VA legislators consider adoption tax credit again

The 2009 Virginia General Assembly is once again considering an adoption tax credit.  The bill, HB2298, proposes a $4,000 tax credit for qualifying adoption expenses.  A similar bill was introduced during last year’s session but failed to make it out of committee.  Several other states already offer tax credits in addition to the federal adoption tax credit.  If you live in Virginia, I would encourage you to contact your state delegate and voice your support for HB2298.  More information about the bill is available on Richmond Sunlight, a user-friendly legislative tool which is great for tracking bills in the General Assembly.

An Adoption Prayer Team

It’s hard to believe we are already a month into the new year . . .and perhaps also a month closer to meeting our newest little one? I hope so.

After reading a devotion from Proverbs 31 Ministries a few months ago, I was inspired to start reading through the Bible using the One Year Chronological Bible. The scriptures in this Bible are laid out in the order in which events happened, divided into 365 daily readings. It has been really good to get back into God’s word on a regular basis. I am so grateful for God’s grace and mercy. My hope is in Christ and the promise of eternal life through his death and resurrection. There is nothing more important in this world. It is only through asking forgiveness for your sins and accepting Jesus into your heart that you can experience the gift of salvation. If you don’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, I pray you will start seeking him today. Here are some resources to get you started.

We invited some friends from church to join us in praying for our adoption this year. We believe prayer is vital. We are not seeking to manipulate God’s will through prayer, rather we hope that by inviting others to join us on our journey, it will ultimately bring glory to God. So often we are asked how our adoption is going. We keep our blog pretty up-to-date, but not everyone reads our blog. There are times, too, when we have prayer requests we prefer to share only with those close to us.

There have been times in the last month I have wondered how long we are going to be on this journey, and whether we will ever receive a referral. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about our child-to-be. I was encouraged this week by Tisra’s adoption journey – her family had been waiting to adopt through our agency from Taiwan for almost two years. God changed their course and has led them to their daughter…in India! We don’t know what is ahead for us, but we will continue to seek God’s will as we wait on His timing. Thanks for reading!

Adoption Travel Discounts

I came across a helpful article in the Chicago Sun-Times today about discounts some airlines offer parents adopting children overseas. 

“Airlines are very secretive about specialty air fares,” says Ed Perkins, contributing editor for Smartertravel.com. “They don’t advertise them and they’re just not going to tell you about them unless you specifically ask. So ask.” – Read the full article in Chicago Sun-Times, January 18, 2009

Dead Women Walking

Jennifer Su's book, "Dead Women Walking"

I just finished reading Dead Women Walking, a book by Jennifer Su. She is a missionary with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in Taiwan. Su offers a startling and heartbreaking look at the lives of three Taiwanese women and their families. The stories are true; however, many names of the people in the book have been changed, except for those of the missionaries and pastors.

What surprised me most was the physical and sexual abuse these women endured. It broke my heart to hear the abuse the women suffered, some of it starting when they were young. As I was reading, I wondered why, as adults, they didn’t just leave and go get help. But I realized it was often more complicated than that: the women often feared losing custody of their children; they feared their husband’s anger (and the consequences) if he caught them trying to leave; they also feared the shame a separation or divorce would bring on their extended family.

The stories are compelling, yet painful. Praise God that all three women now have found hope and eternal life by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior! As they learned about God’s grace through his Word, they were eventually able to leave behind ancestor and idol worship. One of the women battled demon possession throughout her life – but through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, she is finally free of all the evil spirits that haunted her.

Since the early 1990s, Taiwan has taken steps to protect women and children from abuse through legislation and increased public awareness, as I learned by visiting the Garden of Hope Foundation’s website. The Garden of Hope served as a temporary home for one of the women in this book. I hope and pray the women and children of Taiwan who are in abusive relationships can get the help and support they need.

This book has given me a greater understanding of Taiwanese culture. While these personal stories are difficult and heartbreaking, it is worth reading this book to see God’s transforming power in the lives of these women who, as the author states, “seemed beyond hope”.

Home Study Visit – Done!

We just finished our visit with the social worker for our home study update.  This meeting was with a new social worker, so we were a little apprehensive about how everything would go.  It went really well – I think we probably asked her more questions than she asked us.   My husband said today that our adoption has actually been good for our health and our finances – because our home study requires medical checkups and a review of our financial picture. I’ll admit, though, it was a little depressing looking at our finances this time around, since we have lost money in our 401K and stock accounts.  But at least now we know how much money we don’t have.

Happy New Year!

Hope all of your resolutions are off to a great start! We will be officially starting ours tomorrow, as we stretched our Christmas celebrations into the New Year so we could spend time with all of our family. We started the holidays with colds and ear infections, but we are all healthy again for the new year.

I’ve been following another family’s blog as they are traveling in Taiwan. Greg Adkins and his wife are also hoping to adopt from Taiwan, and traveled there this week to spend some time at an orphanage in Taipei. They took a cooking class to learn about Taiwanese cooking – that is something I would love to do if we have time when we travel.

On the adoption front, we were scheduled to meet with our social worker the week before Christmas for our home study update but we postponed it until this coming week. We went to the police department last week for fingerprinting and we will be spending part of this weekend filling out paperwork required for our home study. Our state recently amended its law on home studies to allow the report to be valid for 36 months, rather than only one year. Hopefully there will not be a need to update our home study again before our adoption is complete.