Help us bring home our little girl!
We are looking forward to the day she comes home and we can begin giving her all the love, laughs, and warmth that she has never known.
Our family has been waiting for years to adopt a child who is legally-freed and waiting for a family in the U.S. foster care system. Due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, we were never selected for placements. Years later, our social worker showed us a little girl living in a children's institution who was waiting for an international adoptive family. Months later, her social worker selected us! After much prayer, we said yes.
Since we were not prepared for an international adoption, we had to scramble together numerous documents and resources to submit ASAP. Things have been fairly smooth, but the costs are piling up. Our savings accounts are shaky due to having to replace Raymond's car that got totaled two years ago while he was waiting at a red light two blocks from our home. We donate to several charitable organizations every month and plan on continuing that support. We live a modest lifestyle and hope to bring her home without entirely draining our savings. Thus, here we are today, moving forward with faith that our gracious and loving God will open doors and provide.
As part of our adoption process, we have started reaching out to our community for financial support. Adoption-related costs can easily total up to $25,000 or much, much more. We have set a goal of $10,000 to help ease this financial burden that can often overwhelm families like ours from embarking on the adoption journey. We are also undertaking side jobs as they are available to us and saving where we can.
Thank you for reading our story and considering supporting us in this journey to bring home our little girl! We know that your financial resources are hard-earned and valuable, and whether you donate to ours or someone else's, we appreciate your taking the time to support bringing children home. Every child deserves a loving family and a loving home.
It's been one year, and we are still in a waiting state. We received official Match Approval in March 2024 and immediately submitted our I800 application to the USCIS. We were surprised to receive a Request for Evidence notice in early June, asking for a document that both myself and our social worker are certain was included in the original package. Nevertheless, I sent another one in the next day. It wasn't until another three weeks later that they showed the received it.
We've spent most of the past 2.5 years just waiting. It's a mystery to me what happens in this waiting process - where our papers are sitting, how many people need to review them, and how long it takes for them to actually hold it in their hands and do so? For each of our pregnancies, we waited each day to see if we would make it another day. This wait by far has been the longest one. But it's also been a true lesson in trusting in God's timing...that His timing is perfect, and that we need to repeatedly turn back to Him and His guidance and His hand in everything.
June 25th, the social workers formally introduced our family to her and told her our names, shared our videos, toys we sent, and more. They sent us a couple photos the next morning, then we waited another three weeks before they returned from vacation and sent us the videos and the rest of the photos. Oh, the waiting!
We were told just yesterday that we have a scheduled video call with our daughter in two weeks. The time will fly by, and we will soon talk to her. I want to tell her that Jesus is with ehr always, that she will never be alone and has never been alone.
So after six months of hearing nothing, our agency was able to get ahold of a social worker. They discovered that the original social worker had left, and the new social worker was backlogged in her cases. Several more months of patiently waiting went by just to discover that our file has been sitting and waiting for one report - an interview that was taken in early 2023, but no record or file of the discussion is anywhere to be found. After some more inquiry, the social worker realized that many months have passed with no progress being made due to this missing report. Meanwhile, our girl has been attending a new school in a new residential area. She was reported to continue to cry alot and be very silent with new adults. She is turning six in five more weeks. We had thought she'd be home by now.
Our little girl has been living in a residential home intended for temporary short-term stays. She has been there for nearly one year and is about to be moved to a different ward with many more kids. We pray she will have loving caregivers and that God will work miracles to speed up the final approvals so that we can bring her home.
We received an update...our little girl's kindergarten readiness assessment. Most areas were delayed and below expected. She was shy and reluctant to respond in the assessment. We were so saddened to see this. She needs a home, she needs the support and encouragement of devoted parents in order to thrive and grow like she should. Instead, she waits in an institution for the day that we can come and bring her home. Thank you for any and all support you can offer.
