Thank you, everyone for your continued prayers for us! Ever since we got accepted for the adoption process, I feel as if we have been stagnant, not moving forward. This has been very difficult for me as I am a very impatient person. I am beyond ready to bring our baby home, yet we haven't even begun the home study and all the paperwork involved! However now I realize that it was because the Lord had something else planned for us first.
We are excited to state that we are moving! Though if you have seen my information on Facebook, you already knew that. We will be moving right around Valentine's day. Right now our goal is to move out of our apartment on the 13th or 14th and move in to our Kent apartment within the week. We are planning to see the Grand Canyon and San Francisco on our way up to Washington state! I will let you all know our address when I get it!
Our other extremely exciting news is that our Adoption Bug T-shirt website is up and available! YAY!!! There are six t-shirts available to purchase. The commissions will be able to go to helping out with our adoption expenses which as you may have noticed in our previous blog are quite a bit! We appreciate any help and prayer that we can get!
The Lord is working and moving in our lives and we are very thankful! We are praying that I am able to find a job soon after we get up to Washington. We have no doubt that the Lord will bless that! I have had some major encouragement from people at LeTourneau that are putting in a good word for me at colleges up there. We are so blessed!
Ok, so I apologize for the delay in updates. Life has gotten away from us. Many of you already know from family or Facebook that Andrew and I have been accepted to continue our adoption process with America World Adoption Agency. We will be adopting a baby boy or girl from Ethiopia in whatever time frame the Lord sees fit. We found out our acceptance to the program on our 3rd anniversary! There is no more perfect of a gift we could ask for! We hope to complete the process in one year; however many pieces of the puzzle must fall in to place before this can happen.
So many people ask, “Ok, so what is next?” Good question! The most major item on our agenda is to ask for prayer as this process takes root. We know that without the Lord’s blessing and guidance we will stay stagnant in our attempts to move forward with this adoption. Now to work on the “roots” of the process with the Lord’s blessing. This part is called the “paper pregnancy.” In order to move on to the next steps of the “paper pregnancy,” we need to come up with $5,000. This initial start-up cost covers the background check, home-study, and initial agency fee. Wow, $5,000 up front!!! This is only about 1/5th of the cost of the adoption.
What in the world is all that money going for you may ask? Well, here is the breakdown for you:
$100 - $1,000 – miscellaneous costs (doctor visit, social security card, postage, long distance calls, etc.)
We have had many people question our desire to adopt, especially internationally. In all actuality, we have done our research. Unless you are adopting from the foster care system, the cost is relatively similar with money being reallocated to helping with birthmother costs and marketing yourself as prospective parents. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the parents that decide to go this route. I am also very thankful for the birthmothers that decide to give their children up for adoption instead of taking the “easy” way out with abortion. For us, it wasn’t really the cost that made up our minds. It was the desire that the Lord has placed on our lives for international missions. Part of this is, I believe, is international adoption.
We talked about taking a loan out to cover part of the amount, but we have talked with a friend of ours that told us to let people know our hearts and let God work. We do not want to ask for money necessarily, but prayer. However if you feel the call to help financially, please know that we will see any help as a major blessing on our path to making the dream of becoming parents a reality.
We know that God is in control of the finances and how quickly the adoption process goes. We are looking to set up a couple different fundraisers to help with the cost. One will hopefully be through Adoption Bug. Another will be some sort of coffee fundraiser. We would also love to have a garage sale, if anyone is willing and able to donate a garage to us to have one in.
We continue to covet and desire your prayers, love, and support throughout the process! Our lead verse for this adoption process is Matthew 18:5, “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.” Please post this verse somewhere to remind yourself to pray for Andrew and I as we continue down this road!
