Thank you to our students!

Our students (and student leaders!) have the biggest hearts!!! This morning, they surprised us with a generous donation for our Adopt a Puzzle Piece fundraiser. They shared that they had been secretly collecting money for weeks! 

"Thank you" does not even begin to express our gratitude to each of our students and leaders. This gift has helped to ease the financial burden of adoption. Your thoughtfulness and generosity means so much to us!!! You all are awesome! 

These students have been some of our biggest supporters and prayers warriors throughout this journey. We are so blessed to know that Baby Dunbar will have so many "big brothers" and "big sisters" to look up to. We love you all very much!!! 

What does "Active" mean?

Many of you know from personal experience, the adoption process has so many steps along the way.  There are many times when you have to hurry and quickly submit certain paperwork or make a quick decision only to immediately have to sit and wait for days to hear back or to move on.  It’s emotional, and definitely tries one’s patience, but it has also taught us (and continues to teach us) more about putting full faith in God.

We have to trust that God’s timing is perfect.  We have to trust that He will make it clear which situations to pursue.  We have to trust that He will provide health and safety for our future children.  We have to trust that He will provide the finances when we need them.  It’s all a process of hurrying up to finish this step, so we can just wait indefinitely for the next step to begin.

It’s hard to update everyone on the progress, when there are times we don’t even know.  However, for the sake of full transparency, we will attempt to update as best we can.

As we’ve mentioned, we are officially “active.”  That is an adoption word that basically means all of our paperwork has finally been completed and we are in a place where we could be matched to a birth mother at any time.  This is one of those “waiting” situations.  We wait to have situations presented to us (a “situation” is where a pregnant birth mother has decided to put her baby up for adoption when it arrives or it could be where a child is already born and has been put up for adoption).  Situations can come up at any point during the day or night.  Some allow us a day or two to pray over and decide, and some allow only minutes to pray and decide.

As we pray over the situation, we ask God if this situation is one for us to present to or not.  Sometimes, God allows a situation to come into our lives not for us to present to, but just for the purpose of us being able to pray for that mother and baby.  Then if we choose to present, the agency (at some point, timing ranges from that day to weeks later) will present our portfolio to the birth mother (along with any other families who chose to present) and she will choose which family she wants to bless with her baby.  At that point, once a birth mother chooses us and the situation is still feasible for us, we would be matched. 

So, that is where we are currently.  We are waiting for potential situations and praying over each one as they come and presenting to the ones to which God has lead.  It’s a very emotional time, trying to make sure we do exactly what God would have us do, but rewarding at the same time being able to pray specifically for these mothers and babies all over the country.

So, we ask that you continue to pray.  Pray for clarity and peace as we journey on.  Continue to pray for mental and physical health of our future children and for the health of the birth mother.  Pray for guidance and direction.  And, of course, pray much for the finances.

We still need to raise roughly $40,000 in order to make this happen.  If you would like to help by adopting a puzzle piece, please contact us at bringinghomeDbaby@gmail.com .  The updated available numbers are below: 
As of August 13 - We are making progress!  Thank you to those who have given already!  We wanted to update on the numbers that have been spoken for as of today (July 25).  Those numbers are: 1-8, 10-27, 29-31, 39, 45, 50-52, 57, 80, 88, 100, 106, 127, 173, 230 and 297-300.  All others are still available!  Thanks again!

(for more detailed information on Adopt a Puzzle Piece, check out our blog entry to the right, called “Adopt a Puzzle Piece and Help Us Bring Home ‘D Baby”)

Thank you and God Bless!

Jason & Caitlin