So, as many of you know, our family has been on track to head back to the foreign mission field and are hoping to go to South Asia. Next week Eric and I are going to Atlanta to participate in our mission agency’s (MTW) Readiness Evaluation. We don’t know all it entails (going into it, we’re not allowed to know) but we’ve heard it’s a great, HARD week that comes with lots of good feedback and wisdom. Basically at the end of it we will get a green, yellow, or red light to go back with MTW to Asia. Obviously, we’re hoping for a green or yellow light, but either way, I am excited to have godly, wise people speak into our lives and (hopefully) confirm this call we have felt for so long and also help us know what we can do to prepare ourselves for a life of crosscultural ministry.
So, last fall Eric and I completed pages and pages of applications, short esseys, theological tests, psychological tests, you name it. And the people who will be assessing us next week, from what I undestand, have it all and are going over it this week. I think these people will probably know more about me than I know about me. 
Anyway (onto the point of my post), one thing that we just added to the piles of papers they have about us is a little statement they asked us to include about our plans to adopt. And since many of you might be wondering how our call to missions and our call to adopt overlap, I thought I’d share what we wrote with you too:
We are currently in the process of adopting two children from Ethiopia. We have been interested in adopting for years, but since early 2010 have felt the Lord’s specific call to pursue it at this time. He used many people who have adopted sharing their stories with us, as well as increasing our understanding of the orphan crisis around the world and opening our eyes to the many times in his Word where his heart for orphans and “the least of these” is so evident. We have come to understand how adoption, like marriage, is such a beautiful picture of the Gospel and what our Father God has done for us. We long to live out the Gospel in response to what the Lord has done for us; and for us, part of obedience in that is pursuing adoption. Beyond that, we have always wanted more children and as we’ve learned of the many children in the world that need families, it just makes so much sense to us that this is how the Lord is choosing to grow our family.
As far as our timeline goes, we applied and were accepted to our agency, Celebrate Children International, in November. We have completed our home study, and plan to send our dossier to Ethiopia at the end of this month. If Ethiopian adoptions continue to move at the rate the process has been moving, we expect to have our referrals sometime this spring and be able to bring our kids home by sometime this fall.
In regards to this call and it’s place in our call to overseas missions, we have prayed and sought wisdom about this. We have felt the Lord’s call to long-term missions and don’t see these as conflicting calls at all, but rather, as in missions, another way the Lord is calling us into obedience by graciously letting us do things we are passionate and excited about. We have felt convicted that we could not knowingly accept the referral of a child with chronic disabilities or illness, as life on the mission field may not be conducive to meeting his/her needs. We also acknowledge God’s sovereignty in building our family – whether biologically or through adoption – and view our call to overseas missions through the lens of our primary call to be parents and our responsibility to see to our children’s best interests. At this time we feel certain that life as missionary kids is in our children’s (and future children’s) best interest and so we pursue both of these calls wholeheartedly.