We have BIG news!
We are adopting! It's so fun to be able to talk about as this has been in our hopes and prayers for many years and is finally happening.
We are over the moon and doing all that we can to prepare well to grow our family in the way that the Lord prepares. We have applied for a sibling group and that can range from 1-4 children. As part of this journey, we want to invite others to partner with us to help this dream come to fruition. You might be surprised to know that most international adoptions cost over $30,000. We are trusting the Lord to help this happen. After our homestudy is approved there are many scholarships and grants that we can apply for to help with our goals but until that point, we are estimating about $10,000 of expenses past our savings. We are hoping to relieve some of the financial stress so that we can be well prepared to welcome a child(ren) into our home.
We hope that you will feel invited into this process with us and understand that it takes a whole community to love and raise children well. To demonstrate this further, we will put the names of those people who donate on the back of a puzzle piece (surprise image) to display in our home and for our future children to know who all helped them join our family.
Happy Thanksgiving!
This year we are so so thankful for YOU.
Our lives are often fraught with stress and busyness that today was such a lovely reminder of how much we have to be thankful for.
The Lord has brought us on this path to grow our family and while there are moments of difficulty, it has been a sweet renewal of our reliance on the Lord.
We are over 40% of our total goal which feels unreal. We are so thankful that this dream feels like it's coming to fruition. God is moving and working always.
As you spend today eating turkey and hopefully surrounded by friends or family, would you keep us in your heart and share our story? Adoption is something all believers can relate to and our desire to have our own children with us for Thanksgiving in years to come is a strong one. If you feel lead to share the link to our story or share about our journey to complete this puzzle with those you love, we would add it to the long list of things to be thankful for this year.
As always we love you all,
The Cooleys
374 pieces of the puzzle. It is wild to us that the Lord is working so boldly in our community.
We finished our home study education this week and got our home visit scheduled for the end of January.
We are so grateful for our agency that is so informed and desires for us to be as prepared as possible.
If you would be so kind as to share our facebook post or a link to this site and invite people to sponsor a $10 puzzle piece this holiday season to help us reach our goal, we would be forever grateful.
Praying for you always,
The Cooleys
Happy Adoption Month!
We are almost 1/3 of the way through what we're hoping to raise! Incredible.
We have done 3 interviews in the last couple of weeks with only one more until we receive a visitor overseas for our home visit.
Thank you for your prayers during this process. We are feeling encouraged and sustained by the Lord's goodness during this time.
If you would please consider sharing this website with your church, co workers, or friends and family we would be so incredibly grateful and we know that only through community will this adoption happen and thrive.
Oodles of love,
The Cooleys
"That house was a perfect house whether you liked food or sleep or story-telling or singing or reading or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness." J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
As we continue through the adoption process, we have many conversations and dreams and ideas about what our family will be like with kids. There are a great many things to be nervous about. We won't speak the same language, or even live in the country that primarily speaks that language. We won't know their educational history and how much help they will need. We won't understand all of the loss they experienced coming into our family and it will take time to learn how to support them best, and this is just to name a few quick things.
But there are also a great many things to look upon with wonder and anticipation. What do we want our home to feel like? What makes a home feel like a safe place to a child? Of course our we desire for our house to be safe and comfortable and we'll try to be healthy physically and emotionally. Yes, our family will be there. They will have their own room. They will have their own things. But what about the little moments? The things that feel small, the everyday, the in between.
There will always be food on the table, games in the cupboard, music playing from the speakers, or even better, lilting from guitar strings or piano keys. There will often be bread in the oven, cookies on the counter, and fresh fruit ready for the taking by grubby little fingers. Crafts will be bountiful and hung on the fridge, books all the more to be enjoyed time and time again, and the cat will hopefully welcome the additions and adopt them in her own way. Movie nights will have popcorn and people will be celebrated for anything and everything. We know there will be adjustments and tears and the hardest of moments but also, we just dream about someday when it's difficult to see what the house could have looked like before there were children in it.
So, as we began praying and dreaming about all of these things, I also began learning to crochet. I had never made anything more than a wonky granny square or a scarf that ended about 2 rows in, but I became determined. As we have spent time dedicated to our future children, I decided to make them each a blanket. This blanket would be their welcome home gift, made by their mom, to keep forever and help this new house feel a little bit more cozy. I am weaving in the final ends to finish this first blanket and want to celebrate with this community that has helped us come this far and ultimately will help our family come together. Thank you for helping our house begin to feel like a home.
Happy Sunday!
We now have well over a quarter of the puzzle completed!
We are so grateful for our community’s generosity in helping our family come to fruition.
1. We have a big interview coming up this week if you would please be praying for that as we continue the home study process.
2. If you would be willing to share this post to your social media and help us spread the word, we are praying to complete this puzzle by the end of the year. It’s a big goal but the Lord is faithful and his generosity abounds.
We are praying for big things and hope you will join us. Have a wonderful day :)
