Dear Friends and Family,
We are excited to share with you our adoption home study was approved, which means we are approved to adopt in all 50 states!
We have also launched our adoption website! Please share with friends and family! https://alichipadopt.weebly.com/about.html
We are excited to share he news that we are ready to move forward with our hopes to adopt a child! This has been on our hearts and our minds for many years. It’s exciting to take this leap of faith and finally move forward towards expanding our family.
We have reached almost half our fundraising goal! To bridge the gap towards our final goal we are partnering with AdoptTogether which is an IRS approved 501c3 organization in which all donations are tax deductible. Also, Donors that have access to Corporate Matching Gift programs can have their donation matched since we are an IRS approved 501c3 organization.
When I shared with James, on our first date, that I was unable to bear a child, he responded with so much care, it felt like balm to my heart. From the moment we decided to get married, we had it in mind to adopt children to grow our family. I remember the moment clearly, during our marriage prep classes, when our mentor couple asked us both to close our eyes and hold up the number fingers for how many children we wanted to have. When we opened our eyes, we saw that we had both opened our hands, palms upwards, to show that we wanted to receive as many children as God wanted for us.
Last October, we took our first step on our journey by enrolling on the state’s DFCS Foster/Adoption program. Due to covid complications, we have been placed on a 3-5 year waiting list. We decided that we couldn’t let that deter us from moving forward with the adoption process. That’s why we are now venturing out to pursue adoption through private agencies, with the hopes of adopting a child within the next year, God willing!
Several providential encounters lead us on this path. Many of you have offered us encouragement, served as beacons of hope, and continued to motivate us on this adoption journey. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for your role in our lives and we feel abundantly loved and supported from our community!
As we journey forward in humility and openness, we invite you to participate with us in the 3 following ways:
We ask for your continual spiritual support by praying for us and the health, safety, and well-being of those who will be integrated with our family, including our future childrens' expectant moms and families. We also pray for discernment when choosing adoption agencies.
We invite you into a transparent, vulnerable personal side of our story. We hope to document our story and share what we are learning along this pathway, especially for those who have adoption in their hearts. We also hope to learn from all of you who have your own adoption stories and grow in wisdom from your experiences. We truly believe God’s providence is guiding this journey and if you happen to encounter a woman or a couple who find themselves pregnant and open to the possibility of adoption, please find a way to connect us with them.
With great humility, we ask if you can support us financially. We would be extremely grateful for any gift that might help us fulfill our dream of having a family of our own. We started to fundraise and we are so grateful for the generous donations of all those who have already supported us. We are hopeful that with your help we will soon meet our $25,000 goal!
This is a tough but common question. Money talk is hard talk. We value transparency because someone reading this may be exploring adoption and ask these questions too.
The average cost for domestic adoption is between $30,000-$60.000. Here's a basic expense summary: legal/financial clearances, medical expenses, home study, expectant parent expenses, legal and agency expenses, finalization, and travel. The bulk of these fees are to ensure safety: avoiding extortion, coercion, human trafficking, and child slavery. Some contributions are for pre and post-placement support of expectant parents. If adoption costs are something you wonder about, feel free to ask us. There are many resources, and it deserves thoughtful discussion.
To conclude, we Invite you to pray with us!
Heavenly Father, we pray for the health, safety, and well-being of those who will be integrated with our family, including our future childrens' expectant moms and families. We also ask you to guide our discernment when choosing adoption agencies. May you bless all those who are walking with us on this journey. AMEN
Above all, we are grateful for you being supportive and encouraging in your own way! Thanks for being a part of our lives, we love that you are on this journey with us. We will keep you updated as we continue to grow our family!
Love,
Alison & James Stone
