I don’t really know how to start this post but just to say, my goodness, things are WEIRD!
And for those of you walking along side us on this WEIRD journey, we are more than thankful.
It honestly baffles me. There is SO VERY much unknown right now, and yet we keep working with zero answers and you all keep moving right along with us. 🧡
To sum up where we are at…
🧡 We are still working toward adoption as God has asked and we’re trusting He has a plan for us.
🧡 We don’t know who we will adopt or where we will need to travel to bring him/her home. We are trusting God to show us this direction.
🧡 We are in the middle of a pandemic that affects travel, paperwork, timelines, restrictions….everything.
🧡 International adoption, because of COVID, is currently a fluid process, changing almost daily and making it next to impossible to plan ahead.
🧡 We don’t know how many trips to anticipate for our adoption or the duration of these trips.
🧡 We don’t know if borders will be open or closed when we are ready to travel.
🧡 We don’t know how these changes will affect the already astronomical cost of adoption.
🧡 We have started fundraising before starting paperwork and before knowing any of these answers (which was never our plan, but felt like the right time to begin).
And yet, we’re surrounded by support and love and a slew of people who believe in us when we don’t really have anything to give them except to share our story right now.
I’ve always been pretty private with my fears and my struggles and my finances, but I feel that especially in the situation we’re in now, transparency is what is deserved. All of you who have been traveling with us, step by step into the unknown, deserve to see the progress, the process, and where the funds are going.
It would be so much easier (for you and us!) to have a timeline, a certain agenda, a budget, or at least the face of the child we will call our own to help our support system see who and what they are giving to. But in the weirdness that is our reality, all we have is the story of this journey.
Our first fundraiser is coming up next month. We’re excited and nervous to see how it all turns out. Every person coming and/or helping is doing so with just the faith that we will be starting paperwork soon and they are helping to make that possible.
(If you’re local and want to join in the fun, there are still a few tickets left, just send me a message!)
We had another huge delivery for our Rummage Sale this weekend. I keep getting so emotional every time someone brings us stuff. It’s still seven months away and we have so much stored away already!
Our next hurdle is going to be passports and we’re going to get started this week because things are moving S…L…O…W! The adults are covered but H’s is expired and J doesn’t have one so we feel it’s important to get moving on this now. We have no clue if they will be traveling with us, but we always hoped H would be able to come for part of the trips and if our stay will be an extended one, J will likely tag along.
Our last family-of-four vacation (which has been booked and paid for months ago) also requires passports, but that, too, is up in the air due to COVID cancellations.
I guess in all this, I just want to keep saying THANK YOU! Thank you for pouring your support into us and this adoption when we are unable, in the midst of this weirdness, to give you anything back by way of assurance.
We promise to keep sharing because you all are part of this story now too!
Much love! 🧡
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
Strangely enough these five words were threaded into my church’s message a few Sunday’s ago. And wouldn’t you know, they were specifically what we needed to remember for the weeks that followed.
Not a coincidence.
The gist of it was that when it seems like satan is working hard to derail you, you have a choice. You can sit back and blame him, thus giving him all the credit. Or, you find the hidden blessings and the gifts that still remain, and still lift up your thanks to God.
We’ve been trying. It’s hard when you are overwhelmed, when the stress builds up, when it seems like you’re being slammed with one thing after another in such a short time. But we are making a concentrated effort NOT to let satan have any credit here.
I think to-the-point is the quickest way to provide an adequate update (it’s still pretty long).
Our trial: My mom’s flooring started to get wavy and appeared to be water damaged. After some investigation, we discovered her heating/cooling unit had malfunctioned and had been leaking into the wall, thereby damaging the drywall, insulation, flooring, baseboards, subfloor, and wall sheathing.
Our THANKS: We are so grateful we caught it when we did. It was slowly spreading across the living room and we were able to stop it, and save some of it, before it was much much worse. We also noticed that her door had not been installed correctly when we built on and there was a small area where water had been seeping in. While, yes, it was another problem, we never would have known if we hadn’t had to pull up the flooring.
Our trial: A contractor came out and quoted us a price to ‘fix it right’. It was nearly $6,000 not including the interior materials or the new heating/cooling unit we would have to buy to replace the faulty one and the cost of installation. Our insurance (with a $1000 deductible) would ONLY pay for replacement of the inside materials. Those would not come close to the deductible.
Our THANKS: Our insurance company’s outrage at the amount we would be asking for prompted us to look for another opinion. They said there was “No, way” what we described and showed in photos would result in that amount of repair. It made us question the honesty of the contractor we had called. We called someone else, someone we trusted but knew couldn’t work on our house due to scheduling, and he came right out. He verified that the first quote was way too high. We really feel like the first guy tried to scam us because we were not knowledgable and we were desperate for help. The insurance company’s “No” was hard to swallow, but it helped us avoid being taken advantage of.
Our trial: Knowing what needed to be done now, Devin was fairly confident he could do a majority of the work. He and his dad worked on framing up the hole in the wall where the previous unit had gone, installing new insulation, and wall sheathing. They took out the door, did the fix, and reinstalled that. And then it rained. And the door still leaked.
Our THANKS: Truly, this sucked! We had to make an appointment with a professional because we just didn’t know if there is a fix for it or if we needed a whole new door. BUT, we are so lucky we hadn’t yet got to replacing the floor inside. Because, again, we never would have known. It isn’t a constant leak, because it’s not constantly raining, so it’s not affecting the flooring, but it’s enough that the subfloor was rotten and mold was sure to follow. Thank goodness we found out before then!
Our trial: After Devin and his dad worked all that was left was house wrap and siding on the outside wall (we had to special order ONE piece due to the newly framed portion of the wall). Devin got to work on that one evening. He came in not long after with his hand clamped over his leg and telling me we needed to go to the hospital, NOW! He’d cut himself on the last little section of house wrap.
