"If you have a heart for adoption, don't let fear stand in the way." - Doug Chapman
So we prayed harder. Yes, harder. Sometimes
we ask for us to get pregnant, and sometimes we ask God to direct us if ever he
wanted us to grow our family through adoption. I think we may have confused God
at some point.
A few months before our annual vacation back
to the Philippines, we agreed to go and inquire at the Department of Social
Welfare and Development (DSWD). Now we only have one prayer, for God to guide
us in this decision.
On January 5, 2015, we walked in the office
of DSWD Region IV-A. We were greeted by a very friendly and accommodating young
man and we were introduced to a social worker who handles adoptions. We were
given a list of requirements while the social worker explained that one of the
requirements was a Certificate of Attendance to pre-adoption. Our hearts sank
when the social worker gave us the schedule. We would not be able to attend
because Noli would be heading back to Doha in 4 days.
So.... she gave us the seminar, complete with a
power point presentation right there. I kept saying to myself ‘Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Lord. This is really for us.’ So we went home with the Certificate
of Attendance.
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| Local adoption requirements checklist. Download here. |
After Noli left to go back to Doha, I
worked on getting our authenticated birth and marriage certificates, and NBI
clearances. The rest, we had to get while in Doha.
By March 2015, almost all of our documents
were complete. So I made an overseas call to the social worker who gave us the
pre-adoption seminar. She was so accommodating that she gave us her personal
mobile number!
We learned that in order to file the
application, we must first be both residing in the Philippines. And that would
mean giving up our jobs. So we added another prayer; for discernment if we
should pursue our plans to adopt and move back to the Philippines or not.
Read more of our adoption story in my next post! Like us on Facebook or you can follow me by email or on Google+
I made a pretty checklist for myself so I can monitor the documents we still needed to get. You can download one for yourself here, for free!
I would love to hear your
adoption story! So do leave a comment.
And if you have any questions about adopting, feel free to leave it in the comments. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my abilities.
And if you have any questions about adopting, feel free to leave it in the comments. I will try to answer your questions to the best of my abilities.
