We are so excited to be walking into a new year and cannot wait to bring home baby #4 through adoption! Adoption is something that has been written our hearts for almost a decade now. We spent time discussing it while we were still dating, included it in our wedding vows and have both known it was something the Lord was calling us to from the very beginning of our marriage. Our only question was when? Over this past year we knew the time was finally now, so we are doing everything we can to be prepared to welcome a beautiful new life into our family! As part of our adoption process, we have started this crowdfunding campaign to help us meet our total financial need. It may surprise you to learn that an average domestic adoption ranges in cost from $35,000 - $50,000 including expenses for home study visits before and after placement, as well as, travel fees, legal fees for finalization, etc. We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as a part of this child’s story, as part of our story.
Last fall, as we began the adoption journey there was a seemingly never-ending list of boxes to check as we worked to get step-by-step closer to meeting our baby. The task that was the biggest labor of love was putting together this book.
This will be the first glimpse a birth-mom sees of our family. As we chose each photo or worded each paragraph we thought about her, prayed over her and the future relationship we would have.
We went active with our agencies the last week of January/first week of February and sent off copies of our books to each of them and we’re now in a holding phase until we match with a birth-mom. We’re active with 4 agencies, and the average wait time for adoptive families given was a range from 6-18+ months, so the silence we have had since going active was expected.
Even though it was expected it does feel a bit odd. The beginning stages of adoption were so busy. SO many steps necessary to take, lots of boxes to check, always something more to do, but now all there is to do is wait and pray.
The most frequently asked question recently has been how are things going? Where are you at now in the process? And the answer really is that simple - we’re just waiting & praying.
We pray for each birth family who may take a look at our profile book, whether they select us or not, we pray over the birth-mom who opens up that book and does select us. We pray that she knows we are for her. We pray she has a strong support system around her. And we pray over the relationship we will have with her moving forward, whatever that may end up looking like. We pray for the health of our baby, for a safe delivery, a peaceful time in the hospital and a safe journey home. And we pray prayers of gratitude over each of you. We feel so incredibly grateful for the family, friends, co-workers & strangers that have surrounded us with an outpouring of love!
Thank you for your support and for joining us in this journey of bringing baby 4 home!
Last week, I took a pile of our stickers to our homeschool day and set them out to take for any donation made and when I got home and emptied the donation envelope I was brought to
tears. I had a handful of change, but I didn’t see pennies and dimes, I saw that instead of buying a candy bar or bag of chips, children gave up their snack bar money to support us. So humbling - every penny, dime and dollar counts and what a gift it is to be surrounded by such a sweet and selfless community!
And truly, what a sweet and humbling month we have had overall. We started the month working on applications with placement agencies and launching our fundraising efforts and now we’re ending the month active with 5 different agencies and are 59% to our remaining financial needs.
We can’t thank everyone enough who has given or purchased a shirt this month, words truly will never be enough, but we hope you know - Tears were shed, prayers of thanksgiving were said and every name has been written down, so that one day we can share them with our baby and show just how many people surrounded us in this journey to be with one another.
Through direct financial gifts, personal savings and shirt sales, our financial need has lessened over this past month, so we are decreasing the total goal listed here to more accurately reflect what is still needed. What a blessing to get to this stage!
While the fundraising progress should be celebrated, we haven’t crossed the finish line yet. Now that we are active with agencies we will have opportunities to present to expectant mothers and have the potential to be matched. However, we cannot agree to a match until we are fully funded.
We know many of you have given already and we thank you. Now we ask if you would join us by sharing our story and the link to our shirts and stickers that we have for sale with your circles? Links are provided below.
Shirts - https://edenandemeralds.com/collections/frontpage/products/more-love-to-give-adoption-fundraiser-tee-preorder
Webpage to share our story - https://adopttogether.org/families/the-roths
We desire to adopt because we know that through the Gospel, we have our own adoption story and have the greatest example of adoption in all of history. “In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will . . . " Ephesians 1:5. We are so thankful to God and His Son's sacrifice on our behalf as sinners. Through faith in His work alone, we are washed clean, redeemed, and adopted into His family as His children. We pray and hope that through our adoption and our children’s lives, that the Gospel be shared and illuminated so the glory of God may be seen and known.
We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to have built around our child as he grows up. Ultimately, we know our God will provide how He sees fit and we have full faith that He will do that in His timing.
If you are unable to donate financially, we would be so grateful if y'all would partner with us in prayer, praying that God's name would be lifted up in this process, that our child's birth mother would feel loved and comforted by God in this incredibly tough and brave decision, and that we would trust His loving faithfulness and He would prepare us for what is coming. We hope you feel our gratitude and thankfulness for every prayer, donation, and encouraging word. God has used our sweet family, friends, community, and even strangers to be a means for His provision already, and we are overwhelmed with thankfulness. Thank you for your time and for reading, praying, donating and sharing!
I met Colin when I was 16, and at the time there wasn’t much more of a thought about one another, but when he came back into my life 7 years later we both pretty quickly knew that something was there between us. From day one, Colin was incredibly intentional in his pursuit to deepen our friendship and within a matter of months was very straightforward that he desired to date me with the intent of marriage. He shared that the moment either of us saw it not ending in marriage then that was it, so we didn’t waste time but instead went straight into deep serious intentional conversation without hesitation. I recognized bringing adoption up was a make it or break it for me, so it was one I couldn’t put off. I can’t remember if it was the first or second weekend he came to visit me in Nashville after we began dating, but I can still see where we were when I brought up the topic. We were sitting on a hillside under a tree at Arrington Vineyards, sharing a bottle of white and a picnic basket and I looked him in the eye and poured out my heart. I shared what the Lord had taught me over the years, and that I knew God had called all believers to care for the orphan but that ultimately I felt the Lord had shown me I would one day grow my family through adoption. Colin listened intently that day at Arrington and affirmed me in my calling. The following weekend when he visited again he brought me a book about adoption written by an adoptive father. It was his way of saying I’m in this with you. From that day forward it was never a question of “if” but instead of “when”. Even though our actual adoption process started just months ago, I feel like our story actually began almost a decade ago. Adoption has been a regular topic of conversation and prayer for our entire relationship and over these past few months it has been such a gift to see how the Lord has worked things together in His timing. It is a gift to see how He is providing for our family to grow. And it is humbling to be supported by so many dear family members and friends.
Even before we began dating, adoption had been on our hearts and minds. I [Jeleah] was about 16 the first time I told my parents they would have an adopted grandchild. I knew years before marriage or parenthood that the Lord had intended for me to be an adoptive parent. The following years, the Lord so evidently placed numerous people in my path that helped deepen that desire, share their own stories of adoption and gave me wisdom from their experiences. From Andrews, to A&M, to Malawi, to Arkansas, to Nashville, to joining Colin in Dallas, every season of my life was touched by adoption in some form. So many stories have been woven into our own. And in this moment, I am forever grateful for each person who ever took the time to share with me, who welcomed me in to pray for them, to be a small part of their story in some way, and gave me wisdom from their own journey that has given us guidance that has brought us to where we are today. And now we are here and invite you to join in to our own adoption journey, to be a thread in the story of our family, whether through prayer and/or giving, we ask you to join us as a community to surround us and our future child with love.
Stay tuned for more of our story soon!
