Matching Grant Opportunity

As most of you probably know, the financial side of adoption can be the most daunting & "faith-testing" part of the whole process.  In fact, it's one of the main reasons people decide not to go the adoption route.  Bart & I have always valued living a debt-free life so taking out a loan or putting adoption charges on a credit card just weren't options for us.  So how in the world were we to come up with the $30,000 it would take to adopt again.  We had always told people for years not to let finances hold you back from following God's call if He was leading you to adopt but it's a different story when it's you sitting in that boat.  We would encourage people to seek out the numerous grants out there & look into fundraising opportunities.  In fact, through 2011, you could receive a $13,500 federal tax credit once your adoption was final.  Well, that tax credit ended in 2012.  On top of that, at the same time we began the adoption process, our church Momentum was in the middle of attempting to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch it's second campus so we felt conflicted about fundraising for our own adoption.  Still with all of that, we knew we were to keep trusting God to provide while doing what we could on our end.  So Jodi  made it her second job to apply for any & all grants she could get her hands on.  And it truly paid off with us receiving $12,000 in grants over the past several months.  Plus Jodi picked up extra hours at work which helped too. But that still left a short fall & increasing anxiety as the adoption journey seemed to pick up speed as of late & our travel now right around the corner.  Again, we had to keep trusting!!  

On December 5th, we were so relieved when we got the call that we had been approved for a $3000 matching grant from Promise 686 (http://www.promise686.org).  They are a partner with Lifesong for Orphans (www.lifesongfororphans.org) & all donations are actually directed through Lifesong.  The super cool part about a matching grant is every dollar given up to $3000 is matched for a total of $6000, and anything donated over that amount still goes towards our adoption expenses.  The bad part is we are not allowed to personally donate towards our own grant.  In order for us to get the full matching amount, the money must be donated from our friends & family.  We know what a financially difficult time of year this is & do not want anyone to feel pressure.  In fact, we'd prefer you to pray about it before giving.  If you then feel led, we are including the address below you can mail a donation to & also including a link to the right if you would like to donate online.  Please include in the memo line of your check "preference Stone/#3507 adoption". If paying online, there will be a place to enter this same information.  All donations are tax-deductible & 100% received by Lifesong for Orphans go directly to cover adoption costs.  Nothing is taken out for administrative costs. 

          Mail check to: Lifesong for Orphans

                                    PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford Street

                                    Gridley, IL 61744

Thank you for what you have meant to our family and for coming alongside us on this journey.  Your prayers & encouragement really do mean more than you know! We love you all and can’t wait for you to meet Lexi Marie!

So humbled & grateful,

Bart & Jodi

We got our I-800 Provisional Approval! Holla!

Well I'm am starting to think that God wants us to get to Lexi Marie sooner than later!  Our agency gives us estimated time frames for each step of the process and we continue to be getting everything super fast which is SO not typical in the adoption world.  I just read a blog where someone recently waited 7 months for their LOA.  We got ours in 37 days.  But what I do know is things could come to a screeching halt at any minute so I need to count my blessings while I can & hold on for the ride because it could get bumpy.  Here's the crazy part though, if things do keep coasting along at this speed, we could be getting our travel approval (TA) in the next 3-4 weeks & be traveling to China 10-21 days later (that is late Jan/early Feb folks).  WHAT!!  It was so cute tonight Bart said "Babe, I can't get there fast enough.  I'd go tomorrow if I could." Me too, Babe!  Who needs a nursery anyways?!!

YOUR LOA IS HERE!!!

This is the subject line of the email that I received from our agency today at 4:20.  I know, I know, most of you have no idea what that means & since I am definitely one of the world's worst at keeping up with this whole blogging thing, most of you shouldn't.  In the China adoption world, LOA refers to your official Letter of Acceptance from China.  It generally takes 2-3 months from the time you accept your referral to receive this.  In fact, I was hoping & dreaming we might receive this by the end of December & here it is, TODAY,  just 5 weeks after we accepted our Lexi Marie!  It sure put me in better spirits after just dropping my iphone a few hours earlier & breaking the screen into a thousand shards of glass.  Those that know me well are not a bit surprised this happened but I was not a happy camper & knew I would not be able to sweet talk the AT&T peeps into a brand new free phone like the last time this happened.  But who really cares about a broken phone, we got LOA!!!!!

