God is Good!!!!!!

Well the day has finally come!! We had our adoption committee meeting on Thursday September 27th and our meeting went well:) We were recommended for approval. The whole experience was very nerve wracking and uncomfortable, but with God we endured the trial and have now come out on the other side. God is so amazing. Even though we fall short, he always comes through even though we don't deserve it. I am super proud of Eddie. He did so well. He was able to share his testimony with the committee and how God changed his life. It was awesome to be sitting with him listening to him pour out his heart and giving God the glory for changing his life. It was truly one of the moments that I will never ever forget. After the meeting we had a waiting period in which we were waiting to hear what the verdict of the committee was. At about 2pm we recieved an email that stated we had been recommended for approval. We were so excited. We have been through so much as a couple and it was one of those moments when God showed who he is. Only by his grace and by his hands was this even possible and we give him all the glory!!!! With this process now complete we are able to begin enjoying the adoption process. Our application has been submitted to Talahassee for a signature and then it will be sent back to the agency for a final signature and the matching process can begin:) This takes approximatley between two to four weeks. I am so thankful for the great friends that God has placed in our lives to walk with us through the process. I would't even consider these people friends I would consider them our family. We are so blessed that God put these people in our path to walk with us through life and to make us chocolate cake to celebrate the day:) One thing that stuck out to me about the entire process was the fact that we all have a story. Some of them may not be something that we are proud of but those stories are what makes us who we are and what God will use!! If we keep our stories to ourselves out of embarassment or a fear of showing weakness, we are telling God that what he did to change our lives wasn't good enough. We put him and what he did on the back burner. We should rejoyce in telling our stories because it shows how BIG God is and how he still performs miracles in people everyday. I can not wait until the day we bring our child home!!! It will be more proof that God works miracles everyday!!!!!

Be still and know that I am God

Humm....I don't really like the waiting part! Well it's been quite a while  since we've heard anything about our adoption process. We've heard stuff but it has been.....the date had to be pushed back, and pushed back again and pushed back again. Seems like every time we turn around something new has come up. But the strange thing is that a lot has happened during this time. I was able to go on my first international missions trip to the Dominican Republic and Eddie finished school and  got his first job as a lineman. God has blessed us both tremendously!!!!! Even with all these amazing things happening there are moments when we feel like the adoption process Is going no where. I wanted everything to go smoothly and quickly but its not. God has spoken loud and clear and what he has said is not really what I wanted to hear at first and that was BE STILL!!!! If you know me at all, those words don't taste good coming out of my mouth. I like quick and busy and god your telling me to be still!!!! I don't like this!!!! If it's your will for us to adopt why do I have to be still, shouldn't I be moving and pushing it forward until something happens? These are the thoughts that were running through my mind until I got back from my trip and reflected on what I wrote in my journal while I was gone to the DR. While in the DR God revealed something to me, something that I had been telling myself I wouldn't do BEFORE I left for the trip. I was one of those people who said that I would never adopt internationally because there were plenty of kids here close to home that I could adopt and that there was no need to adopt far away. WOW!!!!! Did God sure show me! See while I was there I realized that the orphaned children in other conntries don't have a government that takes care of them the way that we do, the kids here still get food, education and have a home usually with a foster parent but those kids who are in other countries, they don't!!!! Some don't get food, shelter clothing or education. They live in the streets and in orphanages that can't afford to feed them! That is a totally different scenario. See when you adopt those kids you are truly saving their lives!!!! And that my friends didn't sit well with my soul!!!! God opened my eyes!!!! So now my heart is extremely torn and my world is shaken. See, I had it all planned our already. I was going to get my child from the U.S. and everything would be great but now I don't know what to do!!!!!! When I told Eddie this in the back of my mind I was hoping that he would say no and that I was crazy but it didn't happen! He agreed!!!! Now my mind is really messed up! Now the waiting seems okay and I have a peace about the waiting that I can't explain! I have been praying  hard and listening to gods voice but I'm still at a loss on what to do next. We've set up a meeting with the Local adoption committee for September and my heart is okay, right now my heart is okay with waiting for 5 years to adopt and this isn't like me. I can't explain  it !!!! But what I do know is that god wants me to be still right now and wait for his prompting. So that's what I'll do. I will BE STILL! Trusting my God and his plan because his word tells me that he knows the plans he has for me already, plans to not harm me and plans to prosper me and give me a hope and future. I'm clinging to that promise with all of my heart and while I'm waiting I'm serving him! I've planned another trip to Guatemala next year to work with babies at the malnutrition center and I'm so excited!! I have to share this from my trip. I have never ever in my life felt extreme peace and happiness the way that I did when I was with the kids in the DR. I can't even put into words how amazing it was to be loved by them and to love on them. I was the happiest I ever was in my life. It was perfect,  God breathed, and I know it was because I was doing what god created me to do and because I was using the talents that he gave me! It was so special that I felt like it was a small glimpse of what we will feel like the day we go home to heaven because we will be worshiping and serving our God doing  what we were created to do and if that's what heaven is like, I'm Ready!!!!! I also got to feel the love of a child ...,,something I've yet to experience. I can't wait until God gives me that and I know one day he will...but until them I'll be still and wait knowing that it's coming :)

Got the call....

