Moving!!!!!

We are moving in 18 days to a new (actually far from it) home!!! It has been vacant for over two years and needs lots of TLC ~~ Clint has been working his tail off trying to demo and rebuild. Hopefully most of the big stuff will be complete. We'll see ~ in the meantime, here are the before pics. We have been working on it for about a month off and on.

Give Thanks!

Saddened having just read a post from someone about hoping they never have to "deal" with more than 2 children, here goes.....

Children really are a "blessing from the Lord" - It says it right in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible does it say raising children is easy. Actually the less comfortable my life is, the more I seek the face of God. Isn't this what he wants! For us to love, need, desire and seek him.

Above all of my other "jobs" in life, mothering has led me to seek the intercession of the Holy Spirit more than all others. 1Thes 5:18 - In every circumstance give Thanks! It's hard sometimes, I know, but sometimes through all the hysteria (fighting, crying, screaming) it helps to just laugh and give thanks to God for all of our "blessings" regardless of how blessed we feel at the moment.

Adoption - Just a little info.

1. You do not have to use an adoption agency in your state!! If your state doesn't have an adoption agency that is actively searching for prospective birth mothers, then look elsewhere. Ask A LOT of questions. How many birth mothers did they have last month and last year, how many adoptive families are they working with?

2. Have your homestudy prepared by a licensed social worker. They can get it done much quicker than most agencies and charge about half the amount of an agency. Call local adoption attorneys, children's homes or anyone else you may know who works with social workers. Most agencies will take a homestudy performed by a social worker.

3. Find attorneys in your town that may work with birth mothers. Give them a copy of your family profile. Family profiles (pictures and descriptions of your family) can be done with scrapbooking software and can be printed at your neighborhood office supply store. Prepare enough for your agency and also for local professionals who may come across a prospective birth mother (doctors, attorneys, pastors.)

4. Not all agencies require an application fee. Most require a $500 - $2000. An application fee may not be prudent unless the agency has a high birth mother/adoptive parent ratio. Some agencies have 3 to 5 birth mothers with about 20 families waiting. Not a good ratio.

5. You can adopt through the most state foster care systems even if you are not able, wanting or willing to foster. The wait may be longer but after you finish the training classes you will be certified to adopt. There are many foster parents who don't want to adopt. Waiting adoptive families who are certified through the state, are first in line to adopt. Adoption through a state has very minimal fees, if any at all!

6. International adoption takes about 12-24 months depending on which country you are wanting to adopt from and the country doesn't put an extended hold on impending adoptions. Cost for international can range from $20,000-$55,000.

Adoption 101

Something I've noticed with many agencies is that they advertise within the church for birth mothers and for adoptive families. Great place to find families but probably not going to be a lot of girls who are pregnant looking for an agency. The agency we found and chose to work with put "ads" in the yellow pages in most major cities in the U.S. This is where girls are going when they are desperate for help and aren't able to go to friends or family. Imagine, looking through the phone book trying to find answers. She desperately looks under abortion and then sees "adoption". She calls the number and a loving voice tells her how special she and her baby are.

This may not be the glamorous way some of us may imagine that birth mothers come to the decision to consider adoption. It is time to come to the realization that if you are adopting, through an agency, it is because someone else is choosing to give up their baby . You have to find an agency that is actively looking to find, counsel and support birth mothers. Find an agency who puts the baby first and treats the pregnant mother with the utmost respect. This is her baby that she is considering entrusting with another family. Your motives must be pure.

We found our agency online through a Yahoo group. Someone posted a comment about an agency who didn't charge an application fee. Of course I called first thing the next morning. It sounded too good to be true. At the time, the wait was (and I think is still) SHORT. The wait was approximately 3-12 months depending on preferences regarding gender and race. I believe I said "we don't have a preference" to which she said "you would probably be in the 3-6 month range." WHAT!! That is not the 4 year wait I was told about when I started this process one month ago. Long story, very short.... Our sweet baby boy was born 3 months after we started the adoption process. We were even at the hospital for the birth! Thinking this was a fluke, we helped some friends using our "process" with another agency. They welcomed a little girl after a 5 month wait. Then again last week more friends adopted through the agency we used, having a fantastic experience.

