Fundraiser/Matching Grant Update

**UPDATE: You GUYS! In less than 24 hours you have met the fundraising goal! 😭😭😭I'll be posting an updated post in a few minutes with other ways to give if you still feel led to donate!

Hi wonderful people!

I am just loving summertime!  It could be because I have resigned my teaching job and I’m not spending my days making plans for next year…

It could be because of vacations and having more time to see friends and family…

Or it COULD be because I’m looking at this picture all day, every day…

Sorry, I can’t show you the whole picture, yet!

In the meantime, we’ve mailed off our immigration request and are waiting for the approval.  Also--after encouragement from many of you to open ourselves up to the opportunity for others to join in on our journey once again--we filled out paperwork for the grant and have officially been offered a $4,000 grant!!!  That’s about $4,000 more than we expected.

The organization that is providing the grant is called Brittany’s Hope Foundation (www.BrittanysHope.org).   Brittany’s Hope Foundation helps unite families and children through the gift of matching grants through their Seedling Gift Program.  Brittany’s Hope Foundation has a mission for helping children with special needs both abroad and being placed for international adoption. They are able to accomplish these goals through corporate donations, the public’s generosity and their Seedling Gift Program.

The way the grant works is this:

We have to raise $2,000 to be donated directly to Brittany’s Hope.  Once $2,000 has been raised in our names, Brittany’s Hope will send $4,000 to our adoption agency to be used toward our adoption fees and travel expenses.  It will also enable us to save some of our adoption funds to use for surgeries Eliana will need after we bring her home.

It’s that simple!  

So many of you have already called, texted, and asked us in person how you can help.  Well, here it is! By donating to this fundraiser, you will be helping Brittany's Hope as they work tirelessly to bring awareness to these precious children who wait and wait and wait.

Every dollar donated by you will be matched through the Seedling Gift Program, making your gift multiply and grow, bringing more children the gift of a “Forever Family”---including our Eliana Faith.

Ways to give:

*Online: Follow this link to donate online:  https://www.brittanyshope.org/seedling/kelley/

*By check made payable to Brittany’s Hope.  You can either give these to us in person and we will mail checks or you can send your check directly to Brittany’s Hope: Brittany's Hope Foundation, 1160 North Market Street, Elizabethtown, PA 17022.

***After making a donation, you will receive a thank you note from Brittany’s Hope to use for tax purposes***

With our travel dates being so up in the air, we’d like to have our “ducks in a row” as soon as possible so that we can be ready to go at the drop of a hat.  Because of the uncertain timeline, we’d like to finish up the fundraiser over the next month. If you would like to help us bring Eliana home, please make your donation sometime before August 12!  I will update you guys every week or so on the fundraiser total so you can see our progress!

I can’t tell you how much your support over the years has meant to us.  So many of you have already given so much toward this long and twisty adoption journey--both financially and through emotional support and prayers.  There have been days when we were too tired to continue and yet God sent us encouragement in the form of YOU asking, praying, giving. It is humbling to look back on these six years and know that we could not possibly have made it to this point without the support system we have both near and far.  There truly are not words to express our gratitude. I’ll have to stick with--Thank you.

Frequently Asked Questions--What's Next?

Words cannot describe the surge of joy that hits when I hear a ding on my phone--see that it is an email from the adoption agency--and notice the subject is “videos.”  To see her smile, to hear her babble, to watch her blow a kiss...I don’t know her foster family, but I love them! It is so obvious that they take good care of the one we will call Eliana.  

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around here.  Between swim team practice and meets, a trip to the beach, and family visiting, we’ve been filling out paperwork to move forward with adopting this precious little girl.  We’ve gotten lots of the same questions from people about what things look like moving forward, so I thought I’d try to answer them here.

