Here we go again! Thank you for coming alongside us to grow our family through adoption.
Friends,
This weekend we completed more paper work and today we mailed in our Dossier documents. Now we wait for Thai and US government agencies to do their thing and we focus on what we can do, which is to pray, prepare, and fundraise. On that front we have EXCITING NEWS in our Adoption: Generous friends have offered a Matching Gift of up to $2,500!
This is a helpful way to springboard our fundraising and double your impact! If you are able to give now your gift will count double toward our goal.
All gifts given through Adopt Together are tax deductible and all gifts go 100% toward adoption expenses.
You may give on this site by clicking on the "Give Now" button.
We are grateful for your prayers and support and for the financial support shown in helping us to bring home our daughter!
Friends,
We have an exciting update to share regarding our adoption process:
We have been matched for adoption with a 2-year-old GIRL from Thailand!
[Watch our Announcement Video Here]
We are very excited to be at this stage of our adoption journey! For years we've spoken about growing our family, and multiple times have started the process, only to have it stalled or not work out, but now we know our family will be growing with a beautiful girl from Thailand who needs a mom, dad, and brother to love and care for her.
Our daughter will come to us with some medical trauma from her birth and early life experience and we have been prepared for how to help her grow physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy.
We're writing this update to let you know how you can help us in this process.
First, please be praying for us and our daughter! We believe God has a perfect plan to bring us together for his glory and our good and we will look back on this process with much joy, even as now we are walking through it by faith.
Pray that the Lord would strengthen and encourage us in the process, as we likely still have 10 - 18 months to go before we are united as a family and that will at times feel like an incredibly difficult and long way to go.
In 2015 we adopted our son from China and were amazed at the prayerful support and encouragement from family and friends that helped us bring him home. In many ways that effort has helped us remember the meaning of his name, Eben, which is short for Ebenezer and means "thus far the Lord has helped us".
As you pray for us, consider if you may be able to help us with the financial cost of finishing this adoption.
You have probably heard that adoption can be expensive… and it's true, but like all adoptive families, that must not stop us from pursuing our desire to love and care for a child who is waiting for us to become her forever family!
Adoption-related costs can easily total up to $40,000 or more. A common question we hear when we share this is "Why does it cost so much"? The primary reason for all of these costs is to protect the child and ensure they find a stable and safe family to grow in. Here is a breakdown of typical costs for International Adoption, taken from Holt International, the Agency we are working with:
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TYPICAL COSTS FOR INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION:
Agency fees, which can range from $8,000–$10,000
Foreign program fees, which can range from $5,000–$8,000
Travel expenses, which can range from $5,000–$10,000
Third party costs, which can range from $3,000–$7,000
Post-Adoption Reports & Expenses, which can range from $ 2,000 - $3,000
At this stage, we are matched, which means we have already covered Agency Fees and foreign program fees. To help us finalize this adoption and bring our daughter home we have started this TAX-DEDUCTIBLE fundraiser! (How is it Tax-Deductible? Read the FAQ's here: https://adopttogether.org/faq/)
Our goal is to raise $25,000 to ensure we can cover the remainder of the expenses in the process.
All funds will be strictly used for direct adoption-related expenses. AdoptTogether.org requires adoptive families to send in receipts to release donated funds.
No gift is too small, and of course, no gift is too large either! You can give directly through this link to help us bring our daughter home!
Thank you for reading this far and for your friendship, your prayer, and your support in this journey!
Friends, our Home Study process is now complete and we are waiting for a match!
We had identified a sibling group, a girl and boy, 8 and 6 respectively, and today was the day of our hearing. Our social worker presented our case before a panel of adoption social workers.
The good news is that these siblings are getting a family! The bad news, as far as we're concerned, is that it wont be with us. Two other families had applied and one of them won this case.
We are disappointed that we didnt make this match, but we rejoice that two fewer children are going to be without a family. We know the Lord has a plan for us and we look forward to being matched.
In your prayers:
- praise God for matching this boy and girl with an adoptive family!
- Pray that we will receive a match soon.
- Pray for children living in orphanages, foster care, and on the streets, that they will find help and care they need in loving families.
Thank you for reading, for praying, and for supporting us in this adoption journey!
Hello family and friends!
Thank you for joining us on this journey to adopt again! We are in the process of adopting a second child. We are using Holt International as our adoption agency.
Why adopt again?
We've always had the desire to grow our family through adoption. We've tried a few times in various ways over the past 7 years, going through foster training and starting another adoption inquiry, but those times did not materialize.
Now as we have settled in to WA state we are ready to begin the process of adoption again.
What is the timeline?
At the time of this post we are finishing up home study materials, which means paperwork, background checks, training for parenting adopted children, and preliminary payments.
Once these things are complete we will be "matched" with a waiting child and the process will begin in earnest. The process can take between 18- 24 months.
What can I do?
At this time we ask that you keep our family in prayer and subscribe to updates from this page. We will post updates on this post once a month for now, and more frequently as we get closer to finalizing this adoption.