In closing, no process is perfect, no agency is perfect. Not everyone is going to experience a "quick" adoption. We are going through state foster care for our next little one and realize we will not have near as much control over the process. There are always going to be glitches and setbacks. The purpose of my writing this is to encourage those of you trying to adopt to consider all of your options. Do your research. Work hard and pray for divine guidance. This is not to say that if you do everything "right" you will not have to wait. God's timing is perfect. Prayerfully consider if this is the right thing for your family before you start the process

Birth Mothers

"She didn't want to keep him?" This is never a good question to ask an adoptive parent. Every birth mother wants what is best for their baby. Giving a baby up for adoption is a beautiful selfless act of love. The birth mother is sacrificing to give her child a better life than she is able to give.

Real Parents

FYI ~ If someone has an adopted child they are the "Real Parents" . The child also has birth parents. I know a lot of folks don't know the lingo..... so this is the lesson for the day. You could also share this with your children, if you feel so inclined:) For older adopted children these kind of things can be very upsetting and offensive.

ColorBlind

Do you ever find yourself saying... for example.... "I was at the store and this black girl got in front of me " , etc. Or "a black guy helped me with the directions" ~ Why do we say this? I've heard people say this and I've done it. Do black people say this when they are talking about white people? I'm so curious.... I'll have to ask one of my "black friends" Ha, ha - I just did it.

Anyway, to the point. Davis (8) was talking about a kid he met a few weeks ago and about how some kids had been making fun of him and about how sometimes he curses. For about 2 weeks he would out of the blue start talking about him. One time he said, " mom, I've been thinking about Robert, I feel bad that kids make fun of him." Another time, "Mom, Robert's been on my heart, I've been praying for him". I would say, "good bud. Make sure you always stick up for him even if it's your friends that are making fun of him." He would say," I know, I know" and run off ~ So why was I shocked when I finally met Robert that he was black?! I was so humbled that my sweet little man had never mentioned this fact. I find myself learning so much from these little men I'm raising.

Let's all try to avoid using racial terms. Does it really matter or make a difference to the story anyway?

Homeschool

Does anyone else feel this way.

We send our kids to school to learn ..... academics, socialization, physical education, etc. or at least this is what we want them to be getting out of it. We get them through the first 5 years then hand over the baton and expect that since they are in a school all day that they are getting everything they need in these categories.

Then on Sunday we go to church and they hear their Bible stories and sing a couple of songs and we think they are learning what they need to know to eventually be a spiritually mature adult.

Of course, as parents we have things that are more important to us than others. Many people probably feel like their children are very well balanced in every area. Although, I'm sure many wish there were more hours in the day to share personal interests and convictions.

This is in a nutshell what led us to make the decision to homeschool. I know for most, academics, socialization, and PE top everyone's list. But not for me. I will say that both our school age children have been A honor roll students for the years they attended public school and I want them to learn what they need to to excel in the core classes. It's all the extra's that I wasn't so crazy about. For example, political crossword puzzles for 1st and 2nd graders, really? And freaking them out so bad that we are destroying the environment that if I didn't recycle every can we were doomed, really? Is that really what I want them to be concentrating on. I mean really, there are so many things I really want them to know and we really don't have that long before the are off on their own. SEVEN hours a day learning in a public school that is run by our government, a government I for the most part do not agree with on most issues, at the time being. These are the people who are choosing curriculum and deciding what is most important for my children to be learning. Let me say that I did love the teachers we were blessed with. They all did a wonderful job. But how much control do teachers really have. They pretty much have to teach or not teach whatever the school system mandates.

Towards the end of the last school year we started discussing what was most important to us, in terms of what we teach our children. 1. For them to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, to learn scripture, and to start to understand Biblical teachings. 2. For them to have respect for each other, other children and all adults. 3. To have a understanding of what empathy is for others. To never judge a person based on race, gender, age, by where they live, or by what they wear. 4. To love their siblings as themselves. We wanted them to form a friendship based on love and trust, we wanted them to understand brotherly love (how do you love your neighbor if you can't love your brother?) 5. A love of reading. 6. Math, penmanship, grammar, History, geography, science, and typing. (Of course more academics as the years go on.)

We realized that the majority of what we wanted them to learn and know were not things that could be learned in public school. Through much prayer we decided that God was calling us to take on the job. God entrusted these children to us for a short time. Why are Christians here? What is our purpose? For our family it is to train our children in His ways, to give them a foundation of spiritual truths. A couple of hours a week at church aren't going to accomplish these things.

We may not homeschool forever... For me it is a year by year task (I mean adventure:) I always want to be aware of what God is calling me to do. At least we've had a year to re-group and to re-assess our values. Who knows what God will have for us next year!

More of the "Story"...