Our THANKS: Thankfully my mom was home and lives here, because I was able to drop Josie at her house and rush to the ER. Luckily he had just changed out the razor blade and it was incredibly sharp. Maybe that’s why the cut was so deep, but it was also why it was so clean. A clean cut that was much easier to just glue back together. And gratefully, Devin’s dad snuck back over and finished up his work for him before we even got back from the hospital.
Our trial: We definitely did not want to put the unit back in even if we could fix it because we would be back in the same place of not being able to see an issue until it was too late. And we didn’t want to get the same kind of unit for that same reason. We called out two companies to quote us on a mini-split unit so everything would be housed outside of the house instead. The first came back at almost $4000. I was definitely hoping for less and was counting on the second quote being better. It wasn’t. When you’re trying so hard to save money, having to pull that amount is gut-wrenching.
Our THANKS: When we started this adoption journey, getting our finances in order was priority one. Had we not done that, we wouldn’t be in a position now that we CAN pay for this. And we can pay for it without touching our Adoption Savings Account -OR- any of my Work Savings Account. I want to make sure anyone who has donated to our adoption already or has donated items that we’ve sold for our adoption funds knows that we DID NOT and WILL NOT touch that money. Not having to pull from my work money is just an added blessing as that money is also allocated to our adoption.
Our trial: While reinstalling the flooring at my mom’s, Devin’s cut opened up on his leg again. Being the guy he is, he feels this obligation to get it all set right, even when he should be letting himself heal. Back to the ER.
Our THANKS: We opted to go to another ER opposed to our local one because we just weren’t thrilled with how his wound was healing in the first place. He was surprised and relieved when the doctor working the ER that day was his cousin Tracy! She got him all fixed up, a few staples and he was on his way. It is healing beautifully now!
So this is where we are now!
It’s been long, it’s been tiring, it’s been stressful and we’re not finished yet, BUT…
Seriously, we have a lot to be thankful for, it’s not a road block, just a little set back. And after Devin’s two weeks of DOCTOR ORDERED rest, we will get back at it and finish up the repairs and keep moving forward.
Huge thanks to everyone who has helped us, we love and appreciate you all!
I follow a lot of adoptive family’s pages on social media. I love watching their journey, getting a little peek at the process of paperwork, fundraising, travel, and best of all, coming home. I’m always in awe of the transformations of children as the months go on, when you get to witness what love and family can do.
And I even like to hear about the struggles after the adoption process is complete, not because I enjoy watching them struggle, but because they are being real and showing the truth of what adoption sometimes looks like. Putting a sunny happy filter on real life doesn’t help anyone. I admire those who are honest and help me get a real picture.
What I often don’t see on these pages though, are people who struggle BEFORE. Sure, there’s little bits here and there; a fundraiser flop, a missed item on paperwork, a car that breaks down just before travel. But overwhelmingly the people who have made the decision to adopt seem steadfast from the moment they first begin the process. It leaves me to wonder if I (we) am alone in some of these pre-adoption internal struggles, or if I’m simply alone in sharing them. I’d like to think it’s the latter, I mean I certainly hope it’s the latter!
I’m going to be a bit vague here and still try to explain what I mean because while it’s important for me to be honest, it’s also important that I respect the privacy of my family.
I’ve spoken pretty openly about the struggle with doubt in this blog but it certainly doesn’t end there. There is also stress and two people who handle stress VERY differently. There is anxiety and plenty to fuel it right now. There are inevitable arguments when changing so much of the life we’ve grown accustomed to. There are disappointments that sometimes bring sadness and guilt. These things are all hard.
The right things to do in order to move forward are not always fun. There have been things made possible by great blessings. They’ve even been answers to prayers. And still, they have been hard to do personally. There are hard things right now that we know are gifts we will forever be grateful for, yet gifts we don’t necessarily like.
This sounds a whole lot like adoption isn’t something we really want doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why no one really shares these parts, because that couldn’t be further from the truth.
I could compare it to the 20+ pounds I REALLY want to lose. I desperately want to reach that goal, need to even, but the journey to get there is not easy. It’s hard, and takes work, and makes me do things I certainly don’t want to do (like not eat ALL the chocolate) but I still want to do what it takes to get there. Clearly adoption is so much more beautiful and rewarding than shedding some weight, but hopefully you get my point. This thing we want sometimes makes do things we don’t really like. And some days are harder than others.
But in the midst of all that there has been so, so much beauty and countless blessings and overwhelming love. And earlier this month, while talking (or maybe complaining) about these hard things in our adoption preparations, I asked, “If God were standing with you, face to face, and said ‘I need you to do (this hard thing) for a period of time, and you’re not going to like it, but in doing so you can save the life of a child.’ Would you do it?”
Obviously, the answer was ‘yes’.
I asked this question not for my own benefit, but it settled in me all the same. I think it’s how we have to handle all the hard moments, all the hard tasks, all the hard decisions because even if it wasn’t an in-person audible question, hasn’t God already asked this of us? And haven’t we already answered?
We’ve got six months until we begin our home study.
SIX MONTHS!
One hundred and fifty-three days.
I know a lot of people just go for it, and that works for them wonderfully. We definitely needed to prepare our lives, our home, ourselves before we jumped in. Six months seems like a blink somedays, and other’s an eternity, but we certainly see the end of this part of the process.
June and July have been another whirlwind and there’s much to share! So here it is, our June and July update – the blessings, the setbacks, the struggles, the excitement…the journey.
Home Reno:
The basement bedroom is so close to being finished. I don’t want to share too many photos yet so I can do a transformation post at the end but D has been working hard! The ceiling is DONE! Electric DONE! Walls DONE! Flooring came in late this month and will be installed very soon. Trim and floor boards are painted and awaiting install. All we have left is a closet door installation and room set up! I’m so excited!