Well, after a crazy stressful week we finally got the call we had been waiting for. Last week was so crazy for us because on Monday I ended up in the ER because of a high heart rate and a fainting spell. I was getting ready to leave for work and when I bent over to get my bag I amlost fainted. My paniced husband said I needed to go to the ER and there we went. The final verdict from the ER doctor was that I was going to be released but they were not happy that they could not get my heart rate under 100 before I left but that there was nothing else they could do until I was able to see a cardiologist. All week and even until now I have been extremely exhausted every day because my heart is constatly working at a high pace so it has been stressful to try and keep up my busy life and rest at the same time. After all that craziness, late Friday we ended up getting a phone call from the agency that will do our final home study. This is the final process before approval. The homestudy will consist of a very long interview process and allows the agency to get to know us in order to be sure that they fit us with the right child based on our personalities and homelife. Our appointment is set for Wednesday May 9th. Please keep us in your prayers. We are so excited. It is one step closer to us having a sweet child in our home. Praise God for all he has done!!!! We have truly been able to see his hand working in all of the process.....

Finally

Well it has been quite a while since I have blogged about the adoption but I just wanted to update everyone on the status. Well, we finally completed our adoption classes......YAY!! We have finally recieved certificates of completion for the adoption 101 class. We have learned a lot through the classes and feel that we are educated on adoption and on how to raise kids who are adopted. I feel like the information that we learned has helped us better understand children and why they behave the way that they do and even adults for that matter.

Now comes the hard part.... the waiting. I recieved an email today from the adoption specialist and our file in ready to be submitted for our home study pending one more document. Let me just say that I have never had to fill out so much paper work and turn in so many documents for anything than I have for this. It was way more than I had to fill out when I purchased my home and purchased my first car. We somehow managed to get it all done though.

Now is when the process gets slow. After our file is submitted for our home study we will wait to recieve a phone call from the agency that handles the home study. We will then make an appointment to have our home study done and wait until this is done. This takes a week or so once the file is submitted to the agency. Then we wait for approval of the home study. Once we have an approved home study we can submit our home study to any agencies that we are interested in and then we wait. I have heard from many that this is the hardest part of adoption, but Eddie and I are confident in God's timing. He knows what child we are going to adopt and when we are going to be able to adopt the child. It could be a month from now or a year from now. All we have to do is wait for the call.....How exciting!!! We can not wait for that day:)

For now, we are focuing on our relationship with Jesus. We are going through a study at church titled Not A Fan and it is really challenging us to take our relationship with Jesus to the next level. We are very excited about this. We are ready to do that as a couple to prepare the way for the child that God is going to bless us with. We are focusing on that right now and praying for the little one that Jesus has for us. We pray for our baby daily. We pray that God be with he or she and their family and that he prepare us for his or her arrival. God is doing some amazing things in us right now. We are growing spritually and are so excited to see the changes that God is making in our lives. However in some instances this had been difficult. We have learned through the Not A Fan Series that there comes a time when you have to put your foot down and stand up for what you believe it. We are doing this but it isn't easy. But Jesus never said it would be easy to be a follower. He said that we must take up our cross daily to follow him. This means following him with all that we have but We want to be sure that when the day comes when Jesus comes back that we are with the followers and not the fans and we want to be sure that we raise our child up as a follower of Jesus and not just a fan.

