"If You Build It, They Will Come"

My sister may know why I would still remember that movie quote all these years later...

I have been thinking about that quote a lot lately.  My plan for blogging today included sharing pictures of our three new bunk beds.  However, two of the bunk beds were broken when they were delivered today, so they only set up one, and one's not too impressive.  I also have pictures of other chaos that can be seen around my house...boxes of books here and there, furniture sitting in hallways, waiting to either find a new place or to be banished to the garage until we someday buy a bigger house, but those pictures will stay on the camera for now.  Things are changing around here, and it all seems a little strange.

"If you build it, they will come."  I am not exactly sure who the "they" are at this point.  I have no guarantees that they are out there, but still we build.

Our homeschool room is being dismantled, ready to become a fourth bedroom.  They measured for carpet today.  I boxed up hundreds of my books, all the books I think I can live without for a few months.  (Just in case I need them, I made sure to put them into nice boxes with lids, carefully labeled and organized so that I can hopefully find each one without much trouble.)  I measured walls and spaces and found a spot for Brishen's desk in my front room.  I moved a bookcase into one corner of my house, where I just didn't like it.  I tried it somewhere else, where it doesn't look so great.  It is now waiting for it's spot in the garage to be cleared.  Can I get internet in my bedroom?  I sure hope so because my computer armoir will be relocated there in the coming days.  Yep, things are changing.

Our international adoption is going as usual...very slowly.  In fact, our beloved country has not yet given a single referral to anyone.  That's OK.  It could happen tomorrow.  It also may happen sometime next year.  Or never.  We have back-up plans.  We can switch to any other country's program at any time without losing our money or giving up the dream.  We hold strong to the course.  Our dossier is "out there," waiting for a referral.  But things are changing.

We are building.

All it took was a word from a friend.  A thought planted in our heads.  A realization that maybe we don't need to sit and wait.  Maybe we could have a "meanwhile..." plan to grow our family and help out some great kids while we wait.  We really were not planning for this to be our last adoption, anyway.  I knew I wanted even more children.  Jon surprised me and got competitive on Mother's Day at church and told me that someday we would be the ones getting the award in church for the "mom with the most kids" on Mother's Day.  (Luckily we don't go to the same church as the Duggers.)

So, we are building.

We are also taking more required adoption education classes.  We are having to update our homestudy that was considered complete not that long ago.  We are preparing for a social worker to visit our house again, and we know that he will be looking for something different this time.  He will check to see our beds.  All our beds.  He will want to make sure we have 7 beds, to be exact.  7 beds for kids.  1 bed for Brishen.  1 bed for Basia.  1 bed for that little one we hope will come from the land far away.  And 4 other beds.  For who?  We don't know, yet.  We will feel a little silly in a house full of empty beds for a while.

If we build it, they will come.

We are getting licensed through our homestudy agency to adopt through the foster care system while we wait to adopt internationally.  We would like to adopt a sibling set of up to four kids.  Yes, we know it is crazy.  Yes, we realize we have no idea what we are getting ourselves into.  Yes, we know our lives will be changing in millions of big and small ways.  Yes, we know that our family will be too big to sleep over at your house and people will think twice (or 12 times) before they invite us over for dinner.  Yes, we know we may have to buy one of those crazy, giant-family vehicles.  Yes, we have thought about Brishen and Basia and our marriage and our possessions and our budget and homeschooling and all the "issues" these kids will be bringing into our home.

And still, we are building.

We are building a bedroom and adding more beds to the other two.  We are building a relationship with Brishen and Basia that we pray can hold up to the stress that may lie ahead.  We are building knowledge of issues we may face, techniques we may try, acceptance of what we will never be able to change in kids who have already experienced so much life that we cannot take away or make better.  We are building patience (OK, trying really hard) with a system that BEGS for people to adopt sibling groups but then drags its feet when it comes to certifying families, matching kids who are waiting, and then transitioning those kids to their forever home.  We are building inner strength as we navigate this world of unknowns, where we know our children are out there, but we don't know who they are, who will choose us as their parents, or when anything will ever happen.

If you build it, they will come.  I really hope that's not just a line from an old movie.