A new decision for us...

Well, it is official, sort of. Karen and I have decided to pursue a domestic adoption in conjunction with our International adoption through China. You may ask, "how did this come about?" It was really simple...first since we have started the China adoption people seem to always ask us if we considered domestic adoption first. Well, the answer to that is always, "Yes we did". Because we did discuss it and prior to the pursuit of adopting from China. As an explanation to our reasons, here we go...

Karen and I are both older than what some birth mothers are at the stage in the game in reference to their child. Statistically we would not be considered by them, for whatever reason they would look to someone closer to their own age. Not realizing that we as more mature adults are already established in our career, financial stability, and mindset, among other things also. We also did not feel that we would want to go through the emotional roller coaster of possibly being selected and then the birth mothers changing their mind midway in the process of us adopting their child/children. With International Adoption, in particular China, we go through the paperwork, then wait with no birth mother to decide against us or changing their mind. They have already made up their mind by abandoning their child in some cases or being forced by their husbands to adandon in other cases. For whatever reason they have given up their child and now that child, mostly little girls, are in the government's care in Social Welfare Institutes (SWI's). The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) assigns a SWI official to find a child for us and we either accept their choice or reject the choice for us. Either way, no emotional rollercoaster for whether or not we will get a child. Almost a guarantee, sort of.

Now for the way it came about...

Karen received an e-mail from the health room worker at her school telling her about a little girl (I will call her "M")and her brother that are living in a Children's Home here in town. Since M goes to the school where Karen works, she talked to M's teacher. Karen was given a picture of M and brought it home to show me. She is an adorable little girl, btw. After we discussed it, Karen was later talking to her mom and based on her mom's excitement, got excited and enthused by that as the Lord's sign that we need to pursue this.

So you may ask, What happens to Robin and our adoption of her? We are still going through with that. Nothing has changed except that now Robin will have an older sister and brother to come home to also. AWAA has a policy of allowing concurrent adoptions and that is what we will do. I will check into it as soon as I am home from work. To see how this pans out, keep checking back periodically to see the latest. I will post more often than I do now to keep anyone following this updated...later.

God's Blessings to all,
Bob

Life and all its fragility...

Hmm, ever wonder why bad things happen in this world of ours? Sometimes I go off on a tangent about "what the heck is going on here?" But then I stop and think about why God lets bad things happen to good people, or even children. I can only come to one conclusion...it tells us that we as humans have free will. He gave it to us. There are so many examples in the Bible that show us this. Eve giving Adam the forbidden fruit from the tree, the story of Jonas and the whale, and so many others. We are guided by what the Bible tells us how to live our lives, but we also have the ultimate decision to not live that way. Funny thing is, or not so funny is that we will pay the consequences...as much as we may or may not realize that. So many times we as humans do not always do the will of God, but we do what we want to do. Why? Again it goes back to free will. That is our choice, and yes we do bad, we will pay the consequences, we do good we also reap rewards. Oh, don't get me wrong I believe that there is only one way to go to heaven...through believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. I also believe that as a Christian we can do bad things, and still have to pay the consequences of not enjoying as many rewards as our fellow Christians that have lived their lives in faith and done as God wants us to live. So when we see bad things happening to good people and even children, we can only say that those that are doing the bad will pay the ultimate consequences in the end. You, the one reading this may be wondering, "what prompted this blog today?" My answer, all the stupid coverage on CNN's Nancy Grace of Caylee Anthony's disappearance. I sit in the break room at work every night and the TV has CNN's Headline News so I don't have a choice in the matter but to see that junk on TV. I have since started sitting with my back to the TV and reading from the Bible during my lunch break as a side note. So, yes I have had to endure that junk, but that is what prompted me to say this on my blog. There are bad people in this world. Why? Because they either don't believe and their free will has an effect on those of us that believe or some innocent lives that haven't had a chance to receive His word. Well, it's getting late and I need to go, so there you have it, in a nutshell and in my humble opinion. Take it for what it's worth.

God's Blessings to all!!
Bob