We have some AWESOME NEWS!
As a lot of you know, Jason and I and our children have always wanted to bring little ones who need a family into our home to adopt them and love them. We've longed to fill our home with children who need a family!
(For those of you who know our history with adoption, you can skip down to the next paragraph. If not read on!) In 2015 we started the process of an international adoption from Ghana. It's been a CRAZY, long, heartbreaking journey as we waited, jumped through hoops, prayed, and did everything that we could do to be able to bring that child home. Unfortunately due to circumstances out of our control, his adoption was unable to be completed. Over the last 6 months, we have processed and prayed about what our next step was to be. We obviously were surprised by our domestic adoption of our son Gabriel last year, and oh what a joy filled surprise that was. But our hearts have still longed to bring into our home an older child, an orphan, who needed and longed for a family. And when I say our hearts, I'm also talking about our children as well. They have TOTALLY been in this with us from the beginning. They have grieved, longed for, and rejoiced with us through the ups and downs.
This summer, we were introduced to the story of a young man, an orphan, who was being hosted this summer here in the US. Through mutual friends we were put in contact with his host family, and we began to advocate for his adoption, hoping that through our network, his family would be found. But the more we talked about him, his personality, and his story, the more we were drawn to him. The Lord did some miraculous things financially for us this summer that put us in the place that we could adopt internationally again. And when those things fell into place, we felt freed to be able to pursue this young man's adoption and bring him home. Unfortunately, by the time that we made that decision, he was already back home in Colombia, so we didn't get to meet him in person. But we have LOVED being able to connect with his host family who was able to share pictures, videos, stories, history, personality information, etc with us which is so much better than just having his official file alone. They LOVE him so much and have been hard at work advocating for him to find his Forever Family. A few weeks ago, we made the decision as a family that this boy is the boy that we would love to bring into our home, to be our son, and the brother of our children. We have been hard at work ever since going through the paperwork side to make this happen as quickly as possible.
Answers to the questions: He is 12 years old. He is from Colombia. We are working with the same agency as last time, so that is helpful in making this process hopefully a little faster than normal. The whole process may take between 5-8 months to happen. We will be traveling as a family to bring him home, and we don't know if we will be traveling around Christmas time, or later on in the spring. That is completely up to how fast both the US government and the Colombia government work.
We are currently updating our home study, applying for our US Immigration approval (that is our i800a), and prepping our dossier to be sent to Colombia. Our Letter of Intent was already sent to Colombia and is being reviewed by them now along with pictures of our family and our old home study. So far we heard good reports from the orphanage that he is in that they think this process will move fast because we sent them our old home study right away.
What we need financially:
From the $30,000 or so we spent on our Ghana adoption, about $8500 can be transferred to "J's" adoption. (The amount available to be transferred includes everything that any of you donated toward the Ghana adoption. So don't feel like your past donations were lost!)
But now, we are needing raise about $22,500 for the remainder of "J's" adoption. Here's a breakdown of what this looks like:
Program and Agency Fees are: Were $18,000. About $8400 was able to be transferred into the program, leaving about $9,600 left for us.
Home Study update plus the Social Worker Post Adoption visits: $1750 (we just paid for this).
US Immigration Application Fees: $975
Fees for Requirements for the Dossier and Home Study: about $700 or a little more (we've already paid about $500 towards this). This includes the medical exams, apostille and notary fees, background clearances, FBI fingerprinting, etc.
Psychological evaluation required by Colombia: $500 PAID.
Colombia orphanage fee: $3,500
"J's" Visa and Medical: $810
Travel Expenses (airfare, stay for 3-4 weeks, visas, etc): $4500-5000 is our estimate
This equals to about $22,500 total.
So here we are. Are we crazy? Maybe! Crazy with joy, crazy with love, and so, so very thankful!
Thank you to all of you who have walked the crazy journey with us so far! And thank you for all your help and support! If you would love to give to our family to help us bring "J" home and be apart of his story, we would LOVE that. And we DEFINITELY covet your prayers and support for him, for us as we go through the ups and downs that adoption entails, and then finally, over our family as we transition into bringing him home. That first year will definitely be an adjustment for all. Again, we are soooo thankful. If you only knew his story, your heart would literally burst with joy to see him being able to be brought home to a family who will LOVE him with all of our hearts.