OK, back on track, you may be wondering what this LOA thing really means.  Well it means that we should be traveling to China to get our baby girl in 10-14 WEEKS!!!  I guess that's kind of like we're nearing the last trimester of pregnancy.  OK, that is crazy just typing that.  We have a lot to do between now & then!  For now, we would appreciate prayers & more prayers!  Prayers for Lexi Marie's health & safety, that she has unexplainable peace & joy in the between time, that deep within her there is a special longing meant only for us, & that she knows how much her Jesus loves her.  Prayers also for Keaton & Addison as they adjust to all of these changes & challenges ahead.  And prayers for a continued smooth process as there are several more steps to be had.  We will be filing more immigration paperwork this week, waiting for that to be processed through China, & then awaiting for our official TA (or Travel Approval).  Most people then travel to China 3-4 weeks after they receive their TA.  I promise to keep you all posted.  Thanks again for the prayers & encouragement along the way!

PRICELESS NEW PICTURES

Thank you all for such sweet words on facebook & our blog.  I just had to post these new pictures I just received of our Lexi Marie & according to the photos they were taken today!  Her precious little eyes seem to be longing for something.................maybe for her family that can hardly stand another minute without her.  Hold on sweet baby, we'll be there soon!  This is going to be a long several months!  Prayers for patience & peace in the between time.  I'm in tears right now.  Just priceless these pictures are!

THE CALL WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

Who could ever imagine what 5 short days could hold for our family and how two phone calls could bring such fear & worry on one end and excitement & elation on the other.  Last Monday night, Bart got the call that his Mom had been life flighted to a hospital in Louisville KY due to bleeding & swelling on the brain.  Bart immediately got on a plane & spent the next 5 days at the hospital with his family.  Praise be to God that the doctors discovered her condition was caused by severe high blood pressure & were able to properly treat her with medications.  She is now on the road to 100% recovery.  In fact, she was released from the hospital today!  Thanks is not enough for all of you who prayed & sent words of encouragement!

Fast forward to Friday, Bart flys home just in time to go to our daughter Addison's teacher conference where she got rave reviews. Go Addie!! (had to give her some props for her awesomeness).  On the way out of the school, we got a call except this time it was THE CALL every adoptive family waits for from their agency.  The one where they say "we have a little girl we'd like to talk to you about, would you like to hear more about her."  FREAK OUT MODE.  WHAT?.......YES!!!

Of course that was a Friday at 5pm so all we could do all weekend was pray, stare at her adorable pictures, pray some more, & do lots of learning & researching online.  You see her special need is a cleft lip & palate.....a condition Bart & I had agreed we were open to considering but something we were not very educated on.  Well until now that is....I think I could almost write a book after all of my reading & studying...haha.  She is now 14 mos old (her bday was Aug 20th) & was actually blessed to have had her lip repaired through an organization called Love Without Boundaries at 5 mo. old. She stayed in one of their Foster Healing Homes for a few months in prep for surgery & to care for her until she healed then she went back to her orphanage.  There are more cool parts to that story but I will have to hold that for another post.  

So on Monday we sent her file to be reviewed by our International Adoption Specialist, Dr. Staat, in Cincinnati & to our surprise she called us back yesterday (a day earlier than scheduled) to discuss her review and answer all of our many questions.  She gave us the positive report we were hoping for and encouraged us in moving forward.  Once you learn more about her little story, you will understand even more why it's a miracle she is doing so great.  In fact, according to her medical file she is 50% in weight (& that's on our American charts) and is developmentally right on track (not usually the case for kiddos raised in orphanages).  She is one heck of a survivor & it's without any doubt that God has amazing plans for her life.

So last night we talked as a family and with 100% approval & absolute over the moon excitement from our kids made the decision to adopt this little girl & become her Forever Family.  She is our LEXI MARIE!  The 2nd China angel God ordained for our family long ago.  I know you're dying to see pics so below are a few we received.  And I'm sure questions are popping up in your heads.  Hopefully, in the coming posts I'll be able to answer most of them about travel, time frames, medical stuff, etc etc.  But for now I can tell you that the average time frame between now and going to get our Lexi Marie is 4-7 months.  I know, kind of a big span & that should get more narrow as we continue on but we're looking at traveling any time between end of February and end of May.  

DRUMROLL PLEASE..................HERE SHE IS MISS LEXI MARIE!

At 5 months old, right before she had her cleft lip surgery

This is right after her surgery at the Healing Home.

