if all goes well, our home will be open in the Spring.  Then the real waiting game begins.