Eyes Wide Open

Here is the workbook we completed for our agency. The workbook was over 100 pages and included a lot of information. Some was helpful, some was not. The first page included an assignment to draw a picture of your adopted child as you picture they will look. We were to include with the picture specific details of what their clothes will look like and pay attention to facial features. We were supposed to give them special items on their clothes such as a button or ribbon. Then we were supposed to look at the child and imagine them asking us for something. We were also supposed to write down how the entire process made us feel. Needless to say, I found this quite amusing both trying to draw something that looked human and also trying to imagine interacting with this strange creature I've just drawn on the page. Fortunately, there were a lot of other pages in the workbook that were helpful. The book was called "With Eyes Wide Open." My child that I drew did not look like the one in the picture on the cover of the book.Our workbook was sent to AGCI - they have reviewed it and said that we had fully completed it. I can't imagine the laughter in their office as they looked at the picture I drew. I feel glad to bring joy to everyone in the AGCI office in Oregon.

We also completed about 10 hours of online training. It was also helpful at times and unhelpful other times. All in all though, we did learn a lot about the potential difficulties in international adoption. Specifically regarding the issue of taking a child with no parents from a culture, language, sights, sounds, smells, and touches that they are familiar with and transporting them around the globe. While this can create an atmosphere of terror for the child, we know that God can heal all of these deep wounds and can fill the void that all of us have apart from Him.