THOSE EYES!  I MEAN WHO COULD RESIST!

I LOVE THIS STARE LIKE "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I'M JUST TRYING TO MAKE A CALL HERE"

WE HAVE OUR LOG-IN-DATE

This is the email I just received from our agency:

"Congratulations!  Your dossier has been logged in by the China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption.  Your official dossier log-in date (LID) is: 8/2/2012"

Excited beyond words.  Those that have previously adopted from China will know what a big deal this is.  Now we wait patiently to be matched with our child & the call from our agency.  Could be weeks, could be months.  Will keep you posted.  In the meantime there is plenty of getting ready to do!  Have I mentioned that we got rid of every possible baby thing we owned at our last garage sale in October?  Yeah, God definitely has a sense of humor.  

THE TIMELINE

After several conversations with friends over the last couple of days, I realized I probably needed to clarify better where we are in the adoption process and what our expected timeframe is.  We began the adoption process in February and have worked diligently over the past 5 months putting together our dossier (that is adoption lingo for our official file that is sent to China).  Our dossier consists of 13 documents including our home study & immigration approval that all have to be notarized at the county level then certified at the state & federal levels & then lastly authenticated at the Chinese consulate for the state in which the document originated.  Because Bart & I were born in different states & now reside in yet another state, we had documents that had to go through 3 different systems......fun, fun!  OK not really, but it's often been said that the paperwork side of international adoption is our "labor".......definitely not as physically painful, but mentally taxing nonetheless yet also worth every minute!!

Our dossier arrived in China on August 1st.  In the next couple of weeks we will be getting our official Log-In-Date (LID) which is what every adoptive family from China anxiously awaits.  Though we could get a call at any moment with a referral (or child they would like us to prayerfully consider adopting), once we have LID the number of children available for us to adopt expands greatly.  We have requested to adopt a little girl with minor special needs around the age of 10-12 months old at time of referral.  As far as "minor special needs", our agency has a list of the conditions we would be willing to consider & as you may remember, Addison was a special needs adoption also.  She had a minor heart condition called a VSD/PFO (or small hole in her heart) that was actually surgically repaired before we got her.  It was thankfully 100% successful.

After we accept our referral, it will be another 4-7 months until we can travel to go get her so she will most likely be between the ages of 15-20 months old by the time we bring her home.  That process has changed a lot since we adopted Addison.  When we got her referral, we had only 1 month before we traveled & it was a mad dash to get visas, travel shots, & a nursery up & ready.  I can only imagine how hard it will be this go around to wait those 4-7 months to pick up our baby girl!

With all of that said, we will most likely be traveling to China in the next 6-12 months.  As we've previously learned going through the process, everything with adoption can change at any moment & the timeframes are always unknown & something you just have to have patience & faith in God's timing. Your prayers as we travel down this adoption road are much appreciated & we can not say thank you enough for walking this road with us!

Below are a couple of pics of our adoption milestones thus far:


Jodi in front of KY state capital after getting KY docs certified

Our pretty docs after being certified in Georgia

The kids had to go along with Dad to get baby sis' docs sealed.  

BEHIND THE NAME

Though we've never met her or seen her sweet little face, she already has a name....Lexi Marie, named after the aunt she'll never meet on this side of heaven, Jill Marie, and the hometown of Lexington where her Momma & Jill grew up.  When we looked up the meaning of Lexi we found out it means "defender or protector of mankind".  How cool is that!  May she grow to know & love Jesus, her ultimate defender & protector, and live to be a mighty defender of her faith & fellow mankind!

THE STORY

This is our journey to adopt our second "stone" from China.  We never could have imagined what God had in store as we followed him down the uncharted path to adopt our first daughter Addison from China in 2006.  It was literally love at first sight & she has brought our family unexplainable joy.  The fire to adopt again has been in us ever since but with planting & pastoring a growing new church then looking at launching a second campus, it seemed as if God's plan for our lives was to focus on "birthing churches" not children...haha.  Well...that was until this past winter when He wrecked our hearts again & allowed that spark that had been smoldering there to become a full blaze.  So here we are, both in our young 40's, two kids in elementary school, in the middle of a huge endeavor to launch a 2nd campus, yet knowing without a doubt that God is leading us to adopt again.  See what we've learned along the way is that God's ways are higher than ours and His path is always greater than ours.  It doesn't always make sense & can put those of us who like to be in control to the test, but what better place to be than clinging desperately to the One who created you.