One section of the application is called our "Statement of Intent." We thought we would share our answers from this section with you. None of these questions are easy to put into words but here they are regardless.
Why do you wish to adopt or be a foster parent at this time?
We are pursuing adoption for several reasons. First off we are ready to begin our family. Laura will be finishing her masters in December and will only be part time working. Starting the adoption process now feels like good timing. The second reason we want to adopt is because we see a need. Since college both of us have researched and been educated on the number of orphans in the world. We want help a child find purpose and meaning when when they often don't have one because of their hard circumstances. As a family we have been praying for an opportunity to adopt since we were first married. We were not sure how we wanted to go about the adoption process but when we heard about the fost-adopt program we just felt like it was right for us. Being a family in church ministry we don't make a lot of money but we still feel we have so much to offer a child. God has richly blessed us and we want to share that with a child.
What do you have to offer in your home and life?
We believe we have so much to offer a child. First off a child will have a lot of people to love them. This of course starts with us but certainly doesn't end there. Any child in our home will also have a strong loving local community. We have a great church family supporting us. Finally, any child in our home will also be receiving a loving, accepting, supportive extended family. Both of us were blessed with strong committed families and parenting which has taught us to be caring nurturing people. We believe this is the type of environment we can offer a child. Both of us have been blessed with good educations and are able to support them academically. In addition Steve has a social sciences background with a degree in psychology to support a child emotionally as well. Above all else we are committed to offering a child or time and attention. They will be our number one priority. Whatever their interests and desires are will become ours as well.
What strengths and weaknesses do you recognize that you have as a parent?
We feel that we have many strengths between us that will make us a good parenting team. One of our strengths include good communication skills; knowing when to talk and more importantly when to listen. Another strength is the ability to work as a team. We compliment each other well in tasks. Another strength of ours is patience. We believe this will be very important when parenting a child who has likely not had boundaries before. We also have the gift of humor. Knowing when to laugh has gotten us through many challenges and surely will get us through many more. We also both have the gift of leadership. We see this as not only the ability to be in charge but also as the ability to motivate someone to reach and meet their goals. Another strength of ours is compassion. We have the ability to open up quickly and care deeply for others. Finally we are both energetic. This is surly a strength when working with children.
Two potential weaknesses we have are, we have never had a child in our home full time before and we're young. A lack of experience of course does give us a higher learning curve but we are no stranger to babies, children, and teens. Steve has worked as a youth minister for three years while Laura has worked as a nanny and childcare worker for children ages 1-12 and as youth helper. So while we have never had a child in our home full time before we feel we are up to the challenge. We also feel that while our age can be a potential weakness (Steve will be 25 in November and Laura 24 in July) it will also give us an advantage in that we will have lots of energy to give.
We will be submitting our application within the next week from which we will then have a face to face one on one meeting with our social worker Rolf. Please be in prayer for us as we fill out the remainder of our application and for those of who will be receiving and reading it. We are so thankful to know we have so many people loving and supporting us as we journey through this process.
woooooooooow!
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