It has been a bittersweet week!
It’s incredibly sweet in that last Sunday we picked up our two new boys and brought them home forever!
It’s bitter in that they left the wonderful foster home where they’ve spent the last two years. Their wonderful “Mommy Juanita” has invested so much in their lives and we are so thankful for all that she has done to make an eternal difference for them!
Despite having many foster kids over the past decade, this will be a new experience for us as we work at integrating these boys who are four and six into our family. They come with more of a life of experiences, joys and sorrows than the other kids that we’ve adopted and are in the process of adopting.
Over the past two months, we’ve had them over for many weekends and then a couple weeks ago, we met with their foster mother and their counselor to tell them that God had answered their prayers, and that He had provided a “forever home” for them. They were excited and have begun to express their excitement at “becoming Beaty’s”.
On Monday, we took them to their new schools and started that part of the transition. On Tuesday, they met their new doctor. On Wednesday, we introduced them to our favorite restaurant! While they have started the integration process, there are many more steps in the process that are yet to come.
Please pray for us as we continue this transition tonight, tomorrow, later this week, next year, and for the rest of our lives!
I don’t know what all of those potential issues may be, but they may include such simple things as:
- Different schedules since both boys are in public school instead of being home schooled.
- Different seating arrangements for meals.
- Different seating arrangements in our van.
- Hooking FOUR kids in car seats.
CHANGES...Needing to remodel our dining room/kitchen and tear a wall out!
CHANGES...Needing to change our laundry area.
CHANGES...Doing more things for more people as these guys are less self-sufficient than our teenagers.
- Differences in parenting styles between birth family, foster family, and now the adoptive family.
- Explaining to people why we aren’t totally crazy for having a “large family” of five kids and then adopting “five more” for a total of TEN kids?!?!
QUESTIONS…would it really cost over $90 withOUT popcorn or pop to take my family to see Narnia this weekend?
QUESTIONS...would it be over $150 to go to a Prairie Thunder game…again withOUT food or souvenirs?
QUESTIONS...$400 for ONE DAY at Six Flags?
QUESTIONS...will we have to purchase THREE Family Pleasers at Monicals?
QUESTIONS...if we only buy off of the Dollar Menu, how many McDoubles and McChickens will it take to feed them all?
- Will the hot water heater keep up with Sunday morning showers?
- How will we keep everybody engaged…from baby-20 year olds?
- Will Verizon ever allow us to have enough lines for these kids?
SCHEDULING extra doctor, dentist, counseling appointments
SCHEDULING extra visits from multiple CASA workers, caseworkers, siblings
SCHEDULING extra trips to the grocery store! How many gallons of milk, koolaid, tea, and coffee will we go through in a week?
Of course, these are just the surface issues, the deeper ones I’m sure will start to come up in the coming weeks.
Please keep us in your prayers as we keep following the Lord in our faithfulness to care for the orphans! (Oh…by the way…join Karen and me on February 19th as we’ll be speaking on fostering at the Orphan Care Conference…we may have more or less answers at that point LOL http://www.
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