As if we didn't have a full July already. . .

A new development has occurred. Exciting, right?

This week, we emailed our case worker to follow up on the little boy that was born in April we told you about in our last blog entry and received the following response:

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Sorry, I wish I knew more but I don’t. I left a message for the social worker the other day but she hasn’t gotten back to me.

On another front, I got a call today from a social worker friend of mine at Catholic Social Services. She wanted to know if we had any Hispanic adoptive families. I told her about you guys. They are working with a Hispanic birthmom who is due in July. She appears to be healthy and it would be a Kansas adoption. She isn’t eligible for Medicaid so there would be medical expenses. Do you know if your insurance covers any of that? If you are interested, she wanted me to send her a copy of your profile, photo book, etc. Let me know!
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Wow, right? What a whirlwind this past few weeks has been. So, in addition to Marc traveling to Washington DC for a client event he is working on, Kim's summer school, celebrating our 9-year wedding anniversary and Marc's brother and mother's birthday, we're now in a position to possibly be selected to be parents.

God tends to work our faith when we least expect it.

We decided to at least throw our name in to be considered because:
A. This situation has 90% of the characteristics we have been looking for
B. We're not sure what God is going to do

So, now we're left with a dilemma. We're still working through the details of how we will finance the adoption proceedings and we found out this week that Marc's insurance wouldn't take effect on the child until the adoption date. Kim is checking with her insurance to see if they would pay for any of the medical needs for the birthmother.

The long and short of it is, we've left it in God's hands. We know this isn't the first seemingly insurmountable situation he's come across in the hands of one of His children, so we're trying to focus on the fact that while this problem might seem big, our God is bigger.

We would just ask that you would pray for us for a couple of things right now:
- Last weekend we officially "joined" Vineyard Church and we're excited about getting involved to put our talents to work and pray God continues to open more doors for us there
- If one of these children turns out to be the one He would like us to take as our own, that He would provide a financial and parental plan for us
- We're both under an abnormal amount of stress with our jobs. Marc has been working 50+ hours a week and Kim is more than ready for summer to begin
- A short time ago, Kim joined LA Weight Loss and has been doing great, but could use some prayer to keep motivated

Today, we took some much needed time to sleep in and recoup and went to see Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Oceans 13. Both were great.

And to quote that wise sage Porky Pig, "Eeeb-ba-deee-ba-eeeb-ba-deee-ba-That's all folks!"

Take us to DEFCOM 4: This could be it

Granted, it is a long shot, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Friday afternoon seemed like any ordinary June day except, unlike other days, Kim resisted the urge to check our email immediately after getting home like she normally does. She did eventually come down to find that we had received the following email from our Christian Family Services case worker:
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I received a call today from a social worker regarding a possible need for a family. I MAY have the opportunity to provide some profiles of families to the Jackson County court regarding a situation there. A family went to court today seeking custody of a baby boy born in April and the Commissioner (who functions as a Judge) would not approve them at that time. He instructed the social worker to check with other family members and she was also advised to check to see if there were other resources.

There is a chance the Judge might relent regarding this other family and/or he may pursue going in front of another judge, look at guardianship, etc.

This is a VERY unlikely possibility...but just in case thought I'd check with a few families. I really don't know more than what I've outlined. Sorry. If you think you would like to be presented as an option for this baby please let me know. I'm not back into the office until Tuesday, but I am able to check my email, so you can think and pray about it and let me know by then if possible.
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As you can imagine, we were floored by this message and discussed it together. We especially pondered as to what God would like from this situation. Later that night Marc also offered it up during the discussion time of his Vineyard Celebrate Recovery group and it turned out many of the guys in the group adopted children, worked in foster care or had children in general through God-helped circumstances which really helped speak to him on the decision.

We made the decision to be considered as adoptive parents for this little boy and if it turns out to be God's will for us to welcome him into our home as ours, we would gladly do it.

