we will miss you!

As many of you know, Josh and I are in the process of adopting Malachi form the Illinois foster care system. We brought him home when he was 4 months old and we knew from day one that mom and dad had no chance of getting him back. This creates a interesting situation for us. We know that he will be with us forever and that we are his parents, but legally we have no rights. So every time we go to a new Doctor I have to call and have his case worker get consent from the state. If we want to cut his hair, we need consent. We can not sign anything related to his care because we are not legal guardians. Ugh, its a pain, a big pain! We go back to court in october and the state officially takes parental rights and we take the first step towards adoption. He wont officially be adopted for about a year from october. As frustrating as it is Josh and I think about the amazing things that come with adopting a child from the foster care system. We never once have gotten a medical bill sent to our house for him. His 4 months in the hospital right after birth, his week in for UTI, his cardio cath, heart surgery or his millions of doc appointments, we have not had to pay a single penny! And we will never have to! And for those of you who have kids with special needs knows that a HUGE blessing this is! We also don't have any cost affiliated with his actual adoption. Those of you have adopted know that they are costly ranging from $20,000 on up! His therapies? Paid for. We also get a monthly stipened check, altough its not a lot, it allows me to stay home with him. Trust me when I say we are BEYOND thankful that he is provided with all of these things with no cost to us! When we first learned about Malachi and Josh and I began to pray about the adoption possibilities, the financial aspect was huge for us. We were young, Josh was getting his Masters degree and we knew having a child with special needs was going to be a huge financial responsibility. We were not sure if we could provide the finances he needed. We did know that we have more than enough love to give him. Well God answered our prayers and provided ways for Malachi to be taken care of. We are still in awe of this and thankful every day that we have a Father who provides our every needs and that when we worry He will take it all and carry it for us! Amazing!! We are also thankful for Malachi's case worker who worked endlessly to get him EVERYTHING he needs. I can call her with any question or task and she gets it done! We love her and have a wonderful friendship. Well I found out last night that she will be leaving us! She took another position within the agency that is more along the lines of her major. We will miss her greatly and all the hard work she did to get Malachi home with us where he belongs! How do you thank someone like that? There are no words or earthly things we could give her. I do still want to give her something to show our appreciation, got any ideas?