The most work has been done outside. Our driveway was finally paved and we couldn’t be happier! We really are waiting on God to send us to the right child and that leaves a lot of unknowns. We are preparing for a wheelchair and if we end up not using those preparations, we will at least be able to push a stroller and enter our home without bringing in the Sahara with us.
We also completed another big project that isn’t necessarily adoption related, but it was on my needs-to-be-done-before-the-adoption list because if it wasn’t, it would likely be more than a year before we even attempted it again. When we bought this house there was a “burn pile” of sorts with loads of wood scraps, old fencing, concrete slabs, and brush. Weeds grew up through it for so long they were basically trees and since we purchased our home as a foreclosure and have been doing upgrades ever since….we just kept adding to the pile. The old steps went in there, the tree stump and wood removed when we put on an addition went in, our own brush and rocks we didn’t know what to do with went in it too. It became a monster!
Because it was piled next to our propane tank, we couldn’t take the easy way out and just burn it. We cleared what we could by hand, me and the boys worked HARD! But there was leftover stumps and things we didn’t have equipment to handle ourselves. We called in some help and after an extremely fair priced and thorough job, we have reclaimed this part of our yard.
Then, just as soon as we said, “Cool, the outside is done for now,” here came the curve ball. My mom’s air conditioner we discovered had been leaking, inside her wall! It damaged the flooring and made an all around mess! One we are still working on.
We also (finally) got that stairwell finished! It looks so good compared to where it started and helps the basement feel a little more finished.
Home Study:
Nothing new here yet except we bought a fire-extinguisher!
Fund Raisers:
This month we started talking about where we are going to hold our rummage sale and have a great place in mind. We will have to wait until September to find out for sure but it’s a good possibility and I’m pretty excited about it. We’ve still been getting donations fairly steady and we’re so thrilled. This is just my sister’s basement where we’re currently storing things. We have things in our garage, shed, and basement too!
With all the other fundraisers, I’m slowly plugging away on the paperwork end of them and figuring out how to organize and plan each one.
Grants:
Nothing new here. Quite a few grants are on hold due to this pandemic so I’m just praying that as adoptions start to slowly resume again that the grants will too.
Savings:
I got two new schools this summer with my job so I am now maxed out at 5 schools. It happened so much faster than I expected and I’m so grateful to be trusted with these schools and have the opportunity to stay invested in education even while I’m not teaching. We continue to bank all my paychecks into our adoption fund, so the addition of two more schools was a huge blessing to this process.
I want to emphasize every single time I share our progress that we are determined to do our part in funding this adoption. It’s an honor to have so many people willing help with their time, donations, and assistance and we want to ensure that our own efforts match and far exceed what others are willing to do for us.
Other:
This summer we’ve tried to soak up family time and make those summer memories in the absence of our normal summer vacations. We celebrated D’s birthday, have been camping, spent an extreme amount of time fishing and kayaking, and took a day trip to Dutch Creek. This world sure looks different this summer than it has any summer before, but it hasn’t stopped us from building lasting memories with our family. Experiences over possessions has always been our focus and a pandemic surely didn’t diminish that for us.
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a planner. Let’s face it, even if you ONLY know me from this blog, you know I’m a planner.
A list maker.
I’ve got spreadsheets for grants, I’ve got prayers down in writing, I’ve got shared packing lists for upcoming vacations, I’ve got to-do’s, several calendars shared with the right people, my computer has folders labeled on my desktop and no less than 20 tabs open at one time. If it’s in writing and organized, it’s going to work out. At least that’s what my mind believes.
A pre-planner.
The chaos in my head untangles a little with every thing I can do ahead of time. Research. Paperwork. Phone calls. Get them done early then there’s less to do later. Our house is nearly home study ready though we won’t start paperwork until February. I’ve got all of our fundraisers started, from item collecting to flyers and graphics and letters to mail out. It’s all started and organized. We’ve begun all of our grant narratives. Those we can’t even submit until next year, but to me, it’s one less thing on my plate when things start to get busy. I’ve designed all three kids rooms so I know the exact goal we’re working toward with our home renovations.
When my mind starts swirling, I pull out the computer and get to work and it helps calm what seems like an endless list of needs to be accomplished. Prepared is what I like to call it. (Some other people in my house might call it crazy.)
So it might be a surprise, it certainly is to me, that in all this preparedness “I don’t know” is my most common response to questions asked of me and questions I ask myself.
When we first gave that “Yes” or maybe it was more of a “FINE! We’ll do it” after all those years of ignoring God’s request, the questions flooded in like tidal waves. Relentlessly smashing into my head.
How can we afford this?
I don’t know.
I need to be home to care for a special needs child. How can we live on one income?
I don’t know.
How will our family react?
I don’t know.
How can we fit a 4th bedroom in our little house? How can we afford that and save to adopt?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
How will this affect my marriage?
I don’t know.
Will my kids feel like they’re getting jipped on childhood experiences because of the sacrifices we will have to make?
I don’t know.
And at first, I’ll be totally and completely honest, I fought back hard with those questions. I needed answers. I had faith but I also needed to see.
My faith wasn’t enough and so He did what I needed and he showed me. Time after time, I watched Him work, setting things in motion, making opportunities for us, answering my questions. Each time a cascade of emotions overwhelmed me because I knew it was Him. There was no other explanation.
A new job for Devin.
Unexpected funds coming in.
Debt paid off so much faster than we hoped.
The ability to resign from my career.
An at home work opportunity for me.
Support from family and friends.
Progress and favors.
An adoption fund that’s grown 3x faster than I’d even dared to hope.
Little by little, when we put in the work, it turned out in just the way it needed for us to keep moving toward this goal of adoption. Not all of my early questions have been answered, but enough were so that with every step we took, I had more and more faith that no matter what came our way, God would see this through. Enough that I started to become a little bit okay with the “I don’t know’s”. I won’t say I’m comfortable with them, but I don’t fear them like I did a year ago.
