How God Provided a Home for Little Miss

Big news, y’all!

Today we hit our fundraising goal! I was doing some calculations this morning and estimated that we needed about $200 more to pay for our travel expenses to pick up Little Miss. About an hour later Joshua came in with the mail and, lo and behold, there was a card from a dear family member with a check for $200! What a marvelous blessing!

Our adoption is now fully funded (assuming costs for lodging and airfare don’t skyrocket in the next couple of weeks) and we will soon book flights to go pick up our daughter! I know there are lots of you out there who are in the process of fundraising, or who are looking at the cost of adoption and wondering how in the world anyone could ever afford it. I want to share some of the ways we raised funds and encourage you that God is able to provide far more abundantly than you can imagine!

At the beginning of our adoption, we estimated that it could cost up to $40,000. We thought at the time that we were way overestimating, but it turns out this figure was pretty accurate. There were several factors that made our adoption more expensive than most, so don’t let that number overwhelm you too much if you’re considering adoption.

1)     We chose to adopt internationally. Private domestic adoption, while also expensive, does not usually cost this much. There is also the option of foster to adopt which, in most states, is low to no cost. Our family chose international adoption. (Click HERE for some of our reasons for choosing this route). If the cost of international adoption is prohibitive, don’t let it stop you from checking out other paths toward adoption!

2)      We are already a family of 5. This means that we had to have medical exams done for all of 5 of us several times throughout the process (which came out of pocket due to our insurance situation – a total of about $3,180). We also made the decision to take all three of our biological children with us on both the bonding and the pickup trip, which meant we had to spend a good chunk of change getting passports, airfare, lodging, and food. Yes, it was expensive, but this was one of the best decisions we made. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to write a post on that in the future. If Joshua and I had traveled without the kids we probably could have done it for half the cost.

3)      We went through several country changes before we were matched with our daughter. We started out adopting from Uganda, but when that program shut down we switched to Ethiopia. Then our agency in Ethiopia was forced to close and we switched to another agency that works in Ethiopia. Shortly after, our agency asked if we were interested in a little girl in their Bulgarian Waiting Child program, and we said YES! All of these changes involved transfer fees and home study updates which drove the cost up. If we had been able to stay in Uganda I’m estimating we probably could have saved at least a couple thousand dollars. But, God had other plans! (Incidentally, most adoptions do not take this long, so don’t let our three year process deter you, either. These closures and country changes made the process take much longer than we anticipated, but it also gave us time to get the needed funds together without going into debt).

4)      We had a couple of major life changes which required several home study updates. We gave birth to our third child in 2015, and we moved states in 2016. Both were great blessings, but they did require updates to both our home study and our immigration approval. Probably around $2,300 worth of update fees.

If we didn’t have three biological kiddos we insisted on keeping with us, if we had been able to stay with our original country of choice, if we had better insurance, and if we had not had two major life changes, we could have saved over $10,000. As it happens, we do have three children we insist on keeping with us, we were blessed with two wonderful life changes, our insurance stinks, and (as international adoption often goes) we did go through several difficult changes in the adoption process. Waste of money? Bad stewardship? God’s Providence? Another topic for another time.

The current question is: “How did you come up with that amount of money??!!”

The only answer is, God provided.

We are not wealthy by the world’s standard. We are a normal family of 5 living on a single income. We make $40,820 which, according to USCIS immigration guidelines, puts us barely at that 125% above poverty level that they require for international adoption (their definition of poverty level is really not even CLOSE to true poverty, but again, another topic for another time). We have a commitment to doing whatever we can to live completely debt-free, so we’ve gone to God in prayer constantly about this and asked that He provide ways of helping us complete our adoption without getting a loan. And He has answered that prayer in big ways.

