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 to hear that adoption-related costs can easily total up to $35,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $30,000 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 began the adoption process in 2022 as we pursued an international adoption. Unfortunately, we decided to step away from the international program due to political issues. We prayed and asked the Lord to guide our next steps. We felt the Lord's leading to apply to our home study agency's domestic adoption program. We have been accepted into that program and we are so excited! As you can understand, we lost funds that were already allocated to our previous program. This leaves us with a goal of $14,000 to be ready to accept the placement of a child. Please consider giving and praying for the Lord to provide!
We are so excited to share that we are $1,830.94 away from being fully funded for our adoption!!!!!
757 days since we excitedly shared with our family and friends that we were choosing to adopt. If you were to ask me about our adoption journey, I would tell you that I am so excited for us to finally have a child to love! If you were to ask me in private, I would tell you that this is the hardest thing Jake and I have ever done. When we felt the Lord urging us to adopt, we were overjoyed (still are), but we never could have guessed that our journey would look like this. I can tell you that Jake and I are much different people than we were 757 days ago. We are even more different than we were on our wedding day--excited to begin our family together. We have learned more about each other over the last 757 days. We have learned more about God and His power. We have learned more about pain that we ever thought we would. Changing adoption programs was never in our plans, but we see now how God was carrying us through His plan. We have faced harsh words, have been asked insensitive questions, and have faced unimaginable heartbreak. We may never know why God has asked us to go through some of these trials in our adoption journey, but we hope that God will reveal them to us one day. We hope that one day we will be able to encourage someone else who may be walking the same path. As we continue the wait for a placement of a child in our domestic adoption program, we can't help but reflect on the last 757 days. We know that it will all be worth it, but unfortunately we can never say that it was easy. Some of those trials we are not sure if we will ever heal from. As a young childless couple, 757 days feels like a lifetime. We watch each day fly by and do our best to keep busy. We long for the day that we are holding our child, instead of fundraising for adoption expenses. My hope and prayer is that if you know someone that is adopting that you fervently pray for the child, birth family, and adoptive family. My hope is that you become the village that they require--help fundraise, encourage, and educate yourself on adoption. As much as we wish that adoption was affordable, it isn't.
Adoption is a beautiful tragedy. We ask that you cover us, our future child, and their family in your prayers.
To accept the placement of a child, we need $10,424.26.
In full transparency, we are depleted. We feel like we have been asking for adoption donations for ages and it never gets more comfortable to do so. We are asking our friends and family to consider three things: to pray, donate, or share this page. We believe in the power of prayer and that God uses His people to accomplish to His plan.
Hello to our family and friends! We have picked up momentum and are officially a 'waiting family' with our new adoption agency. This means that we could get a call in the next few days, weeks, or months. This is a very exciting step for us! As you know, we lost some funding as we transitioned to a new adoption program. We have applied for many adoption grants, but until we hear back from those we will continue to fundraise. We have also been accepted into a local fundraiser that we will be sharing about very soon! We have enjoyed getting our nursery together, purchasing baby clothes, and learning about what our new way of life will be like with a little one. We cannot wait to add to our family and share with our child all the sweet people that have been a part of their story before we even knew them! We ask for your prayers as we are asking the Lord to help us bring in the last $14,000 through grants and people giving. We cannot wait for the day we update you that God has blessed us with a baby! Until then, please pray for all involved.
Waiting, waiting, and more waiting... We have been told waiting for a match can be a very difficult part of the adoption process. You have just completed all of the paperwork, interviews, education, and research to find out who your child is, but you still have to wait. We are waiting to be matched with our child that is halfway around the world from us. We live our daily lives as normal, simply just waiting for the day that we will hear something. This period can be lonely. We no longer are rushing to get through checklists and tasks. The 'noise' of friends asking for updates has died down. The fundraising has become a background task when it use to consume all of our free time. Yet, the yearning to meet our child grows stronger every day. We miss and long to be with a child that we have never seen or heard about.
This week my oldest sister and her family visited from Florida. If you know me and Jake, our nieces and nephews are pretty much our whole world. They are our best little friends. My oldest nephew begged to go pick pumpkins while the whole family was able to be together. While picking pumpkins for the family, he turned to me and said "Mal, Mal can we get your baby a pumpkin?" A simple thought from a three year old felt like a warm hug from God. Our child is not forgotten in the waiting time. Just like my nephew cared to include our unknown child, God is caring for them even now. He knows their tragedy and He knows their timeline to get to us. While we mourn with our child for the tragedy that are enduring, we are so thankful that God is allowing us to be facilitators in His plan for this child's life.
Please pray for patience, the nation of Liberia, and for our waiting child. We are so thankful for each one of you!
We hit a major milestone this week... two actually. We received our immigration approval to adopt from Liberia, which allowed us to finish our dossier. Our dossier (file) will now be sent to Liberia. In this file is everything we have been working towards. The second milestone we hit was that we raised all of our adoption agency fees! The total was $27,900! When we first began this journey, I was skeptical that we would be able to fundraise even $5,000, but God! God knows where every penny will come from and He has been using His people to give. It has been such a trying, yet encouraging experience. We are not finished yet. We are still working on totaling up what the rest of our adoption expenses will be. Many factors go into that total--time of year for travel dates, lodging, etc. We also have been praying about opening our home to a sibling set if the Lord leads us in that direction. If we are matched with siblings, we will have to account for fees for the second child as well. We know that God knows the outcome and He will provide for this need by using His people. The next step on our journey is being matched with our child(ren). Please pray for discernment for us as we begin the matching process. I will include our current adoption prayer list below.
--Discernment as we begin the matching process for our child(ren).
--Fundraising for the rest of our adoption needs.
--Our friends, the Smith family, to receive travel dates very soon.
--Two families that we have met to be matched with their children soon.
Thank you for staying updated and praying!
