The Referral

After your homestudy and dossier are completed, the next step is the referral. This is where the adoption agency works with the orphanage in the country from where you are adopting to match your request with children that meet your parameters.

Parameters? Yes. When you complete your paperwork, you will be asked a number of questions that define your requested parameters. You will be asked how old of a child or children you would be willing to consider? Would you prefer male and/or female? How many children would you like to adopt? Do you prefer siblings and/or unrelated? Special needs or healthy?

For us we are asking for children younger than Quin (our 4 year old from China). Why? In the birth order of our second group of children, we think it would be special for Quin to be the "big sister". We are also requesting two children? Why? Unfortunately our world is not color blind. So because our newest children will have much more melanin than their pale mom, dad and siblings, we felt that it would be an encouragement to each to have another sibling with the same beautiful skin color. We've also asked for healthy children because we don't feel that God has uniquely equipped us for special needs children. And finally, we've told the agency that our preference would be for siblings, but that if siblings are not available, then we would gladly receive unrelated children. Why? Where possible, we would like for siblings to be able to stay together.

We are reminded that as we go through this process, that God has already known and selected the children He has for us...well before we "set" the parameters.

So what does heaven look like? Let me close by sharing a video of a family we found on YouTube, that may give us all a little glimpse.

Thank you for your continued prayers!