God provided every little bit of money we needed at every little step of the way. At times it looked like it would be impossible. We started over basically from scratch a couple times, and it was frustrating and all kinds of discouraging. But He never failed us. He gave us exactly what we needed for exactly the step we were on, sometimes (like today) right down to the dollar. And He usually did it through the love and compassion of His people. Here’s a brief breakdown of the ways He provided for our adoption…

·         God blessed us with opportunities to save money. We started our adoption in 2014 with $9,700 in savings. To be honest, I’m not really sure where that money came from. We had been living for the first two and a half years of our marriage on anywhere from $1600-$1800 a month. We were pretty broke and didn’t have any extra to save month to month. During that time, however, we were blessed with two babies 11 months apart, so the Child Credit really helped our tax return for a couple of years. We put that money into a separate bank account and kind of forgot about it. Then in December 2013 we changed jobs and our income increased significantly, but we still lived like we were making $1800 a month for awhile so that we were able to put the extra almost completely into our adoption fund. Our savings funded our original home study and initial program fees.

·         God provided through adoption grants. We applied to every grant for which we were qualified. We received grants from Show Hope, The JSC Foundation, The Rollstone Foundation, Global Orphan Foundation, and our placement agency. We were blessed with a total of $16,300 in grants.

·         God put exceptionally generous people in our lives. We started a YouCaring site, wrote a support raising letter, posted about our funding goal on Facebook, and talked to friends and family in person about our adoption. Money poured in from good friends, family, long lost friends, distant relatives, friends of friends, strangers, and our church families. We met some extremely generous people during this journey, including people who barely knew us – or didn’t know us – but who heard that we were trying to bring a little girl home and wanted to help (like the little boy who told me to "Keep the change"). We were blessed with over $5,600 in straight cash donations.

·         God put compassionate people in our lives. There were times when people found out that we were adopting and cut us great deals on things. A Christian acquaintance sold us a van for $1,000 when he heard that we needed to upgrade to a bigger vehicle because we were adopting. One particular doctor was very generous in cutting her usual fee for physicals to help us out. A friend who is a notary went all kinds of places with us to sign paperwork and didn’t charge a dime. People have donated meals, clothes, beds, items for our fundraisers, and much more to help us prepare for the adoption. These have been huge blessings that made the adoption much more affordable!

·         God gave us friends who got involved. Over the last three years we have been blessed with a ton of friends who helped make these fundraisers happen:

-          Spaghetti Dinner and Auction 2014 - $878

-          Bake Sale - $128

-          Bowling Night - $202

-          31 Bags Fundraiser - $72

-          Craft Sale - $215 (This was an ongoing effort. Sometimes I set up tables at events, sometimes I sold on Facebook, and sometimes I had a bit of luck on Etsy)

-          Aluminum Can Drive - $5 (Can’t wait to tell you more about this funny adventure!)

-          “Always Room for More” - $100 (Joshua’s cousin painted a gorgeous painting and donated it to help us raise funds)

-          Just Love Coffee - $0 (A company that donates a portion of the proceeds from the coffee you sell. We didn’t have any luck with this one, but you might!)

-          Krispy Kreme Doughnuts - $55 (Hahaaaa! Click Here for the tale of that unforgettable day!)

-          Spaghetti Dinner and Auction 2015 - $771

-          Garage Sale - $265

-          T-Shirt Sales - $150

-          Usborne Cards for a Cause - $208

-          Steel Artwork donated by a friend - $106

-          Ebay Sales - $172

Through fundraisers we raised a total of about $3,353

In three years God has blessed us with over $25,245 in funds raised, not including all of the discounts and extras that people have provided. The rest of the $40,000 came from the original $9,700 of savings, frugal living, and the draining of our small retirement, stocks, and mutual funds.

And that’s the story of how God provided the funds needed to give Little Miss a home!

Thank you to everyone who gave from their hearts and put love into action to help us get our little girl home. Without your generosity, I don’t know what we would have done! One little girl has a safe forever family because of YOUR willingness to show the heart of God and GIVE. Your prayers and support have been invaluable. Thank you for your love and for your heart for the fatherless.

*For tips on ways to save money to help with your adoption, click HERE