Here is our Adoption Journey so far…
We started this process of adopting 2 little girls from Liberia in April of 2022.
After visiting Liberia for 5 months in 2024, we decided to additionally adopt a little boy. This little guy, already bonded to our Liberian daughters, also became very close to our entire family during our time in Liberia, and now, life without him with us is unimaginable.
We chose Liberia because we are impressed by Liberia’s resilience and progress as a war torn country that is healing from so much. Liberia works hard to allow adoptions when necessary and to reunite families whenever possible. We are grateful Liberia is allowing us to adopt our daughters, and hopeful as we watch Liberia grow as a country.
We started this journey in April of 2022.
In May of 2023, with the help of our friends and family, church, community, and organizations like Noonday Collection, Phill the Box, Funds2Orgs, and Adopt Together, we reached our fundraising goals to make our adoption possible. At that time, we anticipated our Liberian daughters would be joining our family in 3-6 months time.
We did not get any solid updates for months, until November of 2023, when adoptions for multiple agencies, including our agency, were suspended in Liberia, which prompted our visit to bond with our kids and explore all avenues in person in February of 2024. We returned home in July of 2024 after exhausting all resources to unite our family permanently.
There are multiple political conflicts that brought adoptions to a halt in November of 2023. Although these political conflicts put Liberian children at risk, the layers of the conflicts are multifaceted and complicated beyond the adoption process itself.
As we continue to wait, we are committed to intentional international parenting. We will continue to visit as much as we can and continue to pursue every avenue to unite our family on one continent. We appreciate any encouragement as we continue to walk this road.
We are on day 119 of our Adoption journey to adopt 2 little girls from Liberia, Africa.
We hope you will join us on this adventure and appreciate in advance your time to read this post. We have just a few days left to collect shoes on our funds2orgs shoe drop project. We enjoyed the shoe project a lot! I will update here the financial gains our adoption project received just as soon as the truck is packed on 8/5/22, and funds2orgs sends a check to our adoption agency a few days later.
We currently have 3,700 pairs of shoes packed and still have shoes coming in daily!
See photo below!
Our next free fundraiser is equally exciting, and does not involve shoes.
http://www.fundingfactory.com/goal/Rivers1wayticket
Follow this link to help specifically with River’s 1 way plane ticket from Liberia, Africa to Cape Coral, Florida. River is 6. Her plane ticket home at current market price is $3,055.00.
Funding factory collects used ink and toner cartridges in exchange for $$$. No cost to us or you.
We are collecting ink cartridges that would be filling your trash cans and then filling landfills. They are recyclable! And reusable, in the hands of funding factory, who receives them from the hands of the Smith family!