The Journey has begun!

Erin and I have been making some big decisions the last couple of weeks. We found out we needed a new transmission for the Camry. We seriously kicked around the idea of selling the Camry for whatever we could get out of it and getting a decent used Honda for around $12,000 - $14,000. We discipline ourselves to live on basically just one of our incomes, so we'd be able to pay it off fairly soon but I kept having an uneasy feeling about getting a new car. As we were driving to a dealership to test drive a car, I realized just the taxes on a new car would cost half as much as fixing the transmission in the Camry. And I'd also been trying to prioritize our money. What's more important, a newer car or a big pile of money in the bank (for reasons I'll explain in a bit). While the prospect of a new car was exciting, it came in too far down on the list of priorities. And as we were driving home from the dealership, we were listening to Dave Ramsey go off on car payments. Basically, if we'd drive older cars, bought with cash and invest our money instead, we'd be millionaires by the time we retire. I also felt a bit convicted by taking out a car loan when I'm committed to helping TFC understand the spiritual bondage that comes with debt.

So our new goal is to save the $15,000 or so that it's going to take to adopt. A new car would be nice, but it takes a back seat (pun intended) to adoption. Yes, we've decided to adopt. We're still in the mourning process of not being able to have our own biological kids (read my initial thoughts here) but we're so excited to be starting this journey. The first step is building up cash, the second will be deciding the agency; and these steps will obviously overlap a bit.

We've received some information from a couple of adoption agencies so far. I've been most impressed so far with abcadoption. In fact, when I was looking through their brochure yesterday, I started crying. Now, it is very difficult for me to admit to this reaction, but the pictures of parents with their adopted kids made me loose it. I realized, "these people are at the other end of the long journey we're about to begin." I knew that the parents in the pictures had gone through the same hurt we've felt when we realized we can't have kids, went through the emotional ups and downs of the adoption process (which we're yet to experience) but now have kids of their own! I saw Erin and me in those pictures and it made me cry. I cried from the pain of our loss, from fear of the unknown future and for the hope that we could someday truly be parents.

Wow, can't believe I just admitted all of that. Please be praying for us!