Choosing Our Agency

I started at Focus on the Family's website which led me to the Cry of the Orphan website. This is a great resource for families who want to minister to orphans...not just for those interested in adoption. There are so many ways to reach out to these vulnerable children. Anyway, within this site was a list of recommended adoption agencies who not only have a passion for the physical adoption of these children, but also that they would have the opportunity to choose spiritual adoption into God's family through Jesus Christ. Randy and I preferred to choose an adoption agency that had an office in our state which narrowed our choices down to two: Bethany Christian Services and Christian Adoption Services. Bethany Christian Services has 70 different locations throughout the U.S. and is very reputable. We chose CAS because they only serve North Carolina, they only accept up to 30 active adoptive applicants at any given time to reduce the waiting period for placement, and they have a "family feel" to their agency. It is not unusual to call CAS and have the head of the agency, Doris Woodward, answer the phone herself. I've been very pleased with how kind, thoughtful, and helpful the staff members are. Also, their response time is quick which I really appreciate. On December 10, 2009, Randy and I went to Matthews, NC with some friends of ours from church to a free information meeting with CAS. This is a required meeting for those who are interested in submitting an application. This meeting was beneficial to Randy giving him a good understanding of what was ahead...what to expect. He came out of it saying, "Yes, let's go ahead and do this." We had started filling out the Preliminary Application in mid-November. I got it in the mail on December 31st. Woohoo! More details about the Preliminary Application to come. :-)