adoption Archives - Page 11 of 15

This summer has been a complete blur! I honestly can’t believe we’re almost up to the middle of August and the time of the year when back-to-school pics keep popping up on my social media pages everywhere! For us, the rush of summer began in May – when we received our official adoption referral!

Yes! We! Did!

I recently realized I never formally shared that here on the ol’ blog. What is wrong with me? I’ve been a little slack at blogging lately, all with good reason, but still?! I’m so sorry!

To bring you quickly up to speed… We have been given a referral for a sibling group of 3 children. Unfortunately, we can’t share anymore than that right now, due to the adoption agreements of both countries and the Hague Convention that we’re bound by. But, know this…as soon as we’re able…we will show pics, genders, ages, etc. We can’t wait for you to meet our newest children!

Speaking of meeting our children…we got to do just that this summer!!! The Bulgaria adoption program requires two trips before the adoption is finalized. The first trip is to meet the children and spend time with them in-country. It has to happen within two months of receiving a referral, but our travel dates arrived just a week after our referral and we left just three short weeks later.

Our time in Bulgaria was phenomenal! But…meeting our children for the first time…surreal! I’ll never forget those sheepish smiles as they walked into the room where we were waiting. Within 20 minutes, however, they were jumping up into our arms, giggling and laughing…calling us Mama and Tatko (Bulgarian for Mommy and Daddy). Leaving them to travel home was extremely difficult, but we kept telling ourselves, “the sooner we get back means the sooner we can return to Bulgaria to bring them home.”

The general rule of thumb is the “pick up trip” takes place around four to six months following the first trip. We’ve been told to anticipate having them home by Christmas, but our prayer is by Thanksgiving! Will you join us in that prayer please?

On the fundraising front…we have been blessed to receive a couple grant awards this summer, and we have several other grant applications pending. We’ve also had a couple successful fundraisers along with direct gifts. We are still short the funds needed to complete the remaining estimated expenses for our adoption, but considering all expenses for the three children will total around $55,000, and we have around $18,000 left to raise…we’ve come a LONG way so far! God has truly blessed us and has been SO faithful every single step of this journey!

We are currently in the middle of our t-shirt fundraiser. If you’re interested in purchasing a t-shirt (or more), they are available in various sizes, styles (short-sleeve, long-sleeve, and hoodies), and colors by clicking HERE! We also have children’s sizes available here, toddler sizes here, and even infant onesies here.

To simply make a straight donation to our adoption fund, you can click on one of the “donate” links to the right.

Thank you for your continued prayer and financial support of our adoption! We can’t wait to “introduce” you to the little cuties! In the meantime, enjoy a few pics from our trip to Bulgaria (below).

UPDATE: The puzzle is now complete! Thank you for your kindness and generosity! We feel so blessed to have you join us on this adoption journey!

So sorry for the delay with this update folks, but we had a bit of a surprise in our already busy summer! We just returned from our first (of two) trips to Bulgaria! Yes. We. Did!

Just to recap where things currently are with our adoption…

We received our referral for a sibling group of 3 at the end of May!
Bulgaria requires two trips for the completion of an adoption, and we received travel dates less than a week after our referral arrived, and we were scheduled to fly out on June 27.
We were in country until July 4, where we met our children for the very first time! It was unbelievable to finally be able to hug them and to hear them call us “Mama” and “Datko” (Bulgarian names for Mommy and Daddy).
We’re unable to share specifics about our children (as far as genders, ages, etc.) until the adoption is complete, but don’t worry…when that time comes…we’ll have so much to share and celebrate with you!
We still have one more trip to make to Bulgaria, and they estimate 4-6 months before we go back. It was definitely tough to leave our kiddos, but we also knew the sooner we got back to the US…the sooner we return to pick them up.

Now that our adoption is moving along rapidly towards completion, and now that we know how many children we’re adopting…the rubber has met the road as far as finances are concerned. We have around four more grants we applied for that we’re waiting to hear from, but it could be another month or two before we know if we’ve been awarded anything. In the meantime, we’ve pressing hard to raise the remainder of funds we’ll need to complete the adoption.

We’re so excited to report the puzzle fundraiser has been a huge success. To date, 440 of the 500 pieces have been sponsored. We’re looking for the last 60 pieces to be sponsored by the end of July – if not before! 🙂

As a reminder:

You can purchase multiple pieces. Example – for a gift of $100 towards this puzzle fundraiser, we will record your name on the backs of 10 pieces.
You can ask for pieces to be named “in memory of” or “in honor of” another individual. Just specify names at the time of making your gift.
Gifts can either be made by cash/check, our You Caring page, our AdoptTogether portal (for a tax deductible donation) or via Paypal. If paying by Paypal, please use [email protected] as the Paypal email address, and make sure to choose the box “send money to friends and family” to avoid a fee being assessed by Paypal. If you want to mail your check to us and need the address, please send me an email ([email protected]) or private message on Facebook.

Thanks for all the love and support friends! You are amazing!!

We Met our Kiddos!

Puzzle Fundraiser Update!