I’m thankful to be in this place, now, with all the uncertainty around us, because my pre-planning, work ahead mentality has a lot cope with these days.
What will adoption processes look like in 2021?
I don’t know.
Will we be able to take that final family-of-four vacation before we start paperwork?
I don’t know.
Will we have to quarantine for weeks when we travel overseas?
I don’t know.
Will we feel as safe with traveling as we did a few months ago?
I don’t know.
Will it take longer because things are backed up or not fully open?
I don’t know.
Will there be another stay-at-home order that wrecks our fundraisers?
I don’t know.
Who are we called to adopt?
I don’t know.
Do we need to prepare for a wheelchair? Build a ramp? Get a new car?
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Will we be able to raise enough to take a nurse with us if needed?
I don’t know.
Will we save enough of our own money to bring Hayden along on one trip so he can really experience where his brother or sister came from?
I don’t know.
Every once in a while these questions get the best of me, but all I have to do is remind myself of how we’ve been led, from our ‘yes’ up to this moment, and I have peace in knowing that He won’t leave us stranded.
So for now, we are working ahead as if things are exactly as they were before this whole crazy pandemic started. We’re praying, and planning, and working, and believing because at the end of this all, it was never in our control anyway.
We’re just going to live by the faith that God will see His plan through, exactly as He had always planned it, and find our peace and our calm in that trust. (and maybe a spreadsheet or two!)
What happened to April? It wasn’t even a short month and it was over in an instant! Before I knew it, it’s the middle of May and I hadn’t even started an update.
So here it is, our April and May update – the blessings, the setbacks, the struggles, the excitement…the journey.
Home Reno: The boys have been working so hard on this! They dug up the egress window to inspect our foundation crack, and thank goodness it did not go all the way through!
The bad news was the window we bought didn’t fit, AND the contractor who was going to install it backed out. We ended up calling in Home Depot and are quite happy with their service. They told us we may have to wait another six weeks before they could get the custom window built and then installed, BUT it was only three!
Egress window before replacement.
That water on the left has been inside there for years!
While we waited, D was able to move forward and get foam board insulation on the last wall, frame it in, and put up drywall with a little help from the kids. (one helped, one caused trouble, I’ll let you decide who was who!)
They also framed in the closet so the room is really taking shape. I worked on painting a closet door we had leftover from a previous job and got a head start painting some trim.
With the drywall completed, we had someone come out to see about mudding the seams. He was fantastic and that job is also completed. Now we’re reading for priming and painting!
The window was quite a bit more expensive than we had planned so the budget took a hefty hit. But doesn’t it look pretty?! We’re trying to recoup as fast as possible so we can keep things moving along.
D has gotten the track up for the drop ceiling but is waiting to do any more work until we have completed the painting.
I really am proud of how quickly D has gotten this work done. It’s been a lot, on top of the fact that our sump pump drain stopped working properly so he dug all that up and we ended up having to call someone in, and we had a blockage in our septic so that was dug up and had to have someone called in for also (our entire backyard is basically dug up!).
He knows how important it is to me (and my stress levels) to keep making progress, so he does whatever needs to be done to keep getting one step closer.
We also had some shelves dropped off for our burn pile but I decided to use them instead. One went into the shed after clean out (see below) for potting supplies and this one I painted a pretty gray for our new child’s room.
Home Study: Nothing new on this one!
Fund Raisers: The donations kept coming for our Rummage Sale! We’re so grateful for the people who are supporting us even this far in advance. D and I have this little dance we do every time someone asks if we’ll take their donation:
M: We need to swing by so-and-so’s to pick up some stuff for the rummage sale.
D: *Stares at me* And where are we putting this?
M: I don’t know, we’ll find somewhere.
D: *Rolls eyes* Ok, what time do we need to be there?
He’s a good man and generally goes along with my cart-before-the-horse ways of planning. But after our last pick up trip, we couldn’t pull in the garage anymore, he’s worried about continuing to pile things in the rafters, my storage room is suffering the effects of a construction zone tornado, and we’re just flat out of space. He said, “Please, Melissa, no more for now.”
I have such a hard time saying no, because I know we’ll be so glad we have it next spring, but he’s right, even after we cleared EVERYTHING out of the shed and garage, reorganized, sold some of the bigger things (the money went directly into the adoption fund), and put it all back together, we simply don’t have the room to take more until it gets closer and we’re willing to fill up the parking spaces in the garage (which is also his woodworking space and we NEED that for now!).
Sooooo, if you’ve been putting things aside, please find a little corner to house them for us until we get closer to the actual date of the Rummage Sale (unless someone has an empty barn they want to donate for a year! Ha!). We would be so grateful!
The Adopt-a-Box fundraiser will be compiling some more items shortly. I plan to use my Amazon points and my Fetch Reward points to purchase a few more items so that we are not depending solely on donations.
I also purchased an adorable child size wheely luggage piece from a virtual yard sale for $3. We’re contemplating doing a Tag-the-Bag fundraiser and this would be perfect. If we decide against it, little J can use it for our vacations.
Grants: I’m going to be completely honest here and tell you all that I have been dragging my feet HARD in this area. We have one grant in particular that we’re focusing on the narratives right now, it’s the one we’re hoping for the most and the questions are also seen on many other grants so we can duplicate our answers. D got a head start on me and his answers are just….so stinking good! It kind of had me stalling because I knew mine would not be anything like that. This man thinks he’s not a good writer, but give him a question about the Bible and the words flow with perfection. He’s smart. I am emotional. Where he’s more facts and knowledge, I’m more feelings and blind faith. Together we’re a good mix, but on these questions, I feared I would fall substantially short.