1. Whats next?

When you receive a referral to be matched with a child, the first thing you do is sign paperwork saying you accept the referral.  When adopting from Georgia, you do not make a trip to meet the child until court. In the meantime, you file what is called an i800--Petition to Classify Convention Child as Immediate Relative.  This form will get us approval from US Immigration to bring Eliana home with us. After receiving that approval we will fill out visa applications. These two steps must be completed before we can receive a court date.  After these two steps are completed and sent to Georgia, they will run an Interpol check on us and then send our dossier and approvals to the court system.

2. When will you travel?

Not a clue.

The adoption agency estimates that we will travel 4-6 months after the referral...which would be sometime around October-December.  They’ve warned us that when travel time comes we may not have much advance notice. Apparently the judges are known to say “Hey, I have an opening next week” and then the family has to hop on a plane.

3. How long will you be there?

We are supposed to arrive 3-7 days before our court date.  After court we will have paperwork to chase (surprising, I know).  We will have to wait for a new birth certificate, adoption decree, visit the US Embassy for a medical appointment and apply for her visa, and get a Georgian passport for Eliana.  All of this will take a few weeks. We will most likely be in Georgia for around a month.

4. Is Matthew excited?

Oh my goooooodnesss you guys.  It’s adorable. He carried around a picture of her the last few days of school and showed it to everyone, “This is going to be my baby sister, Eliana.”  He took it to church and even asked me if we should show it to the Chick-Fil-A drive in workers, haha! My favorite line so far was driving to VBS one morning last week, Matthew said, “Mommy, I just love to daydream about Eliana.  Sometimes I forget to pay attention. But real life is more important than learning, so Eliana is more important than paying attention...right?”

Yep.  He’s excited.

5. How can we help?  Are you doing a fundraiser?

I honestly don’t want to do another fundraiser...We know that God will provide what we need regardless...in fact he has already begun!  Our airline tickets are being covered and a random check arrived in the mail yesterday! At this point how much money we will need is a matter of estimation, so it is difficult to be certain how much money we will need.  We have kept our “Adoption Savings” in a separate account all these years so it stayed protected from all of our other expenses. It has gotten quite low over the last couple of months as we’ve made it to these new, exciting stages.  In calculating the last remaining expenses, we would feel more comfortable with traveling if we had about $3,000 more. Oddly enough, yesterday (along with the videos and a check in the mail) our adoption agency contacted us to see if we are interested in a matching grant fundraiser...one that would give us a total of $3,000.  We would conduct a fundraiser to raise at least $1,500 and then receive a matching grant of $1,500. We are waiting for more details...but it is a difficult opportunity to pass up. Soooo, we’ll keep you posted.

Thank you for your continued support and all of the Congratulations!  We are so excited to move forward and step into this next chapter of life!  Please continue to pray for Eliana and her foster family. What we look to with overjoyed excitement will be very difficult for Eliana.  Pray that God would begin to prepare her heart for the changes coming in her future!

My God Has Answered

He gave us her heritage first.  Azerbaijani.  And we’ve spent six years chasing her down.

Later—years later—he gave us her gender through a dream.  A girl.  She never left my heart after that dream of the girl with dark hair and dark eyes.

We tried to find her in Azerbaijan. China.  Ethiopia.  But, as my daddy would say, those children were not reassigned to our family.

We wanted to give up.  Move on. Have more biological children.  But that was not His plan. 

She was born in January 2017 as God was piecing us together again after some of our darkest days...but we didn’t know. 

It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that he told us what her name would be.

Eliana Faith

Eliana: a Hebrew name meaning “my God has answered.”

And on November 29th he told us where to find her.  Not in the country of her heritage...but in a neighboring country where hers is the largest minority.

The Republic of Georgia.

We first learned of her existence that day.  A ten month old with Azerbaijani heritage.

And three days before Christmas we saw her face.  Our hearts stood still but time could not.  Kyle and Matthew were headed to the movies.  Was she the one?  Was she the child?  The brother/sister we’ve been searching for? Waiting for?

February brought more pictures and a stack of paperwork...remaking the dossier took about three months.

After three dossiers...

Five immigration approvals...

Six years...

At least a dozen background checks by various agencies...