Changing the World One Child at a Time

I felt like I really needed to share this tonight. After updating my blog I read an email from some friends of ours whom we haven't seen in over a year. They were told that they were not going to be able to have kids and saw that we were adopting and inquired about staring the process. When I read this my heart ached for them because I know how painful it us to find out that you will not be able to have kids but my heart also rejoiced. My heart rejoiced because I know that God is going to bless them with the opportunity to adopt a child and change the child's life forever, as well as theirs. My heart also rejoiced because I see that God is already using our adoption for his works. He is using our adoption and our story to reach others and motivate them to adopt. If this chain keeps going several orphans will be given loving Christian homes. I feel so blessed to be a part of it! If this continues we will be able to change the world. I have committed to pray for this couple daily so that God will lead them to the child he has prepared for them. Gods word tells us that " we should take care of the orphans and the widows in their distress and to keep ourselves from being corrupted by the world" James 1:27. I can already see that God is working in a BIG way and I can't wait to see what he has in store for all of us:)

Half way done

Well tonight was our second adoption class and even though we finished completing our paperwork 30 minutes before class tonight we still managed to get that binder full of paperwork done:)Tonight's class was very interesting we discussed the different ways that trauma affects children. I learned today that trauma can even happen during utero and at birth. Due to domestic violence, malnutrition, difficult birth and preterm labor. This trauma affects the children and causes changes in their brains which creates problems for the children. I also learned that certain emotions are triggered by the 5 senses. If a child had a certain bad memory in a room that was red, the child would associate the color red with the bad experience therefore triggering negative emotions. This was fascinating to me because I could see myself doing the same things. I often connect smells with the loss of my babies and when I smell those smells an emotional trigger goes off causing me to become sad. How much more difficult must this be for a child who has gone through bad experiences. They don't even understand it! Today's class was very informative and I feel like we learned a lot of information that will be helpful to us. I feel that even with getting a younger child we may have to deal with some trauma from birth and utero. We are now half way through the adoption classes and I love the fact that we chose to have an accelerated class. Next week one of our instructors will be visiting our home to help us prepare for the home study. It is all happening so fast and we are getting very excited. Gods blessing is truly evident in the process so far. We are continuing to pray that God send us the right child that will bless our lives. There is still a long way to go in the process and we can't wait to be holding a sweet baby in our arms. God has truly blessed us with a great opportunity. We left tonight with a lot of knowledge and a lot less homework. LOL:) we are clinging to Gods word where it says "thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path", my favorite scripture that is tatooed on my foot, trusting that he will light our path through this journey through the adoption process.

First Adoption Class

Well, last night was our first adoption class and to be honest im a little overwhelmed. There is so, so, so much paperwork. I am also a little scared because now what we've been waiting on for so long is  finally happening. There is so much information to take in, but the one thing that was said during class that stuck out to me the most wasn't even about adoption. It was about foster care. It is so sad that there are no foster families in Hardee county. All the kids who are removed from homes in Hardee county are sent to other counties. How scary is that? Those poor children are dragged out of their homes, sometimes at night and taken to a strangers home in a strange place and have to change schools and their lives overnight. The number of foster kids in foster homes right now is also sad. There are over 2,000 in Highlands, Hardee and Polk County.
It was good to hear about all the resources and support available to adoptive parents. I am so glad to have close christian friends who are also adopting. It will be so great to have them around to help and to be able to walk with them through the process. I know God is going to do amazing things with us and I feel that the relationships being built will be lasting. I can't wait to learn more about everyone in the classes and to learn more and more about their stories.
Last night we were asked to share a little about the reasons why we wanted to adopt. I couldn't do it! I knew that it was going to be too emotional for me to try and share my reasons but my hubby did an amazing job. He shared with me that he had no idea what he was going to say but that he prayed about it and God gave him the words. He said "I don't even know what I said, it just came to me".  I would definately call that a God thing. He continues to reveal himself  and his plan for us daily. We are so excited about it all! Even though we have a binder full of paperwork as homework.....LOL.

Our Story

We are Eddie and Linda Hernandez and have been married for 10 years. We love Jesus and we attend First Christian Church of Wauchula. Eddie and I have just begun our journey into adoption. We have been pregnant four times but due to a condition called an incompetent cervix we lost all of our children at five months into the pregnancy. Our hearts were broken when this happened. We thought we would be like everyone else and be able to start a family with none of these complications but our thoughts were not what God had planned for us. Loosing five children was one of the hardest things weve ever had to go through. After so many years of marraige our dream was to start a family. I can remember an instance during the loss of one of the babies the intense emotional and spirituall conection of a family. I can remember my husband and I holding our baby in our arms (after a 12 hour labor and delivery process) and feeling what it was like to be a family. The amount of love that was in that hospital room was indescribable. We never though we could love someone so much, and then that moment was gone. This left our hearts aching. God through his amazing love for us healed our hearts and gave us the strength needed to overcome and accept what had happened and slowly started showing us his plan. Through lots of prayer and talking with God we decided that God was calling us to adopt. We thought of his word and where it is said that "we are to take care of the orphans and the widows" and this scripture spoke loudly to us and here we are on this journey of adoption....