Adoption

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I mentioned in a previous post that we're in the process of adopting. We haven't had a child placed with us yet, but we're trying to plan ahead for that event. That's what kicked off this move in the first place.

I'll cut to the chase. An RV is not a house, at least in the eyes of the state of North Carolina.

We did what we thought was our due diligence by running our plans past the adoption agency. They were confident it wouldn't be a problem. Turns out they were wrong.

We had a house. We just sold it. We now live in an RV, which is not a house. Oops.

Per the agency, we have two options:
  1. Pause the adoption while we travel.
  2. Buy a house.
Did I mention that we just had a house and sold it?

For the sake of completeness, we also have a third option: don't adopt. We don't consider this a serious option. We've always felt like God was calling us to adopt, and if that's the case, it would be disobedient to give up simply because circumstances got complicated (especially since it's our own fault).

As of this writing, we aren't sure what we're going to do. We aren't keen on the idea of pausing while we travel. I'm 42, and there is no guarantee that we will receive a placement immediately after unpausing. Pause for a little while, take a little time to renew the home study after that, wait for a placement... all of a sudden I'm 50 with an infant. Can it be done? I suppose Abraham would say so.

One option is to purchase my parents' house. They live 10 minutes from our old house. Now that we just took away the reason they moved to North Carolina (their grandkids), they will probably move to Georgia (to be near their other grandkids). If we buy their house, we wouldn't plan to live in it, but it would be enough to appease the state for adoption purposes. And we'd almost certainly come back to it when we have a child placed with us. Plus, we've save some money on the transaction by cutting agents out of the mix.

Another option is to transfer our adoption to Georgia, since that's our ultimate destination. What is not yet clear is the cost of such a move. We've spent a lot of money so far in North Carolina, and we'd prefer not to go back to zero. But if we are able to apply some of those funds to Georgia, we may do that. Of course, we'd probably still need a house (it's unclear if Georgia shares North Carolina's insistence on stationary housing).

If you feel led to pray for us on this journey, this would be a great place to start. As unclear as the future is with regards to our trip (we've only planned out the next two weeks), that doesn't concern me. We can book the next campsite (and if we can't, there's always Cracker Barrel!). What we can't do is control the timing of a placement.

But we're at peace with that. We're trying to do our part and let God do His.
Location: Poinsett State Park, 6660 Poinsett Park Rd, Wedgefield, SC 29168, USA

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