A Big Day For Our Family

As many of you know, for the past 8 months, our family has been navigating through the difficult and wonderful process of foster-adoption. Last July, Jasmine (6yrs), Brian (4yrs), and Shamie 3 (yrs) moved into the already chaotic land of the Freng house, and joined with (collided with may be a better phrase) Noah (7yrs), Isaac (3yrs), Dan (31yrs) and Kelly (31yrs) to form a new and expanded family. For those of you who have not visited Kelly's blog, I highly recommend you taking some time to read through some of her posts. I have posted the link (Life As a Party of 7) on the "Blogs I Read" section of this blog. Kelly is a great writer and has done a wonderful job of honestly and humorously (sometimes with a healthy dose of sarcasm) chronicling this journey.

Here is an excerpt from the most recent post from her blog, which shares the exciting news of an awesome event that will happen this Friday:

The end is in sight.

On Monday we received word that we would be finalizing our adoptions of Jasmine & Brian this Friday. We are super excited. We then leave for Spring Break in the new vacation HOT SPOT-South Dakota. When we get back we will finalize our adoption of Shamie.

It is a very confusing process-the easy way to "get it" is that the kids are followed by two different counties based on where their parents were living when the kids were originally removed. Make sense!?! No, not to us either. It's a crazy process that we are glad to be bringing to a close. The real work will begin when the adoptions are finalized. We won't have caseworkers, guardian ad litem's (GAL's), and every other person on the planet coming to our house every month. At the same time, we won't have as many people to call if we are having "problems". Our support staff will reduce drastically. It will all be worth it though.

Keep us in your prayers for this huge event in our lives, our travel with 5 little beings (praise God we are NOT bringing the dog this time), and for our general well being. History has shown us that transitions, changes, and "big" events tend to trigger some behaviors & frustrations. I have to remember that while this is awesome and amazingly exciting (for us), it is the final slamming shut of that small window of possibility that the kids will be reunited with their birth parents. For us, this is obviously a blessing. For the kids-or at least Jasmine-this could be tumultuous. When you are a kid-your parents are your parents. Even if they do NOTHING right-they are still your parents & you love them. You don't know better & you don't know it any other way. Please pray specifically for Jasmine that she would be comforted during this confusing time in her life.

Thank you all for all of you care, support, and prayers as we have moved along through this process. Please continue to pray for us and don't be afraid to give us a call or swing by the Casa de Freng to enjoy a bit of time in the whirlwind we call home.