In addition, last night our friends' daughter Justine had what appears to be a few seizures while she was attending a wedding with a friend and was taken to one of the nearby hospitals. She was unconscious for quite a while and as you can imagine it's been very hard on her parents to see one of their kids hurting. The physicians ran tests on her today and will do so again tomorrow now that she is awake and coherent, but the specialists still don't know the reason behind why it all happened.

So, in light of this "best of times, worst of times" weekend, we would ask that you keep both this little boy that has been presented to us in your prayers and that no matter what, God would provide the right family for him (whether it turns out to be us or another lucky family), and also for Justine, her family and the doctors working on her.

More soon.

Busy, busy, busy

We are in the beginning of the summer busy season. First, the news:

Our pool is now open. Yeah, buddy.

A lot has happened since we last talked in April. If I know our friend Mark Bond, he's probably taken us off his blogger list since we haven't updated it in over his approved 30-day change period. Please take us back Mark, we'll do anything! Well, I guess, if nothing else, we'll still get to look forward to the Chris Tomlin concert on August 31 :).

At the end of last month Kim had some bittersweet feelings about school. It's been a very stressful year with a lot of ups and downs and while she was happy to see it come to a close, she was not excited about losing nine of her students who will be heading to the high school next year. The (sarcasm) nice thing is they will be replaced with seven coming up to the junior high next year. Kim had a nice week off last week and summer school begins for her tomorrow.

Over Memorial Day weekend Kim's sister Jill and her husband Tony drove their motorcycle down from Everly, Iowa for a visit. While they were here we went to Worth Harley Davidson, the new KCFD station off 152 and Brighton and took in Gary Valentine (from CBS's The King of Queens) at The Majestic Improv. Fun weekend:

Yesterday, Marc's brother came to visit and hang out with us for a few hours. For those of you who don't know, it only took 26 years, but he and Marc are back on track. We're hoping he and his wife Lindsey get to come down this summer to spend some time with us.

Last night, we had a little visitor come to hang out with us for the evening. Little Timmy Heil was good as gold and we had fun crawling around the living room, going up and down stairs, stacking blocks and knocking them down, trying out the new Bumbo and wearing the coveted Raiders shield bead necklace:

Yes, he looks good in silver and black.


We received news today that Kim's grandmother Vera is being put into hospice care and may not last the week. Her doctors have recommended taking her off her medications and helping her stay comfortable until God chooses to take her home. As you can imagine, while the family has known this day was coming for a while now, it's still very hard to come to grips with. Please be in prayer for the Law and Fricke families this week, and for Kim.

Marc continues to prepare for an upcoming conference in July in Washington, DC. Praise God that he and his new manager Jason are working well together. That's definitely an answered prayer. Thanks also to God for blessing Marc with some unexpected money he received we will be able to pay off some more debt this year as we continue to save for the adoption proceedings we hope start very soon. On that note, we followed up with our case worker tonight hoping to get some good news about having our information shown to a perspective birthmother. We're also waiting to get a copy of our finalized homestudy to have on file here. We keep praying that God will bless us with a child soon or that He will provide us with understanding and hope while we wait. It's been a tough process so far, but we have the knowledge that the child we receive will make it all worth it.

We have been attending Vineyard Church since March and we love it. We're going to be taking their 101 class this month to get to know their pastoral staff. Marc has already gotten involved helping with the worship team running the video camera during Saturday services and hopes to soon be singing with the song worship team. He's also joined their Celebrate Recovery ministry and he and Kim hope to join a small group after the 101 class. It's great to be a part of a church that is grounded in the passion of holding each other up and sharing Jesus with the community and the world. We hope the 101 class reinforces that God has led us to a great place we can call home.

We are really hoping to take this summer and this year to get ourselves grounded in our marriage and in our faith. We especially are looking forward to taking time to be together and value the time where we are two so we're ready when we become "three."

And so far, Spider-man 3 and Shrek the Third were disappointing, but the Pirates movie rocked. Bring on Transformers on July 4. Yeah buddy. . .again.

More soon.