Our Interview Trip

It was a pleasant weekend for us. Larry and I were able to spend some alone time Sunday-Monday traveling north to our interview for the children. It was REALLY sweet that Larry wanted to spoil me with a rental car so we can hold hands and just be close to one another and also a honeymoon suite with jacuzzi in the room. We went out for steak at Texas Roadhouse. Since we were still somewhat full from brunch at Cracker Barrel we decided to split one. Kind of romantic I think. It was so relaxing spending time away from our children. It has been such a long time since we have spent an overnight away from them all. I was even able to sleep in until 6:30 a.m. Monday morning. That was so extremely sweet. Considering we knew the interview was the next morning, I was completely surprised by a wonderful night's sleep until the alarm went off. Then the butterflies were fluttering majorly.

The interview went rather quickly. We expected an all-day event. We were surprised to be done totally within an hour and a half. First we started out with the three families that made the final cut. The present foster mom spoke of the kids' behaviors, their personalities, their educational background, and their involvement in their church. Other members of the SNAP committee also spoke of the children as well. Then it was time for our individual family interview. We brought with us a big photo album of pictures of our family. It showed a lot of things we do, pics of our home, our garden/yard, etc. While they were asking us a lot of questions, they passed around the photo album. It was funny how one person would lean over to the next and point to some of the pictures and then it was passed to the next and they pointed out something else. Larry did a really awesome job prepping the photos. It was also really neat that we were able to relate to the present foster mom hearing how a typical day goes. She runs an at-home child care as well. We cracked up hearing how she lays out the paper plates everyday for meals except holidays (when Larry said that's when we pull out the Styrofoam they all chuckled). In 15 or so brief minutes of our family interview, they thanked us for our time and dismissed us. The case manager wanted to give us back our photo album but we said to keep it so the kids can look at the pictures often if we were chosen as their forever family. We also told her we ONLY want God's will here. She said she would contact us the next morning with their selection. Larry and I walked out to the car held hands and prayed God Your Will Be DONE! We were really shocked that they were going to make a decision so quickly.... The lives of 5 children to be forever changed.

As we were driving in the vehicle Larry says We know we are obeying God in this but what if they tell us no. Did we still here His voice? My IMMEDIATE thought (as if God Himself were telling me this) was of Abraham and Isaac. God called Abraham to sacrifice his son his only son though Abraham was called to be the Father of Many Nations. He had to be willing to lay his life down and that of his son's if God so desired for God's plan to come to pass. He was seeing if we were going to be willing and obedient. Even if they aren't ours I will be thankful because we know we have ONLY prayed God's will in this.

We headed home and was greeted with a lot of wonderful hugs from our children.