Our hope for this next season as a family is to "creciendo a seis y creciendo en amor" and we want to invite you to join us on this journey!
Please copy and paste the URL to learn more about our family's adoption: https://youtu.be/OnA6RMI9hT4
What are some expenses will your donation go toward?
Lifeline Children's Services- Agency Fees: $14,550
-Application Fee -Lifeline Children's Service Fee -Orphan Care Fee -Home Study Fee -Administration Fee -Post Adoption Services -Post-Adoption Management
Pre-Placement Fees: $11,875
-Fingerprint Fee -Medical Reports for home study -Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee -Prepare and Enrich Conference -Travel Expenses to Rooted in Love Conference -Dossier Apostilles (sent to Secretary of State) -Psychological evaluation
Travel Expenses: $9,700
Based on required 3-6 weeks In-Country for 2 adults and 4 children: -Airfare -Travel Visas -Estimated Transportation -Estimated Accommodation Cost
In-Country Adoption Fees: $3,600
-In Country Legal Fee -In Country Representative Finalization Fee -Medical Exam for adoptive child -Birth Certificate and Passport for adoptive child -Copies of Authentication of Adoption Decree
Thank you for all your prayers and support throughout our journey to adopt! Many of you have heard us share the typical process for adoption from Colombia as: Program Acceptance, Home Study Approval, US Immigration approval, Dossier Approval, Matching, Travel/Adoption Finalization. However, our process is shaping up to look a little different. SO MUCH has happened these last few months. We hope that you’re as encouraged by God’s provision, kindness, and grace toward us as we have been. Here’s what’s happened…
January: We began compiling documents for our Dossier, which is basically a collection of documents and information about our entire family in much greater detail. They really want to know everything, which of course has taken some time.
March: We received US Immigration Approval. Our adoption agency also reached out and asked us to review a file for a little boy, L**m, who is 4 years old and has Down Syndrome. For several weeks we asked a lot of questions, prayed, and sought counsel from our church family! Lifeline attached pictures and videos of their recent trip to Colombia where they met the little boy in February. In the videos, he was dancing, playing soccer, and wore bright blue glasses! He is so cute and sweet and our hearts have only grown as we have continued in our process. Our children are so excited and often ask about him, pray for him, and include him in our conversations at home. Later in March, we submitted a “Letter of Intent” (LOI) for this little boy. This means that we’re informing Colombia of our desire to adopt L**m, asking ICBF to pre-approve us as his adoptive parents, although they can’t finalize the match until Dossier approval. It was an exciting step forward!
June: Our Dossier was sent off to begin translation and our Letter of Intent was approved by the ICBF! We celebrated and shared with our children who received the news with joy. Then In mid-June, when we received a $10,000 Grant from a non-profit called Show Hope. It was so overwhelming that Eric read the letter and Breanna immediately burst into happy tears. Of course our children were asking, “What’s wrong Mommy?” to which we replied, “Nothing at all, these are tears of joy and thankfulness!” In late June, our friend Jonathan, with the support of our church family and other generous donors, raised over $2,700 at a Basketball Tournament Fundraiser in one day! We have been so encouraged by our church family in this process and are extremely grateful for them!
Late July/early August: We became aware that Colombia has added another requirement for the Dosser so even though ours was translated and ready to be sent off for approval, we’ve had to do a lot of back and forth to have this “character study” added into our Psych Eval. Two weekends ago, we had the opportunity to travel to Birmingham, AL to the Lifeline Children Services headquarters for a conference called “Rooted in Love.” It was extremely helpful in centering us back on the aim of adoption as an imitation of the heart of God toward us while also teaching us a lot of information and practical tools to work through the brokenness (trauma, sensory issues, grief) that comes as a result of there even being a need for adoption. We also got to meet and hug our amazing Case Worker, Morgan (pictured above). Finally this past weekend, Matt and Liz, Bre’s brother and future sister-in-law, held a Colombian-themed tapas and wine fundraiser in California. With the help and generosity of so many people who will likely never meet us, they raised $1,745.
Looking forward: This dossier delay has pushed us back a bit, but since our LOI has been accepted, we will be eligible to be officially “matched” with L**m as soon as our dossier is approved. At this point, we expect to travel to finalize our adoption of L**m in roughly 5-7 months. We’re also only $2,083 away from our fundraising goal, praise the Lord! We’re anticipating this Fall to be a season of mostly waiting (while likely updating any forms that will expire) and preparing our children, our home, and our hearts to welcome another precious son into our family!
Ways to pray for us…
-Thank the Lord for how he's used so many people to provide for our adoption!
-That this new document would be completed and translated quickly so our Dossier can be submitted in August, allowing us to enter the “matching” phase before our LOI expires in November.
-God would continue to prepare our hearts and our children to love and receive L**m into our home.
God would provide the rest of our financial support for the adoption and we would practically prepare well for traveling in the soonish future.
