Hope

Last Thursday we oficially mailed of our "Request for Services" (aka application) with Hope Adoption Services to get started on at least our home study portion of the U.S. side of the adoption.  Both Ben and I can't help but feel like the name of the adoption agency is quite fitting. 

You see, when we first started researching adoptions in the Dominican Republic we found a home study only agency we had planned to use since there were no agencies near us that handled adoptions from the Dominican Republic.  However, 14 months later when we called them again to actually apply we were informed they are no longer doing international home studies.  What?!  We thought we had this portion of the adoption adventure already determined and here we were back to square one.

This prompted a series of phone calls, emails, research into countless other adoption agencies local to us.  Pretty much every one of them had the same answer: "We can only do the home study if you are going through one of the countries we already have a program for."  Agency after agency seemed like a dead end.  And then there was Hope.

Hope emailed back after my mom had contacted them for us (she has worked as a county adoption social worker for as long as I can remember).  They told us they would be looking into it and asked me to give them a call.  I called them on Good Friday and it was clear she had been researching Dominican Republic adoptions and knew the same story we did: their adoptions are not "like other countries" and it is common to go straight through the law firm down there.  We had a great conversation and she said they would be willing to help us fulfill our U.S. end of the adoption while coordinating with the Dominican lawyers. 

An agency that was willing to work with us through a program they didn't previously have truly gave us that glimmer of hope.  On top of that, my mom knows them to be a respectable agency and true to their agreements.

So, after our Dominican conference call and continued prayer, Thursday we reached the point of mailing out that "Request for Services" to begin the home study phase.  Thank you, Lord, for hope - in so many senses of that word.