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!
102 days later...we have received our immigration approval letter in the mail! Praise the Lord--we are so excited! The next step is for our agency to send our dossier to Liberia. Once our dossier is in Liberia, we may begin the process to be matched with our child(ren)! We cannot wait!
In the mean time, we have a $500 matching grant that is close to being completed. Once this grant is matched, we will be so close to being fully fundraised for our agency fees! We will also be able to gauge how much our travel expenses will be once we are matched with our child(ren) and we will continue fundraising for those needs. Thank you for your prayers as we move on to this next step!
Whew! After a few bizarre set backs in our immigration paperwork, we are officially down to waiting on the approval letter to come in. We were discouraged about how those setbacks cost us some time, but we are comforted by the fact that it will align with God's timeline. Once the approval letter comes, we will be able to mail off our documents to Liberia and begin the matching process. We are so excited to get to this stage! Please pray that our paperwork will process very quickly! In the mean time, we have just over $1,000 left to fundraise for our agency expenses. We are taking a load of clothing on August 4th, so if you're local we can take your textile donations!!
Thank you for your prayers!
We had a wonderful event this past Saturday hosting a tea party fundraiser. We sold 50 tickets for the event and we were also able to raise money through silent auction prizes that were donated by local businesses. Jake and I were able to share our story and where we are in the process as well. We are so thankful for each person that was involved.
We will be traveling on Tuesday to complete our fingerprint appointment for the last portion of our immigration paperwork. We hope that after this step, the immigration approval will come quickly! In the mean time, we are still raising the last portion of our agency fees. We are now down to $1760 left to raise for our agency fees. After this, we will begin fundraising for our travel expenses. If we are matched with a second child, our agency and travel fees will increase. We are so excited about our progress and know that the Lord will provide.
Ways to help:
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Donate clothes--next drop off: August 4th
71 days ago, our family filed our immigration paperwork for our future child. This process can take anywhere from 75 days to 5 months. We have been waiting for an appointment slip to arrive in the mail so that we can get our necessary fingerprints done in order to receive the approval letter. Jake and I were so excited to receive the appointment slip today only to read the appointment date as "July 5th." Somehow, someway this appointment slip was lost in the mail and arrived to us too late. We contacted the agency to reschedule, but the person we need to talk with won't be available until Monday morning. Please pray that they will reschedule us quickly so that this doesn't delay our process further.
As frustration and confusion began to set in, we had a knock on our house door. A little white package was at our doorstep. Neither of us were expecting a package. We opened the box to find a beautiful framed verse, two t-shirts, a book about adoption, as well as a very encouraging note from another adoptive family. It was like God timed this just to tell us "it will all be okay, I am in control." It was such a good reminder for us that God knows the big picture and He will sustain us in this process where it all feels so out of our control.
We share this to remind you that the road to adoption is very tough. There are many trials, triumphs, valleys, and LOTS of waiting. If you know someone that is in the process of adopting or has adopted, say a prayer for them or send a word of encouragement. This journey is difficult, but we know it will be so worth it.
On June 13th, I wrote "$19,899.35 is what we have left to pay to our agency..."
I am extremely excited to update you that we now have $10,036.68 left to fundraise for our agency fees. That balance, combined with the $5,000 grant we will be receiving brings our agency total to $5,036.68.
We know that we still have a ways before we are fully funded (travel fees, etc), but this milestone is so exciting! This balance will increase if we accept the referral of more than one child. That increase doesn't scare us. We know that God knows the outcome and He knows where every penny will come from to get us fully funded.
We have set a goal for ourselves. A scary, but realistic goal. We believe that we can be fully funded by September 30, 2023. That is 86 days. I hope to look back on this update and be so proud of our people for helping us achieve this goal.
Ways to help:
1. LOCALS: Sign up for our Tea Party fundraiser event on July 22nd at 11:00AM.https://docs.google.com/forms/d/15G51jaD-Ujx6hb3h0SlXl7JwFutYP_afhdfNgXLOo3Q/prefill
2. LOCALS: Donate textiles (shoes, sheets, towels, clothes, belts, socks, etc) we will be taking donations until our adoption is fully funded. Our next drop is July 7th.
3. ANYONE: Donate here on AdoptTogether. Even if you cannot give much, the email notification we get that someone took the time to give is SO encouraging to us.
4. ANYONE: Please share, like, comment, follow along on our facebook updates. Fundraising is also about getting our story out to people who are strangers to us. We want to show waiting parents that adoption can be affordable. We also want to rally our people that will be excited for our child(ren) to come home.
