We are bursting with joy because we are getting ready to send our dossier to Ethiopia!
The dossier is a packet of papers that essentially goes to the Ethiopian government so they are aware of your intent to adopt from their country. They process the paper work and then send you a referral for a child/children.
The Lord has been faithful and supplied the money we needed to send this packet over to Ethiopia. I have been fundraising through giving art lessons to children, drawing wedding save-the-dates for friends, and just recently held a "Ladies Night Out Paint Party" where my sister-in-law invited ladies over to her house, we had wine and snacks, and then I instructed the ladies on how to mimic a painting I had created. We also got our tax return back, which has helped to finance this chunk of our adoption process.
We are hoping to send the dossier to Ethiopia by the end of April! Then the real fun begins.....WAITING FOR THE PICTURE OF OUR CHILDREN TO ARRIVE!!! I never thought I would be so excited to WAIT for something in all my life..... I usually have the patience of five year old on Christmas morning....
This process could take up to 9 -12 months, so we are prepared to wait. While we are waiting, we will be fundraising like crazy! In order to accept a refferal for one child we will owe $9,200 and to accept two children we will owe $14,200.
Once you have paid to accept the referral, we wait to get travel dates to meet our children. Of course, making 2 trips to Ethiopia will not be cheap.... But, God has not let us down yet!
It sounds like a lot of money... but today at work, a woman came in and showed me a picture of the sweet boy she and her husband were adopting from the Congo. He had been abandoned in a market. They do not know his birthdate, but are guessing he is around one year old. When you hear stories like this it seems their is no price too high for a child's life. Seeing her son's picture and hearing her story was just another encouragement from the Lord to continue on... someday soon he will be sending us our picture... sweet faces we can stare at every night until they are home in our arms.
We have applied for an adoption grant so that we can afford to accept a referral and we hope to sell T-shirts soon as well. We've got to stock pile that money so we are ready for the wonderful day when we see our childrens' faces.
Please pray:
- For money to continue to come our way
- For more art lessons/Paint Parties
- For the health of our children
- For the health of their birth parents
- That they are being held and loved on
- That God is preparing their hearts to know Him
- Contact us at sltodd02@gmail.com if you are interested in learning more
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, November 14, 2011
Our Journey To Africa Starts in Prayer...
Adoption is a crazy-awesome roller coaster that is teaching us patience and dependence on God... and we haven't even been in process for too long! I cannot even imagine what God will teach us next.
People ask us fairly often why we would want to adopt when we can have our "own" children. Or they wonder why we would want to adopt when it costs so much time, money, and effort. Or they ask if we think we will love them since they won't be our "own"?
To that we reply, it is biblical truth that if you are a follower of Christ you have been adopted by our heavenly Father. Eph. 1:4-5 "For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-"
Our journey in adoption began about a year ago after we miscarried a baby. Although it was a sad situation, we began to pray and evaluate where the Lord was leading us by taking away the precious gift of life. God will always be glorified through every situation, we waited for Him to reveal his glory through this one. God's sovereignty brought us peace during this time of healing and recovery and it actually ended up drawing us closer (praise Jesus!) to our Father.
It was during this time that God began to really lay some ground work for adoption in our hearts. We met a couple at our church who were going through an African adoption and soon we were doing some research online just to understand how adoption worked. Adoption and adopted children just seemed to pop-up around us all the time... God was working!
God continued to work on our hearts. After lots of discussion and prayer, we decided to attend a conference about international adoption. When we left that day, we both felt that God was leading us into adoption from Africa.
As a young couple it is intimidating to think about having children, much less adopting children! Babies cost money and we don't have the money to finance this adoption so we knew we would have to fundraise every penny.
We decided to start with a yard sale that would fund our home study (the initial step to take if you considering adopting).
In July 2011, we had a yard sale fundraiser that raised $1,000! It was the exact amount of money we needed at the time to proceed with our home study.