After 2,190+ days...

Buckets of tears and learning to live here and now...

After learning to give up on our plans...learning to trust in the Lord’s timing...

We’ve received her referral.  My God has answered!

The paperwork is stacking up again. But look ahead...do you see it?  The light, there in the distance.  There is a door swinging open and we didn’t have to pry it open! 

"I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord! Be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!" Psalm 27:13-14

So Very Close

So very close.

So close I feel like my heart will crawl out of my skin and fly across the ocean and over a continent to find this one child.

So close it is hard to concentrate on the here and now because I want to peer into the future! The moment we get the referral...will we laugh or cry or shout out our joy?  What will Matthew say when he sees the picture?  How will he react?  I want a glimpse of our first moments together...I want to know what it will feel like to pick up this little person and introduce myself as mommy.

The list is forming in my mind. Nursery, clothes, what to pack? Researching, wondering, hoping.

But afraid.  So afraid to do anything, to change anything, to plan anything yet.  Not yet. Not until we have the referral that says this one, this child.

Our dossier has been approved in Georgia.

Two documents are making their way around the world right now...two final pieces to complete the dossier.  Then we wait for the referral.

"I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord! Be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!"--Psalm 27: 13-14

Faith Has Work To Do

Faith is a funny thing.

While my mind spends time running possible scenarios and telling me there is no hope and no way we will adopt this little one with the dark hair and dark eyes…

While my heart is running away with hopes and dreams and planning for that shy smile to come here and be forever home…

Faith has work to do.  And faith requires work.  Faith says, “It doesn’t matter.  Best case scenario, worst case scenario.  It is all beside the point.”

Faith says that all my wondering and wandering are meaningless because God is in control.  My mind can lay out every possible outcome and my heart can run away dreaming about the best possibilities.  But faith says simply to trust that God’s plan is just and it is good and that “He works out all things for the good of those called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Faith reminds me constantly of truth.  When I calculate for the hundredth time, the thousandth time when my dreams might come to pass, faith reminds to say “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:15).

When I wonder about the days and hours to come, faith tells me again and again “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16).

But this faith?  Where did it come from?  I haven’t been like this throughout the journey.  It has grown through trials, through stumbling, through lack of faith.  Faith has grown in my life in spite of me. Yes, I’ve had to choose faith in God through the pain of life’s circumstances.  Time after time I’ve told the Lord, “I don’t understand you, I don’t know why, but I trust you.” Faith requires work, but with a simple decision it grows exponentially! How can this be?

Tuesday Kyle spent the day in Richmond visiting the Virginia Secretary of State’s office to get all of our documents apostilled.  We met in the parking lot of my school to trade the envelope containing all of the work of the last 4 months. Matthew and I stopped by the bank for a cashier’s check then zipped over to FedEx.  The guy at the counter recognizes me by now, knows I come to mail adoption paperwork. When I placed the dossier documents on the counter, fancy gold seals shining on the front pages, he raised his eyebrows and looked at me.  “I need to mail these...they are very important.” He nodded, understanding my meaning. He put the flimsy envelope away, grabbed a small box, added the stack of documents along with packing materials and assured me it would arrive safely.  

This is the third time we have assembled and mailed a dossier.  Every time it feels like sending a small child somewhere alone, unsupervised!  Matthew and I said a quick prayer as we drove away.

Wednesday the dossier arrived at our adoption agency.  They checked everything over one last time and sent word: “Your documents are on their way to Georgia.”

And now?  We wait.

This child with the shy smile?  Maybe we will meet one day soon.  But maybe we won’t. Maybe someone else will adopt this little one--we can’t know the future.  But all the days of this little person’s life are written in God’s book. We are praying daily for this little one.  We learned that the placement has changed from orphanage to foster care….we don’t know what the implications are. But we’ve added the foster family to our prayers.  

And above all, we are thankful for the faith God has grown in us as we wait to see what the future holds.

Things are happening...

Y’all.

