What to Do When One Door Closes

Have you ever heard that old saying, "When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window."?  I think the first time I heard that was watching The Sound of Music when I was a little boy.  I didn't understand it then.  It makes more sense as an adult.

Our family has been on quite a journey lately.  I promised an update a while back and will do my best to fill you in now.  It is such a blessing to have all of you reading this blog.  Thank you for your donations and your encouragement.  Maybe our story will encourage you in some way.

At the beginning of December, as we began the process in earnest with Lifeline Children's Services (Our placement agency) we began to get some information that led us to believe we may have to reconsider our choice of adopting from Peru.  We began praying about this as we went through numerous telephone calls with the workers at Lifeline.  Ultimately, after one very long weekend in the December, we had a long talk with the Peru representative from Lifeline.  Her name is Iris, and she is a very wonderful person.  The long and the short of it is that due to the situation in Peru, as well as some upcoming changes from the Peruvian government, we were told that if we went ahead with Peru we would very likely, "I think the words they used were definitely." be adopting a moderate to severe special needs child.  While both Erika and I believe these are very precious children, we did not feel that this was a commitment we could make.

Our hearts were very heavy because we had already been dreaming about the new member of our family, and this was quite a setback.  Lifeline recommended that we not go with the Peru program any farther.  It began to look as if we would not only not be adopting from Peru, but that we may have to find another agency, which was just as heartbreaking.  The folks at Lifeline are just wonderful, and we hated the thought of having to begin again with someone else.

We had one final conversation in which another program from Lifeline was recommended, and we were put in contact with the social worker from that country.  After a conversation of over an hour, we asked to pray about it for another day.  Both my wife and I felt that this program was God opening another door, after closing the Peruvian door.  We sent in the necessary paperwork and application fee and while on vacation in Florida we received the phone-call and email letting us know we had been accepted into the program.  Praise the Lord!

So where does that leave us?  Well...as of now, it looks like our direction has been changed and we have been accepted into the Hungary Program.  I know...Hungary is a long way from Peru.  It was not a place we had even considered!  We feel at peace about this decision and wanted now to let our readers know.  We are still sharing half of the proceeds from the Walk of Hope with the orphanage in Peru as we had committed to, and we wanted to assure everyone of that.

So what lessons have we learned?

• God can really throw you a curve ball sometimes!
• Sometimes things don't work out the way you planned.
• When God closes a door, somewhere He opens another door.

You may have noticed that the new title of our blog is not "Our Road to Hungary...and Back Again."  This is another lesson we learned.  Don't count your chickens before they hatch!  I did decide to leave the web address the same www.ourperuadoption.blogspot.com  I figured this could be a good reminder of how things work out sometimes as well as an opportunity to start discussions with people who find our blog and wonder why we are adopting from Hungary with Peru in our web address!  If you have some insight or comments you would like to send, please feel free to leave a comment below.  We would like to here from you!

On Monday we will be sending in our first payment of $1500 dollars to Lifeline and that will pretty much drain us as far as funding.  Our next big expense will be the Home Study which can run from $800 - $1500.  We really are not sure yet, as we are waiting on the Lifeline case worker to contact us.  Please pray with us about this cost.  If you would like to help, click on the donate button on the right hand side of the screen and donate directly through PayPal.  Personal checks can be mailed to:

Mark & Erika Foster
P.O. Box 477 Holly Ridge, NC. 28445

As always, if you have any questions, please call me at 910-742-4888