Recommended Reading

We have done a lot of reading in preparation for adoption, some of it has been education required by our adoption agency and some has been preparatory information we have gathered on our own.  We have read dozens of blogs and adoption posts which I will not mention here, but this is a short list of books we have read and a personal review of the books. (Please note that while I can recommend all of these books, I do not necessarily endorse everything in them or all that their authors represent.)

There are affiliate links in this post (meaning that if you click on a link and choose to purchase one of these books, we get a small amount of compensation), but all the opinions listed here are my own.


1)  The first book I read that got me thinking about adoption in a serious way for our family was Family Driven Faith by Voddie Bauchman.  Most of you know by now that adoption was not something that I was at all interested in and for several years, it was not a topic that I was willing to seriously consider.  We were given a copy of this book by family members, and though its theme is not adoption it is mentioned throughout the book and started me thinking in that direction.

2)  The second book I read when we were talking about adoption (even before we had an agency) was The Adoption Decision by Laura Christianson.  The subtitle of the book is "15 Things You Want to Know Before Adopting", and I consider that to be a good description of the book.  The author gives some personal stories from her adoptions as well as some overall good information about common adoption terms, different types of adoption, some of the misconceptions about adoption, as well as some of the challenges and joys.

3)  The summer before we were led to Lifeline, Mark heard Larry Bergeron on the radio speaking about adoption.  He (Mark) called the contact number that was given on the radio and spoke to Mr. Bergeron a few days later.  Mr. Bergeron generously sent us a digital copy of his new book, Journey To the Fatherless.  There is a lot of information in this book: it is not a "light read" but is extremely eye opening regarding the plight and needs of the orphans around the world as well as challenging the believer to become involved in orphan care in some capacity.  There is also a chapter in the book with practical ideas for those who have not adopted to help those who either have adopted or are adopting a child(ren).

4)  A well known book in adoption circles is The Connected Child by Karyn Purvis.  I believe that we now have three copies of this book.  One of them was given to us by a fellow adoptive family and two have been give to us by adoption grant organizations.  There are practical suggestions in this book for how you can help children who have experienced trauma, abuse,  grief, attachment disorders, and difficult behaviors of children who have experienced deep pain and come from "hard places".

5)  After They Are Yours: The Grace and Grit of Adoption by Brian Borgman is the personal story that openly gives the reader a glimpse of good and the difficult times of adoption.  Every adoption story is different, and this one gives some encouragement to those who are struggling as well as some insight to those who might be critical of the decisions that are made by the adoptive family.

6) I first heard a portion of this story on a podcast earlier this year.  The biography, She Is Mine, by Stephanie Fast details many of her experiences as a war orphan in Korea.  Though not all orphans go through what she did, Mrs. Fast shares the difficulties she went through as a child and even after she was adopted by an American family.  The book stops her story at the age of 12, and I look forward to reading her next book detailing her healing, after it comes out.

7)  The booklet Wrapping Around Adoptive Families is available as a free download.  In it are some practical suggestions for how to support an adoptive family.  If you know a family who has recently adopted or is preparing to adopt, it is a good resource for those who want to help but are not sure what they can do.  Click here to get your free copy.

Final Countdown for Travel

A few days ago I posted about waiting.  On Monday, we learned that we do have the final Ministry approval and our documents were filed at the local court on May 7th!  Though we are once again waiting, we are now waiting for the local judge to give us our court date.  Woohoo! We are pretty excited that we are down to the last step before travel and really appreciate all of you who have been and are praying for us.  Please keep praying specifically for the judge to give us our court dates as soon as possible (tomorrow would be awesome :D).

A Time To Every Purpose

I was suprised to check the blog and discover that it has been a month since I posted here.  There are two main reasons.   First, since we finished school three weeks ago, I have spent a lot of time home just catching up on things that I just did not have time to do when we were in school.  I have done some painting, extra cleaning, sewing, and teaching my kiddos how to do some new tasks around the house to add to their list of summer chores.  We have also done some fun things such as a trip to the zoo, a trip to see my brother graduate from college with his masters degree for we girls, camping (daddy and boys while the girls were away), strawberry picking, and a couple of trips to the beach.