-God would save our children and L** from their sins and show them the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ.
It's hard to believe that it's been four months since our first adoption update! We’re learning that this journey can feel like a relay race—made up of sprints, handoffs, and waiting before we sprint again. We’ve also been learning the value of using those waiting periods to rest, spend lots of time with our people, and cultivate healthy habits as a family. Our most recent wait was over the holidays. We hung a white stocking above the fireplace for our fourth child (pictured above) to remind us that even if we don't know who they are yet, they are already very much a part of our family in our hearts.
But as we round out the latest sprint and enter another season of waiting, it feels like a great time to fill you all in on where we’re at…
1. The Adoption Process—waiting for US Immigration Approval!
After our last update, we spent all of September until the end of October doing everything it takes to complete the home study (4 interviews, home tour, compiling proof that everything we’ve said about our life is true, FBI fingerprinting, etc.). In November, the North Carolina social workers reviewed and made edits to the home study so it meets NC and USA standards while we got our family’s medical exams done. Through December we waited as the Latin America team reviewed and edit it to meet Colombian standards. Our social worker (who we’ve grown to love these past few months) got it back two weeks ago but because it wasn’t finalized before January, we had to go back and update all of our financial paperwork again for 2023. Phew! Thankfully our Colombia case worker told us to go ahead and complete our US Immigration paperwork last week and mail that over. Today home study will be officially finalized then attached to our paperwork to be mailed to The Department of Homeland Security... then we wait again for our adoption to receive “US Immigration Approval”.
The last and final step in this process before we’re eligible to be “matched” with our future child is Colombian approval of our Dossier. We’re hoping compiling our dossier is something we can work on while we wait for our immigration approval. This will include our home study, our immigration approval, then anything else required by Colombia to be approved to adopt from their country.
2. Fundraising—Halfway there!
Here’s a detailed explanation for where we're at with fundraising:
- AdoptTogether [ongoing]- $11,091.25 (there is a 5% fees on each gift which is why this number isn't truly $11,775)
-Direct Giving through Venmo/Cash [ongoing]- $2,935
-T-shirt Campaign [ongoing]- $505.57
-Tiny Theologians Fundraiser [closed]- $68.53
-Online secondhand clothing sale by BudgetBeautBri [closed]- $362
-King's Cross Church [closed]- $2400
Our Harvest Fest fundraiser was such a joy and encouragement! The Van Eerden family at Magnalia Homestead Foundation were so kind to give of their home, land, resources, time, skills and energy to help us host such a fun day—there was horseback riding, a petting zoo, a bounce house, yard games, bull riding, good food, and great company. The overall donations (after reimbursing vendors) came to $4,616.48. We are so thankful to all of you who came.
Total: $21,916.30/ $42,000
What’s next? Now that our home study will be finalized, we’re eligible to apply for various adoption aid grants and scholarships so we plan to spend out winter months working on those applications. We’re prayerfully trusting that God will continue to provide for the cost of our adoption through whatever means He sees fit.
3. Our Hearts—grasping the weightiness and glory of what’s to come!
In a world where negative stories and statistics tend to have the loudest voice, we’ve been so comforted by the truth and promise of Isaiah 26:3 “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.” As we get closer to being matched, there is a real weightiness to knowing that our child will not only have some kind of special need that will come with it’s own challenges, but also that the life they’ve lived before joining our family has included brokenness that is also unknown to us right now. When we want so desperately to become a home where love and secure, lasting relationship brings healing, it’s easy to fear all the ways we will fail. It’s also tempting to think that pursuing this hard thing takes away our right to be open about it’s hardness because it’s something we’ve so explicitly pursued. However, we’ve been reminded this week that what we’ll need to endure and stay healthy in the midst of what’s to come is no different than with any other trial in this life—we need God’s word to teach and remind us of wisdom and truth, we need to pray and humbly depend on the Lord to give us strength and grace, and we need to lean into our community to support and encourage us all along the way. God never promised us this life would be free from suffering but he has given everything we need to have hope for glory and redemption.
ADOPTING US INTO YOUR PRAYER LIFE
We’d like to invite you again to adopt our family into your prayer life through a commitment to pray daily, weekly, or monthly for us. Here some specific ways we'd ask that you pray:
-Pray that God is honored and trusted more deeply by our family throughout this process. (Psalm 108:5, Proverbs 3: 5-6)
-Pray that the One who owns and governs all things will provide for every need along the way. (Ephesians 2:10)
-Pray that God would replace any anxiety with His peace and that God would remind our family to cast all their anxieties on Him in prayer instead of carrying them on their own. (Isaiah 26:3, Philippians 4:6-7)
-Pray that this adoption will display the gospel and provide opportunities for many to share about the adoption found in Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4-6)
Thank you for reading this update and for your ongoing support!
With love,
Eric and Breanna Pruitt
As we're entering the Fall season, we wanted to give you all an update on where our family is at and how the Lord has been moving so far in our adoption journey!
