FAQs

Thanks for all of your sweet comments, calls, messages, and fb posts about our referral!  It's been a roller coaster ride so far, but many have walked alongside us since the beginning, and for that we are so grateful.

It isn't over yet, but we are excited that there is hopefully an end in sight very soon!

We get asked a lot about our adoption journey, so I thought I'd answer some of the most popular things people want to know.


1. Why are you adopting?
Because there are millions of children without families. 115,000 adoptable kids in the United States.  17 million in the world without a mother and father. Another 100+ that have lost one parent. 

We are adopting because we have the room in our home to make that number one less.  Or maybe two less. Or three?  Who knows????
   
We are adopting because we have seen the redemption that comes from adoption.  Wherever there is adoption, there is loss. That cannot be denied.  But there is also hope and love and healing.  

It's amazing to us to reflect on the people that God placed in our lives BEFORE Brian and and I ever met each other.  God was weaving adoption into our story long before we ever realized it.   

My brother-in-law and his three siblings were adopted from South Korea in the 70's.
Brian's cousin was adopted domestically.
Brian's bible study leader in college adopted domestically.
Brian's mentor in seminary adopted internationally.
The three women who mentored me and impacted me the most in Atlanta were all adoptive moms.

It seems like God knew what he was doing.  :)


2. Why are you adopting from the DRC?  We researched many different countries, narrowed it to Africa, researched more, and were drawn to the Congo.  The country and it's people stole our hearts.   I blogged about it here.

3.  Why did you leave the second agency, Lifeline?  It came down to a matter of what was best for our family.  Lifeline is an excellent agency- very ethical and reputable, and we would recommend other families to them.  

The fact that in the middle of the adoption process we added a foster child had changed our perspective on what the age we requested for our adopted child.  Because of the uncertainty of the future of our foster child, we felt it was wisest to bring home a child from the DRC that would be younger than him.  

Bringing home a toddler from the DRC would a bring the possibility of much confusion for them in terms of permanency if they had to watch our foster child transition out of our home.   
There were no easy solutions and we have no idea on what the future holds for our foster kiddo. He could be with us for another month, year, or a lifetime.  Based on what we know know and what we hope for the future,  we wanted to make the wisest decision possible for our boys.  

4.  So what exactly are you doing now?   We are contracted with DRC Adoption Services.  Our facilitator is EXTREMELY knowledgable about adoption in the DRC and is well-respected in the adoption community.  We are very excited to be working with them.  Many of the families from our first agency are now working with her as well.

5.  Why the name, Tyson Henry?   We were throwing around a couple of names, and just liked the way Tyson Word sounded.   Henry is for Brian's maternal grandfather.  He was a man that passed away before I was able to meet him, but who I have learned about through Brian's stories and memories.  He was such an important man in my husband's life that we wanted Tyson to have his name.

6.  Why can't we show pictures of either of our boys on the blog?  Well, we would LOVE to- because man, they are the cutest babies on the planet.  Seriously.  But...with J-man as a foster baby, he is not in our custody,  he is in the custody of the state.  So therefore, we can't show his face because he is not legally ours.  We have not yet passed court in the DRC, so Tyson is not legally our son.  That means, no pictures.  

But seriously.   Two. Cutest. Babies. In. The. World. 


Have any more questions?  Would love to answer them!