Luckily, after conversing with a lady from the organization, I learned that only ONE of the questions had to be answered separately. So with that, I’ve been working on entwining my words of faith into his words and developing answers that represent who we are together.
Savings: I have had three schools I’m working with for the better part of these two months. We are still saving every bit of it that we can but these last two months also brought two circumstances in which we had to pull a little. After three schools are acquired it is a requirement of the company that I also get liability insurance. We knew this would be coming so that $350 came out of my earnings since it is for my job.
I also really needed a new phone. As part of my job, I work from my phone a lot. Mine had a battery replacement a few months ago because I was charging it two or three times a day. When the battery was replaced the home button stopped working. I was making due, but then the new battery life depleted to 80% and so it seemed my phone was the issue. With all that, it was necessary to make sure I had a working phone and since we don’t do payment plans, it was an out of pocket expense. I chose an iPhone SE 2020 because it was less expensive but still new and I’d be able to keep it for quite a while. That came from my earnings as well, however, May was also my birthday! So I put all my birthday money toward my phone and we only ended up spending $150 from my work account.
The kicker in all this is that in addition to having extra pay from another school, my boss (I cannot adequately describe what a phenomenal human this lady is!) decided that instead of giving us the added stress of end-of-year bonus documentation, she was going to go ahead and give everyone a raise (and retroactive pay for previous months) which would equal out to the bonus by years end. Even with the two extra expenses taken out, I still banked far more than any month prior.
That God, he sure is one good problem-solving, always-providing dude.
I’ve also noticed that my Teachers Pay Teachers product sales are picking up with students doing learning at home, so I’ve been adding a few products here and there, allocating those earnings to our savings as well.
As always, we want to express how important it is to us that while we are fundraising and applying for grants that we are also putting as much of our own money into this as possible.
The early and continued support of our family and friends is overwhelming. We are so very blessed.
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. -Hebrews 13:16
We’ve been walking this trail lately when the weather will cooperate. It’s not too far from the house so it’s been the perfect escape from this “Safe at Home” order which we are taking very seriously. We can’t walk at the park because the slides bring out the deepest grief from my little girl who wants desperately to leave the confines of her stroller and run wildly to that fun she knows. The floppy orange sign taped on each piece of equipment, just a sad reminder that we aren’t allowed to play. We can’t walk at the State Park. We tried. So, it seems, did every other family with in driving distance. I can’t blame them. Same as us, they are looking for something fun, normal even, to do that remains within the guidelines. We saw more people that day than we’ve ever seen at the park, so we won’t be going back.
So this trail near us has been the alternative. The other people walking there are far and few between, which adds to its appeal. Though, it’s not pretty right now. Bare trees. Dead leaves scattered on top of grass sprigs and flowers who may not ever bloom if this Indiana weather doesn’t decide if it’s winter, summer, or spring. Black pavement.
But we hear the birds and we breathe in fresh air and we spend time together doing something we did before everything changed and for a while, everything doesn’t seem so crazy and unfamiliar. J eats her Fruit Loops and accidentally on purpose drops her Little People repeatedly so we have to stop and pick them up. H and I crack dumb jokes and walk in weird cadences to make each other laugh, something that started ages ago when we tried to replicate Shaggy’s walk from Scooby Doo and had great fun embarrassing those with us when in public.
This trail is our new thing to do, every time it’s nice, because even though we’re lucky to have a yard with things to do, a change of scenery gives our mentality a healthy boost.
Last week, after three miles, D suggested we drive around the lake before we went back home. Even though the shorelines were cluttered with piles of people’s summer belongings carefully stored up for the winter, the lake was gorgeous. The sun glistened off the the surface and the birds flying overhead reflected in the calm waters. We didn’t really talk during that drive and I started thinking about what it would be like to have a summer house on that lake.
It’s been a dream of mine since I can’t remember when. I never wanted anything big or fancy. Actually, I’d be completely happy with a tiny house or a one room cabin, or even a shabby outdated cottage with formica countertops and a blue toilet. As long as it could be clean and have enough room for us all to sleep, it would be a little slice of happiness.
I’ve imagined being able to walk out in the morning and go straight to my kayak, of my son standing on the pier with a fishing pole in hand, of campfires before bed, and swimming all day. I’ve seen in my dreams a place where we would frequent to relax, where schedules didn’t exist, where our only task was to enjoy our time together. The yard landscaped with pool noodles and towels and discarded shoes. Maybe a little boat for the boys to take out when the sun came up while I stayed home and made a breakfast that wasn’t on our diet. I imagine my kids growing up and bringing friends with them for the weekends. My daughter learning to swim in our very own back yard. Eventually grandkids laughing and playing and splashing just outside the house. Blown up air mattresses scattered on the floors, a home too full, extraordinarily wonderfully full. In my dream, it’s bliss and perfection. And while I know dreams never work out EXACTLY that way, I’ve spent enough time with my family on the lake to know, it wouldn’t be so far off.
On that drive I was looking for it, as I always am, the little place that I could see working for us. The place that isn’t really attractive to most buyers because they are looking for the appearance and I, instead, am just seeking the experiences it could bring. “Something just like that is all we need,” I think. Sometimes I find it, and often I don’t. But I do it every time we’re driving by a lake, it’s become such a practice I don’t really even notice that I’ve started doing it any more. But this time I did. This time I noticed because about half way around the lake something occurred to me.
This was a dream I was going to have to give up.
If I can be real with you, I’m going to tell you that the sadness this realization brought is tough to stomach. It still is a week later and might be forever. Mostly, because this dream was feasible. It wasn’t like those big far fetched dreams – “I dream of being a multi-millionaire” or “I dream of being an NBA star” or “I dream of fitting in my size 8 jeans” (just kidding…kinda).