1. The Adoption Process- Home Study Phase
We have both completed all of the education required by North Carolina, the US, and Colombia in order to pursue this adoption. It was a lot of hours but we learned so much about why every step of this process works the way it does, all about trauma-informed parenting and the challenges specific to children raised in international orphan care situations, and how to best prepare our hearts and home for the care and love that our adoptive child and biological children will need post-placement.
-We've also completed our autobiographies, which anyone whose been through this process seems to know, is a beast!
- On Monday 9/19, we will have the home tour, interview with our children, then the first of three in-home interviews that our Social Worker will use to compile our home study (a document used for every level of government approval from this point forward).
-On Friday 9/23, we will drive to Charlotte to complete our psychological evaluations which again will be used for government approval.
-In the weeks following, home study work and expenses will pick up quickly-- FBI clearances, medical exams for every family member, then our second agency fee of $3,562.
2. Fundraising
I know you all are able to see our donation progress on this page but more has been happening behind the scenes that we'd love to share with you all! You may have noticed that our overall goal has decreased since we first announced our adoption. We've not decreased this goal because the cost has gone down but because there have been other means by which God has provided for that $42,000 outside of this page and we want to have integrity in showing the true remaining need. Here's an overall update for where we're at with fundraising:
- AdoptTogether [ongoing]- $6, 840 (there is a 5% fees on each gift which is why this number isn't truly $7,200)
-Direct Giving through Venmo [ongoing]- $565
-T-shirt Campaign [ongoing]- $441
-Tiny Theologians Fundraiser [closed]- $68.53
-Online secondhand clothing sale by BudgetBeautBri [closed]- $362
-King's Cross Church [closed]- $2400
Total raised: $10, 676.53/ $42,000
This is amazing and again, we are thankful to each of you!
Additionally, we have a few exciting fundraising opportunities in the pipeline:
-With the support of Magnalia Homestead Foundation, we will be hosting one big fundraising event this Fall! The event will be a Harvest Festival on October 22nd at Magnalia Homestead in Stokesdale, NC. It is an event is open to the public so please invite friends, neighbors, family, a random person at the grocery store, etc! The venue has the capacity for 500+ people. All net proceeds from the event will directly benefit our family and there will be additional opportunities to give at the event as well. As those who have already supported us, we'd love to have you there to celebrate with us and to meet those of you that we don't already know!
-Another friend, Jonathan, is planning a basketball tournament for this November. This will be a smaller event held locally in Greensboro. More details to come!
Unfortunately links don't work on AdoptTogether but please copy and paste this one if you're interested in buying a t-shirt and/or attending Harvest Fest:
https://linktr.ee/pruittadoption
3. Community Support
-These last few months we've had the privilege of connecting with a few North Carolinian families who have walked before us on the path of adoption in recent years. Each of them have shared beautiful stories of how God used every simple detail, every peak and valley, every frustration and every joy along the way to orchestrate the perfect adoption match for their families in His perfect time. Hearing their stories, their advice, their warnings, and their encouragement has been an incredible blessing to us.
-Many of our dear friends and pastors at our church, King's Cross, have been very intentional to care for us well in this season. To be real and I'm sure it comes as no surprise to you but there are individuals who have expressed a lack of support or who have offered "cheaper" options (that we either don't meet the requirements for or simply don't feel God leading us toward). However, it is so clear that we have a wonderful community around us, including you all, who are cheering us on pre-adoption and will continue to support post-adoption and that weighs far more heavily!
4. Additional Graces
-Just as we began the adoption process, we learned that previous Seminary credits Eric had earned before we got married, though not many, would expire soon if he did not resume taking classes. We were unsure what to do given that much of our financial surplus was going toward the cost of this adoption. It had always been our desire for Eric to continue with seminary but never seemed like the right season to do so. So we prayed! Shortly after, Eric learned that an educational fund recently expanded their scholarship program to part-time and remote-learning students at Southeastern Theological Seminary. Long story short.. Eric received a full-ride scholarship to take 2 classes per semester online for the foreseeable future. What a gift!
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ADOPTING US INTO YOUR PRAYER LIFE
We’d like to invite you to adopt our family into your prayer life through a commitment to pray daily, weekly, or monthly for us. Here some specific ways we'd ask that you pray:
-Pray that God is honored and trusted more deeply by our family throughout this process. (Psalm 108:5, Proverbs 3: 5-6)
-Pray that the One who owns and governs all things will provide for every need along the way. (Ephesians 2:10)
-Pray that God would replace any anxiety with His peace and that God would remind our family to cast all their anxieties on Him in prayer instead of carrying them on their own. (Isaiah 26:3, Philippians 4:6-7)
-Pray that this adoption will display the gospel and provide opportunities for many to share about the adoption found in Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4-6)
Thank you for reading this update and for your ongoing support!
With love,
Eric and Breanna Pruitt
