We have some BIG news! In case you haven't heard, we are adopting a child from Bulgaria! God has called us to international adoption and has made it abundantly clear He wants us in Bulgaria. We recently received a referral and are now in the process of paperwork and travel to bring our daughter home!
In an effort to prepare ourselves for this process, we decided to start this crowdfunding campaign. It may surprise you to know that international adoption costs can end up totaling up to $50,000-$60,000. This is why we have set a goal of $15,000 to help ease the financial burden that many adoptive parents face.
We hope that by inviting you to contribute, you will see yourself as a part of this process and a part of the community that will surround our child in the years to come. It truly takes a village!
Thank you and God Bless!
We have a court date! Court will be happening NEXT WEEK! We will then wait to hear exact travel dates, but we should be leaving to pick up, Lord willing, in November! If not, December!
We have been blessed with a generous grant from Gift of Adoption so we have adjusted our goal down to $7,500. Thank you to all who have been supporting us! We can’t wait to update that she’s home with us!
A couple weeks ago, we began our first trip to Bulgaria, filled with excitement and gratitude for our family and friends who cared for our big kids. Our journey went smoothly, and we arrived in Sofia on Sunday. After meeting our translator and settling into our hotel, we eagerly anticipated Monday.
On Monday, we drove through challenging mountain roads to reach our baby girl’s town. Unexpectedly, we went straight to the facility instead of the hotel. Nervously, we walked in, and after a tense wait, our baby girl was brought to us. The brief visit was emotional; we played, I held her, and saying goodbye was hard. Dinner with our NGO helped ease the emotions.
The next morning, our second visit was wonderful. We played outside, and though she was nervous around Ben, she was intrigued by his beard. The caretakers invited us back after her nap, which was exciting. We returned for lunchtime, fed her, and played more. We were invited back again after her nap. By our third visit, she reached out to Ben, showing she was starting to warm up to him.
Over the following days, we had three visits daily. The caretakers noted her strong connection with us and her increased vocalizations, which was reassuring. We cherished every moment of feeding, playing, and snuggling.
Leaving on our final day was heartbreaking. The visit was joyful with laughter and tickles, but parting was painful. We pray she feels our love until we can bring her home.
Returning to Sofia, we faced a canceled flight and a tight connection in Frankfurt. After a tense sprint, we miraculously made our flight due to a delay. Despite the travel chaos, our luggage arrived, and we finally returned home to our kids, relieved and grateful.
Now, we prayerfully wait for all the pieces to fall into place so we can get back to her quickly and bring her home.
It's hard to believe we get to send out this update, but yesterday, we got a call that will forever change us. Our family was chosen for a beautiful little one year old girl. We are still very much in shock, but so so grateful! God is so good! She is absolutely perfect and we cannot wait to get to the final step of bringing her home!
We cannot share more than that at this time, but ask that you please be praying for her.
The next two weeks will be full of appointments, paperwork and scraping together any funds we can to make this referral official! Please pray that we are able to get everything completed in a timely manner and that we can fully trust the Lord to provide exactly what we need (as He has throughout this entire process)!
Please continue to pray for our family. The kids are beyond excited and shared in the happy tears with us yesterday! We all cannot wait to love on her, but as we know, this is a process and we need to get through all the steps that will lead us to pick her up. Please pray that the Lord would be glorified through it all.
With Gratitude,
Ben & Angie Englerth
It's been too long since we updated here! We get asked often how things are going and the answer seems to always be "still waiting." We are officially updated on all our paperwork and back to waiting.
We are focused now on saving all that we can to be prepared for the exciting day when a referral comes. We will owe $9,300 at that stage of the process and then need to travel for trip one a couple months after (estimate is around $7,500 in expenses for that) so every little bit helps!
We feel more and more a deep sense of longing to meet our child. We pray for her every day, many times multiple times a day. Our children talk about her as if she'll be here next week. We have gained so much peace from the Lord and while this process has been full of challenges, the Lord has used every one of them to refine us and bring us closer to Him.
Please pray for our family as we continue to wait and pray that the Lord will provide in ways only He can for our next step. Thank you!
We have had a very busy, but productive week in wrapping things up for our home study. If all goes smoothly, we should have our last visit with our case worker on Thursday and wait for her completion and approval of the home study. Our next step is to complete our dossier. Paperwork has already begun and we anticipate being ready to turn it in sometime in October. This is a huge blessing and answered prayer! As for the financial side of it, we were able to fundraise quite a bit, but still need about $6,000 before we will be able to turn in our dossier. We thank you so much for your contributions in supporting us so far! We ask for your prayers that God will provide what we need when we need it. The best pracitical way you can help us is to simply share our story with everyone you know! The more people that hear about it, the more people God will bring into our journey to support us. Thank you again!
Matched by The Snyders
Matched by The Snyders
Matched by The Snyders
