Praises!!

So, I have decided to start writing on my blog again!  We feel like this will be a good place to post our prayer requests and our praises during our adoption journey.  We know that the road will not always be easy and we want a way to stay connected with our support network without having to fill your email boxes up.
I'm so happy to be able to start out my first post with a couple of praises.  We have been a little surprised by how much money we have spent just buying little things that we need to get licensed.  We took a lot out of savings and bought a lot of the stuff.  There is only one thing I have left that I wanted to get but was waiting until we could budget it in.  I need a rocking chair and I had decided a few years ago that I wanted a rocking recliner when we had another baby, so it would not be cheap.  We are really hoping to be placed with a drug addicted infant so I feel like a rocking chair is very important.  Anyway, Joel went to the north shop on Monday and as he was leaving the owner of his company called him back and handed him an envelope.  Joel did not look at it until later, after he had left.  In it was a check for $500 to help with foster expenses.  We can get our rocker and will be able to use some of it for clothes once we are placed with children.  I cried when Joel called and told me about it.  Thankful not only for God's provision but also for great friends who are supportive of this journey.
Our second praise is HUGE for us.  We have been told numerous times that we cannot homeschool our foster children until they are legally adopted.  That can sometimes take years to be finalized.  I have at times agonized over this because I feel like it would defeat the fact that we have homeschooled our children if we let their siblings attend public school.  We have gone round and round trying to figure out our options and what would be the best course of action if we were placed with a school age child.  Joel has been doing his foster care training classes the last two weeks.  They have a PRIDE book that is like 700 pages or something big like that.  Joel was going through the book and stumbled on a page of questions and answers.  One question was whether foster parents can homeschool their children.  The answer was yes.  He was surprised because that is not what our licensor has told us (she has actually gone out of her way to tell us that we cannot homeschool).  So he asked the social worker who was teaching that class and she said that we can homeschool.  She said that if a child was in a school, the social worker would not likely let us pull the child out to homeschool because that would be too much change.  But, she said that if a child was just entering school then we could homeschool and that many social workers would think that was great because it would be more one-on-one attention for the child.  There are two teachers in the class so he decided to make sure and confirm that this was in fact true.  Last night he asked the other teacher during the class.  She said that we could homeschool but that the social worker would just want to make sure that the child is socialized.  (Haha, that is the biggest homeschooling joke!)  We are just so relieved to hear that we can homeschool.
Our 'big' homestudy is tomorrow from 3-5pm.  I'm not nearly as nervous now as I was for the original homestudy.  We really do not have much left to do before we can get licensed.  So excited to bring more children into our family!  Thank you so much for your prayers.