Our home study was just completed 2 weeks ago. We did our final interview and home inspection and sent all our paper work off with the social worker. It is a relief to be done with this part of the paperwork and move on to our Dossier. We should hear back within a month or so to see if our home study was approved.
We aren't in too much of a rush because we do need money to proceed further. The next step is to turn in our contract and Dossier to our agency (this will cost around $5,000).
I have been teaching art lessons to a couple different groups for extra money as well. One is a home school group of around 60 kids and the other was to a Boys and Girls club of 60 kids. I have also been commissioned to create a painting for extra money.
Today, our car broke down... A curve ball! but God has given us what needed each step of the way and we are trusting He will continue to provide.
We started this process in June 2010 by deciding to start the adoption process. Here we are in November, having just completed our home study. We are learning adoptions definitely do not happen quickly, especially when you have to save and raise all the money. But, some day our babies will be home with us. We are trying to adopt 2 children age 0-4 and of either gender.
How can you help our adoption?
Please pray for the health and security of our children. We love them already!!
Pray that we would continue to find people in need of an art teacher or art work. If this is something you are interested in, contact me at sltodd02@gmail.com (hopefully soon I will have some pictures of my work on the blog!)
Pray that we would continue to seek God's will in our lives and that he would continue to confirm this in our hearts.
People ask us fairly often why we would want to adopt when we can have our "own" children. Or they wonder why we would want to adopt when it costs so much time, money, and effort. Or they ask if we think we will love them since they won't be our "own"?
To that we reply, it is biblical truth that if you are a follower of Christ you have been adopted by our heavenly Father. Eph. 1:4-5 "For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-"
-Is it hard to love me? (yes! I am a rebellious sinner but Jesus loves me anyway)
-Did I come at a high cost? (yes! my God paid the ultimate price for me through death on a cross!)
-Am I God's "own" child? (yes! He will never leave me, never forsake me, he is "Abba" my Father!)
It was during this time that God began to really lay some ground work for adoption in our hearts. We met a couple at our church who were going through an African adoption and soon we were doing some research online just to understand how adoption worked. Adoption and adopted children just seemed to pop-up around us all the time... God was working!
God continued to work on our hearts. After lots of discussion and prayer, we decided to attend a conference about international adoption. When we left that day, we both felt that God was leading us into adoption from Africa.
As a young couple it is intimidating to think about having children, much less adopting children! Babies cost money and we don't have the money to finance this adoption so we knew we would have to fundraise every penny.
We decided to start with a yard sale that would fund our home study (the initial step to take if you considering adopting).
In July 2011, we had a yard sale fundraiser that raised $1,000! It was the exact amount of money we needed at the time to proceed with our home study.
Our home study was just completed 2 weeks ago. We did our final interview and home inspection and sent all our paper work off with the social worker. It is a relief to be done with this part of the paperwork and move on to our Dossier. We should hear back within a month or so to see if our home study was approved.
We aren't in too much of a rush because we do need money to proceed further. The next step is to turn in our contract and Dossier to our agency (this will cost around $5,000).
I have been teaching art lessons to a couple different groups for extra money as well. One is a home school group of around 60 kids and the other was to a Boys and Girls club of 60 kids. I have also been commissioned to create a painting for extra money.
Today, our car broke down... A curve ball! but God has given us what needed each step of the way and we are trusting He will continue to provide.
We started this process in June 2010 by deciding to start the adoption process. Here we are in November, having just completed our home study. We are learning adoptions definitely do not happen quickly, especially when you have to save and raise all the money. But, some day our babies will be home with us. We are trying to adopt 2 children age 0-4 and of either gender.
How can you help our adoption?
Please pray for the health and security of our children. We love them already!!
Pray that we would continue to find people in need of an art teacher or art work. If this is something you are interested in, contact me at sltodd02@gmail.com (hopefully soon I will have some pictures of my work on the blog!)
Pray that we would continue to seek God's will in our lives and that he would continue to confirm this in our hearts.
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