We have BIG news - we are adopting a child!
We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a beautiful new life into our home. As part of our adoption process, we have started a crowdfunding campaign. It may surprise you that adoption related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $25,000 to help ease the financial burden that often overwhelms adoptive parents.
We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our child as he/she grows up.
We received notice this week that our international dossier will be reviewed by the Philippines child placing agency in July. We expect to hear an update by the end of July to see how that went. Keep us in prayer that the review will go well!
Because our homestudy from last year expires in August, we are also looking at needing to do another homestudy here very soon. We will update our financial numbers here in a new format since we are no longer able to post the bar graph that we’ve posted previously.
It’s been a silent past several months for status on the process, so it’s great to hear that things are moving forward with our dossier in the Philippines!
[3/10/22]
Our international dossier has officially been sent off to and received by the adoption board in the Philippines (woot! woot!). We now await the approval of our papers overseas so that we can move on to referrals. In the meantime, we've been able to look through profiles of children on special listings who have been available for adoption longer than others. Some of the backgrounds we read make our hearts sick.
After our papers are approved, we will begin to review profiles of children who have been "matched" with our family information. Whether our adoptive child(ren) come from one of the special listings or from a matched referral, God already knows who we will adopt. We simply pray that God gives us wisdom as we go through the process.
We are excited!! Will you join us on this journey?
[2/18/22]
This week we received and sent off our immigration approval letter. What a relief to finalize the last piece of paperwork to send our dossier to the Philippines. We’ve waited several months to get to this point. Another step closer in the process!
In anticipation of this milestone, we revamped our adoption cards to give them a fresh look. We meet the randomest people who are interested in the the adoption process. People have family members and friends who have been adopted, and many are surprised at how long, complicated, and expensive the process is. It is all of those things, but it is also EXCITING! We are overjoyed to move into this next phase.
What’s next? Once our papers arrive in the Philippines, the government adoption agency there will review them and request updates and changes as necessary. After receiving their approval, we can begin the Referral process. This is the review of child profiles, their special needs, and their family or institutional history.
Thank you for your support, whether through encouragement, personal stories, prayer, finances, or Expressions of Sugar. Would you consider contributing to our adoption fund? We will be assembling a Filipino puzzle, and each $20 you give will buy one piece of our puzzle on which we will write your name. In the end, we’ll have a puzzle linking everyone’s names who have given financially to our adoption.
Thanks for reading our latest update!
Last month we discovered one more milestone to reach before we can send our papers off to the Philippines. At the beginning of December, we travelled a couple hours to get fingerprinted for a Homeland Security background check. Once we receive approval for immigration status, we’ll have completed our final paperwork requirement. The waiting continues!
We’ve added a few more thousand dollars to our expenses paid, and we’re almost 50% into our overall adoption expenses! Expressions of Sugar has greatly helped us make up financial differences as we continue through milestones and bills.
It’s Christmastime! We’re taking some time out our daily lives to spend quality time with family. We hope that you also have a relaxing and refreshing holiday season.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I woke up this morning knowing that we were overdue for an adoption update. Honestly, the process has been somewhat quiet lately. A few weeks ago, we gathered all our international dossier paperwork and sent it off to our adoption agency for review. This was a landmark step in our adoption process. At this milestone, we've completed all the paper that needs to be sent internationally, and we are awaiting adoption agency review to see if we need to modify or redo anything. We expect that soon our agency will be sending off our papers to the Philippines!
This is a culmination of six months of people writing letters of recommendation and notarizing their signatures on our behalf. The adoption process involves a lot of people, certain authorities, and LOTS of patience. We are grateful for those who have played a direct role in this whole process.
Also a long time coming is an adoption expenses update. Recently, we've dropped a little over $5,000 for this international dossier stage. We need to update a previous claim that we've paid for half of our home study fee. We had expected to be invoiced and pay for the half of the fee halfway through the home study, but we did not receive an invoice until the very end. This invoice is for the full amount of $2,200. This has not yet been paid, so we lowered our home study expenses paid back to $0 for now.
Adoption grants has been something we have been researching. We were under the impression that grants could be applied for once we have a completed home study. This is true for a couple grants, but most grants actually require us to have a child already lined up for adoption. Additionally, some grants are conditional on the child(ren) being older, having special needs, or being a sibling group. Until we step into child referrals and have a child or children selected, we will not be able to apply for these grants.
The funny thing about adoption grants is that they are supposed to help pay for adoption expenses. However, by the time you can get a grant, most of your adoption expenses have been paid. So a grant is many times a reimbursement. We have been enlightened by this reality recently, and it is demonstrating why fundraising is so important and helpful.
An additional method of fundraising that we started a few months ago is a local bakery business. Liisa loves to bake and has baked for a few weddings and other events this past summer. We registered with the State as an LLC and began running a booth on Saturdays at the local farmer’s market. Our booth has turned out to be very successful, and this has started to help fill in some of the adoption funding gaps. Perhaps the most difficult part about this avenue of fundraising is know exactly how much is going toward adoption expenses. With the all the business expenses we have for operation and supplies, we try to section out money that gets put into savings weekly. However, some of this gets turned around to pay for supplies again. We do know that these funds have been a BIG help, and we would not have been able to pay our last adoption fees completely without our newly-formed business.
This past week we signed on to be part of the winter market that takes place in our local shopping mall. WE ARE EXCITED, and this has turned into a very fun family venture. Thank you to all who have helped make our business popular. Word of mouth is the best kind of advertisement. We have distributed hundreds of business cards and are starting to get special orders for events, such as birthdays, business gatherings, and more.
What is this business, you ask? Expressions of Sugar is the name. Our primary method of contact for now is via social media, but also have an email is interested parties wish to use it.
You can visit us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/expressionsofsugar
Or you can view our Instagram page at: www.instagram.com/expressions_of_sugar
Feel free to contact us via social media or by email: [email protected]
Well, that is our latest update. What's next? We are waiting for our paperwork to be officially sent to the Philippines. Once that takes place, we begin immigration-related papers and background checks. Once our international paperwork is approved by the Philippine government, we begin the referrals process, which is the review and selection of child profiles.
Stick with us and stay tuned! We appreciate all our supporters, and we are happy to have gotten this far in our adoption. Our adoptee(s) will have a home yet!