Things are happening and the excitement is terrifying and I’m so scared to say it out loud.

Also---lots of unofficial, not done yet stuff going on here.  So I’m going to give the edited version and leave out some information so I can ask you to be praying, but I promise to give more details as soon as things are more official!  

We are switching countries.  That started back in November.  SO much paperwork.  We are almost done with the home study update.  Once that is complete we will be waiting for immigration again.  We’ve gathered most of our dossier documents.  Everything will be notarized and then apostilled (remember, that’s where the Secretary of State of the state in which the document was notarized puts his/her stamp on the document as well).  We’ve had our blood tests and TB tests (still clear in case you were concerned).  We’ve had our backgrounds checked yet again by state police and social services.  Still have to be checked by FBI and USCIS (immigration).

Paperwork. Ugh.

Why?  Why did God, after six years, release us from Azerbaijan?

We *THINK* (I’ve learned not to speak with certainty about this sort of thing)...we think it is because of this child.  This child in the Republic of Georgia who was just about to be available for adoption whose heritage is Azerbaijani.  Yes, seriously.  Our agency mentioned the child in conversation when they asked us to consider switching countries.  We were on speaker phone, sitting on the curved couch in our living room, phone on the table.  Our eyes met and we both nodded.  We’ve been asked this question so many times before!  Always, always we’ve felt caution and asked for time to pray.  This time it was like a weight was lifted suddenly.  We nodded!  Kyle spoke for us.  Yes, let’s do it.  Let’s switch countries.

They reminded us a few times that this child--there was no way to guarantee.  We understand.  Not ours.  But maybe….maybe God’s plan is beginning to unfold.

On December 22 they sent us a picture and a video and the world stopped turning for several minutes.  Did you not feel that???  My sis in law has a habit of being in my house when crazy things happen related to our adoption.  I couldn’t even form coherent sentences.  I just demanded that she come and look.  Then I made her promise not to say a word. Sorry, Kayla!!

But still, this child is not ours.  Not yet.  Not promised to us.  We wrote a letter to the official people over there and waited for more.  Please, Lord.  And we got busy with our paperwork.

But days passed.  And weeks.  Over a month and no word.  I realized I’d gotten my hopes up for nothing.

Last night our church had a night of prayer and worship.  The band plays on and off and people read scripture and pray from the stage and all around the room.  People stand, sit, or kneel as the Spirit moves.  I was so mad at myself for the first hour and a half that we were there.  My thoughts were consumed with the adoption.  I didn’t want that to be my sole focus...I’ve worked so hard to keep it from being an idol in my life...to find a healthy balance between wishing for this child and being focused on the here and now.  But after being there a while, I figured I may as well tell the Lord how I felt.  I begged him for something, anything.  Any little piece of news.  I asked him the burning question.  The one I repeatedly have to push down and out of my heart and mind.  “How long, Lord???”

After I was honest with the Lord, I moved on.  I prayed and worshipped.  It was so peaceful and God’s Spirit was so present.

When I left I called Kyle (who had left early to take Matthew to bed).  He asked, “Have you checked your email?”

Videos.  Pictures.  Medical information.  A birthday.  A name.  All arrived in my inbox around the same time I was begging the Lord to give us some little piece of movement!

Wait, wait, wait.  Now hold on with your excitement.  This is terrifying!  It isn’t a referral---just information to find out if we are interested (DUH).  We aren’t even approved and registered to adopt in their country yet!  There are so many pieces that have to fall in place.  So. Many. Pieces.

Please pray!  Pray for this child.  This child who has a name and a gender and a story who is known and loved by God!  Pray for health and comfort.  Pray for caregivers.

Pray for our hearts, that we would stay focused on the Lord.  If this doesn’t go the way we hope, our faith in God is what will help us continue on the path he has set out for us.  And if it DOES go the way we hope, he will be the one to walk us through the life changes ahead!

And would you just ask...would you beg a little...that this would be it?  That this child would be the one?  That we would see God work his wonders in this adoption?