I want to share this little part of our story with all of you. While it was happening it seemed sort of like a small detail but looking back even days after it all unfolded we realized how we really had no control over anything, that God had His all knowing hand on every detail of our adoption. We were approved by our agency September 25th. This meant that we would start being shown to birthmothers immediately. We were requesting a girl, any race. Because we were open to race they said that we should be matched or at least shown to expectant mothers within days. A week went by, I called to check in and they said that they didn't know why we hadn't been called about any matches but they were sure that something would come up the next week. I didn't hear anything the next week, but was so busy with fundraisers and homeschooling that I just thought I would wait another week before calling. I called the third week to check in and still nothing but we were at the top of the list. I wasn't pushing the issue too much as we were still trying to pull our adoption finances together. On October 21 I woke up with a terrible uneasy feeling. I called Clint at work and told him that I wasn't sad but everytime I thought about the baby I would cry. Not sad, not happy, just something wasn't right. I told him that whenever I pictured the baby that it was a boy.

When we started this process we had prayed that God would open our hearts to any baby he wanted us to have. We prayed for months that God would reveal his purpose for our lives and what he wanted us to do in terms of adoption. We both had a heart for adoption but we didn't know in what capacity he would use us. When we decided to pursue adopting a baby of our own we then were faced with our openess to race. After praying more about it Clint told me that he felt that if we were doing this for God's glory to provide for a child that needed a family that we should not specify race at all. (This was a personal calling as I know we are not all called to do the same things.) We would just leave it to Him. He knows our hearts and He knows what we can handle. I fell in love all over again with Clint when I heard him say those selfless words. We know that there will be obstacles to overcome, as there are with all children. We have dealt with some doozies with our biological children. We do know that God does not make mistakes and that he will not forsake us. Knowing this has helped us in our parenting. We realize that as parents, we are tools for God to use to lead others to Him and to raise His children that he has entrusted in our care. We are not able to control every situation, and we will just thank God for His grace and mercy day by day.

So back to the first part of the story..... I told Clint that I felt like my inner being (the Holy Spirit) was telling me that it was not up to us to choose whether or not we should have a boy or a girl. If we were doing this we needed to leave it up to God. He agreed.

I called the agency after talking to Clint. My normal adoption coordinator wasn't there so I spoke to someone else. I said that I was calling to make a change to our file and that we wanted to change it to being open to gender. She said that she was having trouble accessing our file and that it looked like it had not been activated. WHAT!!! At this point it had been almost a month. She said that they had matched quite a few babies and that she didn't know what had happened to our file but that she would find out and call us back the next day. At this point I just prayed that if this was God closing the door to adoption that we could be at peace with it. Instead of getting worked up, I decided to just wait until I heard something the next day and go from there. Well, the next day we did hear something. They called and said they were sorry for the mix up and they couldn't explain it, and that it had never happened before. And..... that they had a baby they thought would be a good match for us and could they show the expectant mom our profile. OF COURSE!!! and then she said "It's A Boy" ~ 2 weeks later we met our precious little son. Praise God for being in control and for speaking to us when we are willing to listen.

Our Adoption Agency

We used a wonderful adoption agency in Utah. There website is www.hearttoheartadopt.com ~ If you feel that God has called your family to adopt, we highly recommend this agency. There is no application fee and no money is due until you are matched with a baby. I spoke to them earlier this week and they have 12 babies being born in March that are not matched with families. If you are homestudy ready the wait for black/biracial is about 3 months and white is 6-12 months. (In our case it was about 1 month) ~ They especially need families who are open to all races. These precious babies need good, loving, godly homes ~ please pass this information on to anyone you know who may be interested.

We Finalized!!!

February 17th Callen officially became a Northcutt! Court went great and he slept through the entire event. Normally families meet in the judges office but we asked the judge if we could go into the courtroom and he said Sure!! The boys loved it (Josie was at pre-school) ~ We even asked him to wear his robe. Everything went smoothly. We can't believe Callen is already 3 months old. He is such a precious little gift from God. We are all totally in love with him.

He's Ours!!

Callen Josiah is now a part of our family!!! We left the hospital last night and are staying in Tennessee for about another week while all of the interstate paperwork is filed. He is a doll!! He sleeps all of the time. He was about 4 weeks early but healthy and strong. We are so thankful that God has brought this little miracle into our lives. He will meet his brothers and sister tomorrow! They can't wait~ Thanks for all of the prayers and support from our dear friends and family!