Oregon

Many people asked us throughout our adoption process why we didn’t adopt children from the United States, domestically. The main reason was that we found the other children first, and they just happened to be in other countries! However, we also were afraid of what issues American children might have, since the system here is foster care-based instead of orphanages. Since we were particularly interested in sibling groups, we were almost guaranteed older children, with the different value systems they would have been taught.

But we decided to check it out, and see what it would take, and what children were available. As we expected, most of the children were older, particularly in our area. We also learned that young children are almost exclusively fost-adopted. This means that the children are first in the home as foster children, then adopted later on. We were tentative about foster care, since we’d be dealing with government agencies and likely non-permanent placements. We want to be able to raise our children God’s way, and want them home permanently.

In early 2005, As we researched the children that needed homes, we found a group of children that sounded like they’d fit our family, and their social workers thought we might be a possible fit. So we started up again on our third homestudy, with yet another agency. We had to find a private licensing agency that could work with placing children from any state, since our county’s social system could only handle the workload of their own children.

We also found we would be required to obtain MAPP certification, since the children would almost certainly be in foster care to start with. Our county offers the class on a regular rotation, so we were able to join in a class. Twice a week, and 30 class hours later, we learned about what challenges could be expected from foster children, and how to properly handle them.

Before we’d finished the class in June, the initial group of children were placed elsewhere, so we started putting our completed homestudy out for consideration in other situations nationwide. We were candidates for several groups of children in several states, and were identified as the prospective parents for three sibling groups from Texas, Hawaii, and Oregon – all at the same time!

This wasn’t at all what we had expected, but with much prayer and deliberation, we decided that the three children from Oregon would be the best fit for our family and situation. At this point, all we had was their names, ages, and one small picture, and not much else. We also believed that our family matched what they were looking for, from our family structure, to previous adoption experience, to our experience with additional small children around the house.

In August we were selected as the family for Stephen, Jacob, and Victoria to grow up in. However, we had some more trouble in getting somebody to work with their placement. The agency that did our homestudy was not able to help us with the transition, but thankfully we’d already started working with a private foster-licensing agency that readily agreed to handle the case. After a couple months of more waiting and getting legalities straightened out, we were finally able to travel to Oregon and bring our new children home at the beginning of the 2006.

2005