January 26th arrived and we had our adoption orientation meeting scheduled for 6:00 that evening. We went to an agency called The Children's Home Society, entered an upstairs room, and sat around a conference table. The entire meeting lasted about 30 minutes. The woman handed us papers to complete so that the agency could check our backgrounds to see if we qualify. We gave our basic information as well as our monthly income, monthly spending, whether we want to adopt or foster, and the age range, sex, and race of the child(ren) we were willing to take in.
We selected "adoption" for a boy or girl of any race between the ages of 0 and 12. We were told that the process will be much faster if we are willing to accept a wider variety of kids. Here are other things we were told in the quick meeting:
-The state of Florida will provide a monthly amount of money for fostering and adopting. During the stages of fostering the amount of money is different (according to the individual needs) for each child.
-When adopting the state will ask if you need the continual monthly stipend. If you say "no" you can never go back to receiving the money.
-While fostering you may take children to church, but if they are older you must ask them if they are willing to attend.
-Once the background check is completed, they will call to let us know whether or not we are approved to attend the 10 week training. The training meetings will meet once a week for three hours.
As we were leaving the room I overheard a couple mention that they took the course in 2008 and are still without a child. They were signing up to retake the training course. I waited for them in the lobby and asked if they had any advice for us regarding the training. They shared a lot!
-Their biggest advice was to not do what they did...just take the course to adopt. They said that it was much better to foster to adopt. In their case there were two incidences where they came close to adopting but the foster parents decided to keep the children. The state always sides with the foster parents because it is the child's routine.
-Adoptive parents are told NOTHING about the child's background or medical history before the adoption because they are not yet the legal guardians. Foster parents, on the other hand, are given this information.
-When choosing a child through adoption only, the child is told he or she has found a permanent family. Meanwhile the parents have 90 days to determine whether or not the child is for them. (Or possibly self-discover the child's background or medical history.) If the parents decide they are not qualified to handle that particular child, he or she is returned to the foster system without knowing why.
Our next plan? When we receive the phone call informing us of the upcoming training, they will be told that we are "fostering to adopt". Even if we take care of children that are returned to their biological parents, we will provide a wonderful and loving environment for them in the meantime.
Lesson #2: Our discovered ministry: To temporarily or permanently house homeless children and show them they are loved by us and by God.
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