Another month has gone by and ball season in almost complete. My son's team finished their regular season play 14-0, UNDEFEATED!!! This was not an easy season for him as he went through a slump with his batting. However, he has ended the last couple of games with major hits to the outfield and some extremely nice plays at 2nd base! I, as his mother, am very proud of what he has done to make changes and continue to keep with it even during the hard times.
Then there's my daughter. After hurting her hand during the first session of volleyball and being out for a few weeks, she got right back at it! The 2nd session of volleyball went very well. The team struggled for the first week but quickly learned they needed to PLAY as a team! By the third week, they won the matches they played! My daughter really tired hard to make sure her serves were right on target! She even spent an hour with me at the school park just practicing serves for her game! This girl has focus and is determined to play well next year in 7th grade.
So far, daycare is going quite swimmingly! As of August, I will be as full as I hope to be. While my children will be in school, I will have 3 infants and 2 toddlers to take care of between 7:30 am and 5:30 pm. The good news is that I will only have most of them part time. However, I love seeing each one of them and watching them grow. I'm sure there will be days where I will scratch my head and wonder what in the world I was thinking but I also know that my heart will rejoice!
The next several weeks are going to be busy and interesting. This Friday, I will be closing daycare so I can go to St. Louis, MO for Upward Training! Next week, I will close for the July 4th holiday, and then work for a week. Following that full week in July, I will be on vacation with my wonderful family to Virginia by way of train! I feel like with all this going on, I may just need that vacation and then maybe one away from everyone after that! Ok, not really but it sounds good!
The Lord has been very patient with me over the last few weeks. My patience towards adoption and foster care has been on the short leash. We found out Rick had to have his fingerprints ran a second time because the first set was illegible. That took a little over a month to go through. Within a few days, we found out the next step would be the state doing a walkthrough and getting the daycare exception approved by the state so I could do both daycare and foster care. Throughout this process, I have been pretty peaceful with what has been happening and how it has been happening. However, I hit a big roadblock this last week. Because I hadn't heard anything from either the state or our caseworker, I called emailed her to see if I was supposed to do anything or if she had heard something. She said she would check and get back to me. On Wednesday last week she called me early in the morning. Turns out the exception to the daycare had been denied. We were not approved to do foster care and the state would not be going through our home. I was DEVASTATED. I literally had 1 child napping, 1 child playing, 1 child at camp in Hutchinson, and 1 child at camp in Topeka. I quietly went to my room and cried. I cried so hard because I just didn't understand. Why would God bring me down this road if it wasn't going to happen? Why didn't I just listen to Rick? Was he right? I can't have more children. I can't do foster care. Adoption has already been said no to by my husband. Am I that inadequate? Een as I sit here and write this, I have tears in my eyes. I feel hurt and confused.
I called Rick and tried to inform him. Silly me, don't call your husband crying because he thinks something happened to your children. I was shocked and he thought I was nuts! After all the daycare children went home and my 1 child was in his bed, Rick and I talked. The caseworker had emailed a short reason why we were not approved. In the state of Kansas, if you have a daycare, you may only do foster care if: 1) A child(ren) or child(ren)’s family is known to the daycare provider and is in need of a foster home or 2) The daycare provider has been identified as a possible adoptive resource for a child(ren) in foster care 3)A child(ren) enrolled in the daycare is in need of a foster home OR 4) The daycare provider only wants to provide respite care per KAR 28-4-812 and this is noted on the exception.
While this doesn't make sense in my own head, I'm sure it makes sense in someone elses. So while I was mulling this over, Rick & I prayed about it. I just honestly didn't even know where to go with it. It seems like we have been on this road forever but I know it's only been a short time. Is there where this ends? I don't have the answer to that and neither does Rick. I know God has an answer though. On Sunday, I spoke with a pastor at church about this. After speaking with him and then again with Rick, we have decided to try for respite care. Something you must know though, when we started this whole process about a year ago, Rick had always said, if I knew the child I was adopting I would have no problem letting them enter my home. I find it entertaining that God is slowly narrowing this path from adoption, to foster care to respite care. For those of you who don't know what respite care is, in a nutshell it means we are trying to be licensed as a family that will "watch" other foster care's children when they need a short break. This typically means keeping them for a weekend but possibly up to a week or more if it is approved through the childs caseworker. So while this is not the path I thought I was going to be on at this point, I think God is slowly helping me see HIS path. It has been a long process but I know that whatever happens, it is truly God's doing.
I may be devastated and cry. I may be ecstatic and jumping for joy. I may be just surviving. Whatever it is, I can do it! I can do this because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!! (Phil 4:13)
It may not be pretty and I may need someone to carry me but I will get through yet another bump in the road. I will finish my race for Christ strong and leaning on HIM!