It was something that I really believed we would have some day. It was a dream that was always going to be part of our future, I just didn’t know when. It’s also something we could have probably already had if we would have started our financial journey a few years earlier when I was still working full-time. Had we lived the way this adoption journey prompted us to live, and made these radical financial changes years before, this dream may have already been realized. I think that’s what makes it so hard.
It was a dream within reach.
But there’s a new reality now. One that has me working part-time and putting every extra penny into an adoption fund. A future that includes three children instead of two, that includes medical expenses and financial sacrifices that have forced this dream to be cast aside. And it hurts. I’m sad I won’t have those experiences with my family and that I can’t give my children this dream I know they would have loved. It hurts my heart to know they could have looked back on their childhood and said, “The lake house was the best!” I’m crying over lost memories that never got a chance to be made and a slew of ‘what if’s’.
Does this cause me to waiver in our decisions?
No. Not for a moment. Not even a little.
I know the reward of our choices will be far greater than the sacrifices. Following the path God has set us on will forever be more important than the ‘wants’ of this life. The child we bring home will be inordinately worth more than a house on the lake. And the memories we will make as a family will outweigh those hypothetical memories everyday. I will have no regrets. Of that I am certain.
But still, I am sad.
At first I thought I shouldn’t feel this way. If I’m doing what I know God wants of our family, my feelings should be wrapped up in this joy of knowing we’re following His will. I should be all excitement and anticipation and endless love for this child who will be ours. And maybe there’s some fear, because we’re not perfect, and giving God control is hard. But overwhelmingly, I should feel peace and hope and fulfillment and gratification.
That’s what I thought. And I do.
But I also feel loss. I’m mourning what could have been and I think that’s ok too.
At the end of the day, I think about the greatest sacrifice we just celebrated a week ago. What I’m giving up is so small in comparison. If Jesus can make that kind of sacrifice for us, then we can certainly set aside some of our selfish desires to follow His plan.
And in those thoughts, I imagine sadness was not absent for Jesus. I cannot imagine God did not mourn. If those emotions were present at the greatest sacrifice made for us, as the will of our God was followed, then I think it’s ok for us too, on a much smaller scale, to feel some loss even as we are being gifted.
I want to be honest with you as we keep heading down this path, because in the midst of all these great blessings and great love there are struggles. There’s hurt. There’s feeling sorry for myself and my kids. There are battles with our own selfishness .
And we’ve only just begun.
For now, I suppose I haven’t given my dream up completely. I guess you could say I put it in a taped up box and it’s getting put on a shelf, buried in the back of my closet with my size 8 blue jeans. Reality tells me that years from now, I’ll clean out my closet and that box will end up in the donation pile with my blue jeans. Something I held onto with hope, always knowing I’d probably never touch again.
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
What a strange month this has been. And what a multitude of emotions it has brought about; anxiety, gratefulness, boredom, anger, purpose, generosity, fear, appreciation, responsibility, determination, and so much love.
Stuck in this house, we’ve tackled some things. Hard things, things we’ve put off, fun things, big things and little. It’s been quite a month for the progress that’s been made both inside our home and inside ourselves.
This crazy time has definitely called us to refocus our faith and be intentional and determined with our perspective. It would be so easy to start to question. Where is God in all this mess?
But you know what? I see Him. I see Him in the people sewing masks at home, in the teachers driving their students’ streets just to wave ‘hello’, in the people organizing food donations, in the families getting together through FaceTime calls. I see Him in the professional sports players paying salaries of those who work at their stadium, in the churches meeting all over the world through computer screens, in the truckers getting supplies to the stores, in the people showing up for their neighbors who are struggling. I see Him in the nurses and doctors walking into the mess everyday to do all they can. I see Him in the sunshine that still breaks through my window each morning, in the sweet innocence of my two year old who will never even remember these events, in the perfect melody of birds singing while my children play in our yard.
I see Him in the mommas who’s hearts are shattering because their adoptions ran into this brick wall, a hard stop in the hope they had for these days ahead. I see Him in their determination, in the funding still filling their adoption grants, in the tears they openly shed wanting to protect their babies across the oceans but unable to get there.
I selfishly admit that I am glad we were so early in our journey when this happened. I’m grateful our progress can continue, be more productive even, while we wait for the world to pick up the pieces and start moving again. I pray for those who have seen the face of their child and now are at a standstill, for those who already know what their sweet baby feels like in their arms, for those who were months, weeks, or days away from bringing their child home and now wait without knowing when it might end. I pray for the hearts of the parents who know their child and cannot ensure their safety and for those who’s children who are struggling to hold on, knowing adoption was their only hope.
It’s an impossible situation all around that makes it easy to get wrapped up in the fear and sadness, but we’re moving forward with hope, faith – even when we have to work a little harder for it, and a belief that soon enough, adoptions will be open again. And when they are, we’re going to be ready!
So here it is, our March update – the blessings, the set backs, the struggles, the excitement…the journey.
Home Reno: With some extra at home time, we’ve had a bit more time to work downstairs.
Foam board insulation has been installed on one exterior wall, the wall has been built and three walls are drywalled. Currently, the closet is being framed up and will soon be drywalled.
We’re close to being able to dig up the egress window and examine our little crack in the wall, replacing the window, and sealing everything up.
I’ve been sprucing up the stairwell a bit (it’s a work in progress), and since we’ve been gifted some carpet from a remodel, we will be installing that soon.
Home Study: Nothing new on this one!
Fund Raisers: We got a few new donations this month for our rummage sale! We’re so grateful for the people who are supporting us even this far in advance. I spent a little more time organizing those things and putting boxes up in the garage.
