Friends,
Adoption is good news. You can watch Michael tell that story by following our updates. There, you can also listen to Elizabeth sing that story, in our original song, "Welcome to the Green House."
We want to invite you into that story by helping us fund the adoption.
Some story details:
We're open to growing our family by whatever number of kids the Lord brings our way. UPDATED: We're adopting from Hungary and have said yes to a referral for twins. The cost, including agency fees, travel expenses, and other miscellaneous costs like specific medical and educational needs are part our pursued goal.
Our travel dates are set. We will meet the twins on January 14.
We'll visit with them in a supervised capacity during that first week, after which begins a month of bonding in which we'll have temporary custody, spending 30 days with the twins in our Hungarian "home." I am pleased with the peach house on the hill we found. Its gardens and vineyards will be frozen over during our stay, but we'll take advantage of stomping around with no worry of damaging the flora!
Our teenage sons will travel with us for the first week, but given their school and extracurriculars, they need to return home. We're grateful they will see where the twins grew up, meet the twins in their home country, and be able to tell them that they were part of the big adventure to go get them. We hope that this meeting will give the twins someone to look forward to seeing back home (in the home they don't know yet). We're thankful for family and friends who are making it possible for us to be gone so long by caring for our kids, our house, and our excessive dog population.
Costs for the trip are mounting, and we're trying to finalize most travel plans this week: Our known costs include international airfare for 6+, lodging for 45 days, vehicle rental (a large van at this point!). We don't know what the twins will need. Whether they come with suitcases full or just the clothes on their backs, we'll need to be prepared for both. We plan to travel with some Hungarian language children's books (yes, we could probably buy them there... but we need the practice beforehand!). Our total costs to date on the travel portion are about $13,000.
On this Giving Tuesday, we're grateful for all who have supported us.
We have a special place in our hearts for this house on a Hungarian hill. This longing and love for a place we've never been is yet another picture of the gospel. And like the sunlight that makes this house shine in winter, we're trying to be a warm and inviting light in a cold world. The twins aren't old enough to express such things. Some dark days are bound to follow. While 45 days abroad is a testing endeavor for us. They are about to leave the only world they've ever known.
We're sending the twins a book this Christmas, filled with pictures of our home, our house on the hill in the United States. Here, too, the light offers warmth and vision even amidst the dark and cold. We hope it creates longing and love for a place they'e never been. And if not, we mostly pray that in the years to come, they come to discover the longing and love for an unseen, eternal home.
"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven." —2 Corinthians 5:1-2
Today we received our official referral from the country of Hungary.
“We hope,” reads the last line of the referral, “the children will find a nice, loving family.”
We share that hope, and the eternal hope that all of these moments lead to. Thank you for your enthusiastic and prayerful hope in all of these steps.
What’s next?
* A passport appointment in the morning for our boys. The particulars of school, extracurriculars, and travel arrangements need to line up, but we’re hoping for the possibility that William and John get some time in Hungary
* Filing immigration paperwork.
* Scheduling further counseling based on needs specific to our growing family.
* Compiling a story/photo book for the children to learn about their new family.
* Getting ready for travel—we have reason to believe we’ll travel in January.
In case you didn't see our last update—we're adopting twins!
We said YES to a referral.
In a sense we said yes twice—because our adoption agency has asked us to consider adopting TWINS. (Even more accurately, that’s 8 yesses, given that our sons have been and are a continual part of the decision-making process—and they have patiently wondered what’s taking so long.)
Questions abound, I know: When do they come home? What are their names? etc. We have to protect their identities right now, but we will keep you as informed as possible about this process as none of this would have taken place without your prayers and financial support. The next steps include:
* Requesting an Official Referral from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Innovation (saying yes started this process).
* The Ministry will send our Dossier to the local region responsible for making the final decision whether we can pursue the children.
* The Ministry will issue an Official Referral.
* Traveling to Hungary for about 45 days (travel time + 30 days of mandated in-country bonding during which we’ll have temporary guardianship + official court dates on either side of that bonding period).
I will post more about Hungary, but for now, here’s what we’re doing to prepare:
Learning basic Hungarian.
* Preparing as if we’ll travel to Hungary in January (we don’t have an exact date, but we are told January is a likely possibility).
* Adding to/updating our home. Given the addition of more than one child, we’ll need another room (a garage conversion is most likely).
* Speaking with multiple medical and child education professionals about the likely specific needs our children will have.
* Continuing training, counseling, and education related to the needs associated with adoption (we’ve known from the start that trauma, medical needs, and/or developmental delays are expected).
Here are our current prayer and support needs:
**Travel. We’d like to know when these exact dates are so we can secure travel plans and figure out how many of us can go to Hungary. It’s always been our desire to have our entire family united there, but school and work schedules along with the international travel costs for multiple people will factor in.
**Home updates. We’ll be talking to building professionals this month about the cost-effective and timely solutions for adding more space to our house. With this set of twins, we think an additional room is important.
**Bonding time. Please begin praying now for a meaningful bonding time in Hungary. Part of that is the preparation that begins now—learning more Hungarian (they’ll pick up English before we pick up Hungarian!), planning how to spend meaningful interaction time with the children, and planning for all the ways in which planning won’t go according to plan! And pray for the preparation of hearts of all involved—our hearts as parents, the hearts of our children, and the hearts of the interpreters, social workers, and officials we’ll encounter overseas.