Do me a favor and don’t ask us about the child yet.  We have been trusted with information that is not ours to share, so please make it easy on us and don’t ask.  This information here is all we will be sharing for a while.  Also, while Matthew does know that we are switching countries, he does not know anything about the child.  He asks weekly about getting a sibling, and we would like to spare him some disappointment if this one is not the one.

We’ll keep you posted as we finish paperwork.  It will probably be a few months before anything can possibly happen because we have to be “official.”  Thank you for continuing to bear with us through this long and twisty road!

"Are you still doing that adoption thing?"

I'm baaaaack!

I know it has been a while since I posted!  I know it is time to post because in the last two months I've had MANY conversations that have started like this...

"I hope its okay for me to ask....how's the 'adoption thing' going?  Are you still doing that?"

So, I figure it's time to give an update.  But first--Why the 10 month break?  

Those of you who have been following for a while probably read the last post, Sifted.  The summer of 2016 presented some serious obstacles for our adoption.  We had to switch agencies ~again~, almost adopted a precious boy from Ethiopia before realizing it wasn't going to work out, and then thought we would go for a biological child only to have a miscarriage.  Our family was going through several other health challenges at the time, too, and life generally felt like a total letdown.

After our miscarriage, I threw myself into my work.  I love to teach and the Lord used the kids in my class last year to point me to the reality that life was already a letdown for many kids even as young as elementary school.  I also realized that over the past few years our adoption (or rather, lack of adoption) had really begun to consume me.  

Soooo, as the year progressed, we worked on a home study update---but took our time.  We made changes (looking to adopt up to 2 kids, up to age 5), but we weren't frantic about the timeline.  We got yet another immigration approval, but didn't stress about how long it would take to receive.  We got everything translated~~again~~but didn't wonder how long it would take.

By the way---last time we got translations it took 9 months.  This time? ONE month.

Instead of updating the blog along the way, we talked about our baby steps with family and close friends.

We are currently back to the waiting process.  The state committee in Baku has told our agency that they will be working on a referral for us soon...which is probably the most promising thing that we have heard from them so far.  But I can't say that the news has really made a difference in our lives.  The truth is, our hope is in the Lord.  If He plans to bring this adoption to completion, He will.  

In January I wrote in my prayer journal, asking ~begging~ the Lord to show me how to have hope again.  So many of my plans have been utterly destroyed over the years.  But my hope was in those plans.  My hope was in God making those plans happen for me.

A little backwards, ya know?

Somewhere along the way...without any fanfare or sign from above...somehow that hope began to live in my heart again.  But my hope is different. Better. Our hope is in the Lord. In knowing that He has plans for our lives.  Trusting that when Kyle and I ran into each other on the quad in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and fell in love over fried chicken and Alabama football, God knew then the obstacles we would face.  God knew he would call us to an impossible adoption.  God knew that my plans of three kids before age 30 would never happen.  God knew the health challenges we would face. He knows the dark days that will visit us again sometime down the road.

When we first held Matthew in our arms, God knew from that first breath that Matthew would face obstacles, too.  Even in his young life with his tender heart.  God knew the curve balls that would come, the curve balls still ahead.

He knew when Robin first held Kyle.  When my mom first held me.  Our hope is in trusting that God holds the whole world.  My whole world, your whole world.  He holds our todays and our tomorrows.  

He also holds our little one...or little ones.  When a woman delivered the kids we will one day adopt, he knew the chaos that would unfold for each little life.  He knows the day we will all be united!

Will we ever actually adopt from Azerbaijan?  I have no idea!  I HOPE so!  But it is a hope anchored in the Lord...not in my plans.

I can tell you what I do know!  God will build our family.  There will be more kids in this big house.  Kyle and I will one day look across the table at each other~~just about to reach the end of our rope in frustration~~and we will suddenly realize we are wonderfully outnumbered, just like we wanted.  God loves adoption. I believe He will build our family through adoption.  In His time. By His power.