We also got a sweet head start on another fundraiser we’re planning called Adopt-a-Box. I built the graphic and got a letter all ready to send out for when we’re ready to start collecting prize items. A friend of mine had a cute company that she closed down and already committed to a donation AND my savvy husband had over $100 in rewards points that we put to good use buying two of the bigger prizes. Eventually, we will be collecting items to “hide” behind the boxes as prizes. We will be asking for people that would be willing to donate prizes or for businesses that would donate in exchange for free advertising. Items like restaurant or movie gift cards, boxes of goodies, physical items that you may sell in a store. As long as it can be redeemed or shipped anywhere in the US. Of course, if you want to get a jump on this – especially if you are a small/home business owner – we certainly won’t say no. 🙂
**As I mentioned last month, we would love if you would set aside any items that you are planning on donating somewhere anyway for our Rummage Sale next spring.
Grants: I finally finished my spreadsheet. Such a relief to have a document I can refer back to now that shows what documentation we need for each grant, due dates, fees, etc, and keep it organized. We are slowly making our way through the narrative pieces that we each have to write for some of the grants. D has been working hard on his portions and actually has quite a head start on me!
Savings: Again there’s been progress here that I can only attribute to God. Last month I mentioned that we’ve saved enough to pay for our home study. Our ‘low goal’ was to have three times the home study cost in our adoption fund when we filled out that very first piece of paperwork. We were able to come fairly close to that ‘low goal’ this month, which I was not expecting at all and am so thankful for. I suppose it’s time to set a new ‘low goal’!
Another thing I wasn’t expecting is that I actually got TWO new schools at my job this month. I won’t start with my third school until next week, but my goal of having four schools before the year is out certainly seems feasible. I thought with schools closing, this might be a set back but thankfully, it hasn’t been. We are still saving every bit of my income and are so overwhelmingly grateful that we’ve both been able to keep our jobs (even add more income) during these uncertain times.
Again, we want to express how important it is to us that while we are fundraising and asking for grants that we are also putting as much of our own money into this as possible. It’s hard to fully express how the gifts and donations this early into our journey have impacted us. The continued support of our family and friends is staggeringly emotional. We are so very blessed.
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
It felt like we didn’t get much done. Probably in part because of that, I had my first REAL moment of panic, of being overwhelmed. I was on the treadmill thinking about how H and I would decorate his new room, which led to me thinking about how once he’s moved we have to redo his old room for little J and what that might look like, and then how we’ll redo her room for the child we’re adopting and what that might look like, and then the spiral took over. All the things we have to accomplish, just slamming into my brain one after another. I anticipate, knowing myself, there will be many more of these moments. Luckily, I have a husband who brings me back down to reality and prayer that gives me peace.
So here it is, our February update – the blessings, the set backs, the struggles, the excitement…the journey.
Home Reno: The bedroom is slowly taking shape. The drywall is fixed on the wall that separates the new bedroom from the storage room. (I’ll be clearing out my shelves on that wall today so we can add insulation behind it.) The boys put up insulation on the other interior wall and D finished the electrical. Originally the basement had two switches, one for the lights in the playroom/living space and one for the storage room and extra bedroom space. Now H has his own switch and three outlets which were not there before.
We also put down a deposit of half the cost of paving our driveway so we could get on the schedule for this summer. It’s so hard to wait, our driveway is basically being taken over by the sand and you could disappear in the potholes that developed this winter. But once this is done, we will be wheelchair ready (at least in the drive) if that ends up being the case.
Home Study: I finished cleaning out all the closets, disposing of all old medications, and got D’s gun locked up in its case. That’s really all we can do at this point until we start the actual process BUT, one big thing that happened with this is that we have saved enough money to pay for it!
Fund Raisers: This month I got a pretty good idea of what fund raisers we want to try. Aside from the Rummage Sale (we have decided on a location we’re going to be asking about soon), there are three other ideas that I keep coming back to. This month I want to start working on some of those from the organizational stand point only: letters to donors, flyers, informational handouts, etc.
We were also gifted several old Studebaker items from my Uncle to sell online.
**As I mentioned last month, we would love if you would set aside any items that you are planning on donating somewhere anyway for our Rummage Sale next spring.
Grants: I’m still plugging along on my spreadsheet. I’m right around half way through it. My goal is by the end of March to have each column filled in and a list of narratives we can begin writing now.
Savings: This is where most of our progress was this month, and probably why it feels like not much was made because I can’t physically see it! As I mentioned above, we’ve saved enough to pay for our home study. I know there are other fees upfront as well. Our ‘low goal’ is to have three times the amount we currently have in our adoption fund when we fill out that very first piece of paperwork. Our ‘high goal’ is …. a WHOLE LOT MORE!
I am loving my new job and in March I will be adding a second school! My goal is to have four schools before the year is out and stick to our plan of saving every bit of the money I make. We currently have a separate account for my direct deposits and once we pay taxes on my income for this year, our intent is to put every bit of what’s still in the account toward our adoption.
It’s really important to us that while we are fundraising and asking for grants that we are also putting as much of our own money into this as possible.
So there’s our short month! We want to thank everyone so much for being a part of this journey with us. What has surprised and awed me most of all, is how many people have jumped in with us, a year ahead of time, with their support. We are so very blessed.
If you’d like to stay up to date with our journey, be sure to subscribe to this blog. I won’t see your information, but you’ll be notified each time we post. And be sure to follow our Facebook Page for more frequent updates! Love to you all!
I have a feeling this is a question we will get a lot during this adoption process. Why adoption? Why special needs? Why international? Why now?
There’s always going to be one very simple answer.
We are following God’s plan for our lives.
That’s it in its simplicity. Of course, there are a lot of details in our moments, but it always comes back to that truth.
When I started this blog I mentioned that there was a moment. A moment that changed everything and started us on this path. It is extremely personal for D and I both, and I wasn’t ready to share it, but I think it’s an important part of our story that needs to be told.
On September 9, 2018, I came home from church and started to write:
“I’ve cried a lot today. Good, hard, scary, life-changing tears.