Fun at the zoo

The second reason for the silence is that there is nothing to report regarding our final Ministry Approval and travel dates.  We received a couple of brief updates about our daughter in April, but it has been otherwise quiet.  About three weeks ago I asked if there was any news and was told that our local contact (in Poland) had not been give any news regarding our case.  Honestly it is very frustrating, my (our) patience with this whole waiting thing is very thin right now.  King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that there is "a time to every purpose", and right now our time seems to again be just to wait.  Waiting is hard, and though I think everyone who has ever adopted has had to wait at some time in the process, it doesn't really make it any easier.  There are some who have waited longer than we have and others who have waited less time, but waiting is a part of it.  In a few days it will be 2-1/2 years since we were accepted by our agency to begin this process, and in my opinion that is long enough. :-)  We do expect an update on Monday, but it is very possible that there will still be nothing new to report then. We'll keep you posted.

Sto lat

Sto lat - in Polish it means "100 years" and is sung for birthdays, weddings, and celebrations where best wishes, happiness, or long life are being given.  The general meaning behind the song is that you wish for the person, couple, etc. to live for 100 years because they are an important part of your life.  Equivalent songs in English would be "Happy Birthday To You" or perhaps "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow".

To view a translation of the song, see here and here.

Fully Funded

Yes, we are!!  Fully. Funded.

A couple of months back we decided to send out two more applications to grant agencies.  We decided that they would be the last two we would fill out, partially because we are running out of time to send out applications before travel and also because they are time consuming, and we may or may not be given a grant.  

One of the agencies that we sent a grant application to had a deadline of March 15th.  We only had about two weeks to get our information to the agency for the (then) current grant quarter.  It seemed that everything that could go wrong to get that application in on time, did go wrong.  We needed three personal references but had trouble with getting all of them - one of the folks willing to write one happened to be out of the country during the time we needed the reference.  Mark had problems with his email account, we sent the wrong tax forms the first time, and some of the information I was supposed to send to them, I sent to Mark instead of the agency (long story, but I hit "reply" to a forwarded message from Mark  instead of emailing the information to the agency).  We came very close to giving up instead of pushing to get everything done on time. Two days before the deadline, we got everything finished, and then...we were back to waiting to see if we were given a grant.

Today we got an email from JSC that stated that we have been given a grant!!!!  The grant amount is what we need to be fully funded for our adoption.  Have you ever just said, "Wow!"?   Thank you, thank you, thank you, JSC sponsors for your support.

Two and a half years ago we wondered where the money would come from for this adoption.  We did not have it.  When we asked our Lifeline representative about money, she simply said that we are not the only family who does not have the money we need, but she had never had a family not be able to complete an adoption because they did not have the money.  Through this process we have learned that it is true: if you know you are doing what God wants, when you need it, the money will be there. 

This is our house tonight:

Gulasz (Goulash)

Goulash is a dish that originated in Hungary but is popular in many areas of Europe, including Poland.   Gulasz  (Polish word for goulash) is a stew made from beef with green pepper, onion, tomato (paste), caraway seeds, and paprika as common base ingredients.

While we were in the program to adopt from Hungary, I came across this recipe for Hungarian Goulash that we really like.  I have made it many times over the last several months and love that it is made in my slow cooker. Some of the reviews state that it is too bland, but I think it has a great flavor.  It is not spicy, so if you are hoping for something with a kick you will need to add something else for extra spice.

Because it serves twelve,  I usually half the recipe for our family (for now - that may change as our kiddos get older :D).  I put four carrots in for half a recipe and do not always put in as much bell pepper as is called for because my kiddos are not crazy about green pepper.  Served over egg noodles it is delicious and leftovers mesh the flavors together even more the next day.

Yummy Goulash

Pierogies

A friend bought us some food items (imported from Poland) from a local store for us to try.   We have not tasted everything yet (the cabbage and beat salad sounds um, interesting), but I can tell you that the chocolate was delicious!  I think the Strawberry Cream Filled Chocolate and the Hazelnut bars were the favorites here, but they were all pretty good.  All of these items came from Big Lots, so if you have a store near you, maybe you can try them too.

Chocolate Bars...yum!

I also tried my hand at making home made pierogies this week.  Store bought pierogies are not my favorite dish, and I was not thrilled with the flavor of eating even the home made ones after I boiled them.  The filling is delicious though, and as recommended in the recipe, I did try frying them in a little olive oil and dipping them in sour cream. They are definitely good that way - isn't everything better fried?  And since I used olive oil for frying them, you know they are healthy, right?!   :-) 

(I know these are not the prettiest pictures: I was trying to get dinner on the table and just snapped a couple quickly, 

without spending a lot of time on getting the right angle, lighting, etc.)

Home made pierogies before boiling

After boiling and frying in olive oil