We have BIG news! We are adopting!
We are beyond excited and are doing everything we can to prepare for this journey of starting a family. We have waited for a long time to be parents, but unfortunately, we have not been able to start a family yet. We have prayed long for God’s wisdom and blessing of having a family. He has reminded us of how He placed adoption in our hearts since we were children ourselves, and has opened our hearts to begin our family through adoption. Just as the Lord has adopted us, and calls us to serve Him through love and compassion for others, we are not only excited to be parents but eager to serve the Lord as adopting parents.
We’ve decided to adopt within the U.S. at this time. Our hearts desire to love and nurture an infant under 1 years of age or a sibling group under 5 years of age.
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 $50,000 or more. This is why we have set a goal of $50,000 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 are incredibly blessed to have such a large and supportive network.
The adoption process can be rather lengthy, 18-36 months and in some cases more, so we will give you regular updates on our progress.
We would really appreciate you helping us spread the word on your personal social media platforms. Thanks for being a part of our family’s journey. Mark and Cindy
This month we’ve been switching up our prayers to ask God for the eyes to see where/how/what ways He will provide. For the first time in our lives we received a big refund from our taxes, something we didn’t expect at all- and the Lord has provided over half the funds for the first payment due in June this year! How amazing is our God?! PRAISE GOD! We knew $10K by June (less than 90 days since we submitted our application) was a lot but we just trusted Him. We have now been praying and planning different ways to raise the next fees, and looking into grants after the home study is complete to help with the costs of growing our family but we are trusting Him. Thank you for your help in this journey! We are also announcing some big news soon, so stay tuned!
We are happy to share some good news! Our formal application has been approved! We found out yesterday morning, and are so excited!
What does this mean? This is just a small piece of the puzzle but the official start! We are now saving/fundraising so we can pay the initial payment. We trust the Lord will continue to provide! During this time, we will also work on reading through our long onboarding packet and contract, signing it, and receiving our first invoice. The total payment due is about $10,000.
Once we sign the contract and make the payment, we’ll start our home study process. If/when approved, our next payments are due of about $11,000 so we can complete our dossier. What’s a dossier? It’s our official family profile. The home study and dossier take 4-6 months to complete.
We hope you’ll join us in this journey and share with all you know!
We also hope to do some fundraising events that will be engaging and fun for our community here in our state. If you’re local, we hope you’ll attend. So stay tuned for announcements and updates!
Thank you for your prayers, donations and love! This is just the beginning!
After speaking with the initial case manager on Thursday once more, we submitted our formal application today. We are excited to have selected the Costa Rica program! We know this is a long process and it will take time. We are so grateful for those who have already donated. Our hope is to fundraise and save $10K by June 16th, which is when the first big payment is due. That first step will be for our home study, agency and program fee, and accreditation fee. Once we cross that milestone of paying that fee, we will next wait about 6 months or so until we hear back if our home study is approved. If/when approved, we hope to start applying for grants while also fundraising and saving up as much as possible. The next payment is over $18K, which covers an agency fee, dossier, and referral fee which needs to be paid by January 2024. We will update you once we are done with paperwork and the home study. Stay tuned to hear about our events and t-shirt sales to fundraise for our adoption!