Let me go back a week. My church is in the middle of a Church Redefined series. I love my church. Every week I leave and think, ‘he said that for me’. It’s the kind of church that fills you up, makes you think, and sometimes opens your heart for something big.
Last week my pastor talked about our job as a Christian. One responsibility was to speak FOR others. I immediately thought of Bethany and all the orphans we share, but I knew God intended it to mean much more to me. Then today happened.
Today I sat in the Mother’s Room alone with baby J sleeping on my lap. I listened to PJ (Pastor Justin) talk about not just having knowledge of God, but having encounters.
Encounters.
One word. But it opened something up in me and broke me hard. I have come to believe that when something comes into your mind and heart that just won’t go away, that it is God speaking to you.
He HAS been speaking to me. It’s been nearly a decade since He started whispering His plan to me. Trying to help me understand the encounter that would be in my future. Nearly a decade that I’ve ignored Him and made up excuses.
I sat in that tiny dark room peering out at the whole of my church in worship and saw a future where my family was standing there: me, my husband, my son, my daughter, and our adopted child.
And there was a certainty in my heart that this would happen.
We will go across the oceans. We will take a tiny, broken, battered child and save him/her with our love, with HIS love. *
It is certain, but I don’t know how.
I sat back there and I prayed for the how. How can I stay at home? How can we pay off our debts? How can our marriage stand such a test? How can we physically and emotionally beat ourselves down with the hard truths and hard work of bringing a child back from a trail that leads to death? How? I fought back hard with that prayer.
A prayer of fear.
And then, He answered again.
As PJ concluded, he told us a story of one of our church elders who had something he wanted to share at worship last Wednesday but couldn’t find the right moment. PJ said he needed to share it with us now because he knew they were words straight from God. He said that our church would cross boundaries and enter foreign lands. Tears streamed down my face.
And I broke. Again.
There are so many ways that our church can (and is) crossing boundaries, but for us, I knew exactly what it meant. It meant God was done letting me throw up excuses. He had answers.
I don’t know the how, but I know the answer. We will be going overseas. We will bring home a child that has been thrown away by their parents and by their country. We will battle through the after-effects of years of sedation, abuse, starvation, and neglect. We will come out on the other side of this journey. We will love so very hard. And we will share. We will share every moment; beautiful, ugly, hard, miraculous moments…
…because God hasn’t thrown them away. He’s given us a church to see us through. He’s given us His love to share with the world. He’s placed responsibility on us to SPEAK FOR OTHERS. He’s wrapped words around our hearts and told us what to do. He has a plan, He’s shown it to us, used others to help us see it, and made it impossible to ignore.
Our church will cross boundaries and enter foreign lands when God uses its people to spread awareness and save the lives of the forgotten children.”
I’ve come to refer to that day, as the day my God, in His loving kindness, said, “Cut the crap, Melissa.” Enough with the excuses. Enough with the fighting back. THIS IS THE TIME. Clearly, I didn’t actually hear the words, but let me tell you, I felt them. Stronger than I’ve ever felt anything before. So I wiped up my tears and carried my baby out of that room to my waiting husband, shaking with nerves the whole way.
Because how do you get in the car and say, “So, this thing happened today in the Mother’s Room and I need for us to change…everything”?
*I don’t want to imply that I am naive about what we are getting in to. I know that love sometimes cannot change trauma that has permanently become part of a child from an institution. But the hard reality is this: these kids leave one of two ways; adoption or death. So, to me, adoption is love, and that love saves their lives.
Warning: This was written by Devin and will lack the graceful writing you normally read here…
This Sunday started out like any other day for our family, but little did I know how much it would change a few hours later. This was a weekend that we did not have H at home, so that meant arriving at church early for my usher team leader duties. J was still hanging out with us during church services so M sat with her. At some point during the church service M took J back to the mother’s room and I would not see them again until we all got in the car after service.
Once we were in the car M wanted to talk to me about something God put on her heart. It was something that had been there a long time, but she had been reluctant to give in. The day still seems fuzzy to me about what she exactly said, but I could tell she was passionate and motivated. She told me that she wanted to adopt a special needs child. A child like the ones I have seen on the Reese’s Rainbow site. A child that the world has forgotten about and left for dead. As I listened to her that day I realized my life was about to change … drastically! I sat there and cried with her in the car for a while. You may not know this, but I am a huge teddy bear full of emotions (I tear up during almost every Hallmark movie we watch). Immediately I felt scared and had reservations. Admittedly, I am uncomfortable around special needs children and adults. I did not have much exposure to them growing up and so I do not know how to act around them. Now God was calling me to be the father of a special needs child.
Instantly the questions start coming in. Can I actually do this? Can we afford to do this? How will our house hold another person? Can we afford to have one income?
So here is my why… my wife!
She has stood at my side through times of trial. She has believed that I am a good man, husband, and father even when I was not.
Ephesians 5:25 states, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” I love my wife more than she will ever know. I am 100% on board with her so the least I can do is lay down my life for her (not literally in this instance) so that we can adopt a child.
Here is my second why … God/Jesus!
It is hard to not think of God when you think of doing this. It is scary and daunting. It will require sacrifice and patience. I am lucky to have been born in the United States where I get to hear about God freely. I get to hear about his love and grace for each one of us. I also know that because I have been so blessed that God expects more of me.
Luke 12:48 states, ” From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much will be asked.”
This is where M and I are at. We live in the richest country in the world. I make more money in one week than most in other parts of the world make in a year or more. We are so blessed that we fail to even realize it. So we are stepping up to the plate.
I invite you today to think about your own life. Most people are not called to adopt a special needs child, but what are you called to? Have you been ignoring the whispers from God? Have you been making excuses?
Maybe its time to “Cut the crap” -God who loves you
The Other Side of Fear 