**Unknown Needs. We’ll have more mysteries than answers. But that’s OK—we walk by faith, not by sight. Every human is marked by the mysterious image of God, regardless of how much background information we think we have. We’re asking God to prepare for us the right team to help with ongoing medical, educational, or development needs our children might have.
Your generous support has made this process possible. For example, it cost about $1500 just to have these adoption files translated and assessed by International Adoption Clinic professionals. That’s one of many specific ways in which we’ve been able to apply the funds you’ve provided. We’re hoping to announce soon that funds will be going to plane tickets! (Note: we did increase our original goal to reflect the updated information we have on twins and some of their specific, ongoing medical needs).
We praise God for what He is doing in our family. And we praise Him for you. We believe He will continue to reveal Himself as our Helper
Our dossier has been translated. What’s a dossier?
A dossier is a collection of documents submitted to the The Ministry of Culture and Innovation in Hungary.
It included things such as our a representation letter from our adoption agency, our official request letter to the Ministry, an immigration approval, our home study, and the loads of paperwork completed to this point.
Outside of the paperwork, one of the more fun elements of the dossier was creating photo files for Hungary. I’ll attach some of those here.
Dossier delivery day is September 26. With this step done, the only thing left is matching, which will require an official referral from Hungary.
The Impact of Your Donations
On this original post I supplied a graphic that show our adoption fees. I drew a red line on the fees we’re responsible for up to this point (You can see here: https://stewartadoption.com/dossier-translated/). These are the official fees that your generosity has helped us to cover. Our travel fees are unknown at this point. This infographic is based on Elizabeth and I traveling to adopt one child. Those fees increase if we’re able to adopt multiple children (which we’re hoping for), and they increase if we’re able to take our current biological children with us to meet their new sibling(s)—something we also hope for.
Pray for us, as we expect to hear officially from the Ministry soon.
I originally posted this update on our adoption site (stewartadoption.com), but in the midst of celebrating and mourning forget to share here on the Adopt Together platform. I've got a more recent update to share, but it's important to me that this March 2024 is linked here to. (Original post: https://stewartadoption.com/completed-home-study-and-a-home-going/)
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There is much to celebrate and much to mourn. We celebrate having received official notification of our completed home study. And we mourn, having received in the same week the news of the passing of my beloved Uncle Cecil.
But we do not mourn as those who have no hope (1 Thess 4:13). While our home study marks the beginning of new life for us, so, too, does the home going for Uncle Cecil. His new life in the Father’s house is the celebration of his adoption as a child of God. That adoption is the great adoption that inspires our pursuit.
My home is emptier for Uncle Cecil no longer being on this earth. Typing that brings tears. He was the most funny and most friendly… the most clever and most kind. .
The emptiness is a great pain, but that’s because he made my home fuller. He did the same for everyone. That I get to share thoughts on that at his funeral service next week is a great honor of my life. For now, and in this space I’ll tell you how his life is one of the key lives that inspires our adoption.
My Uncle Cecil's Love of Family
Thanksgiving was big for me—because it was small (just my immediate family and the annual tradition of sharing the meal with Uncle Cecil and Aunt Alyson). They’d come to stay with us for multiple days and we had just them to ourselves. I not only enjoyed Uncle Cecil, but I enjoyed his enjoyment of us. It was genuine and marked with gratitude. It was a gratitude he also expressed when speaking of other extended family members from his side. He spoke about them in a way that didn’t make you jealous of other relationships—it made you want to appreciate all the more the ones you were blessed with. It made you understand that love was capable of being multiplied without subtracting from others.
His love of family was, of course, unrivaled when it came to my aunt. From earliest memories, I remember wanting my future marriage to mimic their enjoyment of one another. Theirs was a love of mutual respect and romance, of honor given and honor received. The security of a strong marital relationship is a great gift to the children who observe it.
My Uncle Cecil as a Father Figure
My uncle had no biological children, but he was a man who loved as a father: he nourished, he protected. He did this for the nieces and nephews who were part of his family. He did this for friends. And his later nursing career at a local high school allowed him to care not only for the physical needs of those students, but to care also for the souls. He showed the boundless nature of love in extending it to those who had nothing to offer in return; and he showed the committed nature of love as the consummate medical professional giving care to any in his charge.
My Uncle Cecil's Gift
I don’t know how to label this particular ability, but being with my Uncle Cecil left you wanting to be more like him while also being more confident and content with your own identity. That’s a gift. When he was present, you were confident all would be well; he somehow did that without you feeling inadequate… you were, in fact, reassured after time with him. He was quick to compliment and slow to complain. He was a keen and compassionate observer. You enjoyed his quiet or his conversation.
Carrying on the Legacy
The Lord blesses us with relationships, and they are eternal investments. He saw fit to give us Uncle Cecil. And the Lord will one day give him back to us. And we will all be given to one another in ways this mortal flesh could never manage. No good is ever wasted. All shall be redeemed. Until then, our goal in this adoption is to extend the love of our home the way that my uncle did: to value our earthly family in light of a higher, heavenly one; to love beyond the boundaries of bloodlines; to make others aware and appreciative of their own identity as we encourage and enjoy one another.
We are grieved at the prospect of children who’ll never meet Uncle Cecil, but we are reminded, especially this Easter week, that an eternal reunion awaits.
You lived well, Uncle. You loved well. We will multiply that love.
I miss you.
