You do what???

Many moths ago, someone sheepishly asked me how we financed our adoption.  Without skipping a beat, I told that person, that we truly believed that God laid on our hearts to adopt children with special needs and we believed that if it was HIS will, then HE would provide for our every need.  I think the person was so dumbfounded at my response, he didn't know how to reply.


International adoption isn't easy.  I have a stack of papers to prove it.  I curently have 16 documents that have been notarized.  Once notarized, then they have to be county certified, which requires a trip to the court house and $1 a document to be certified.  Then those same documents have to be state "certified" (the official word is apostille) for $5 a document in the capital city of our state.  Once the documents have been notarized, certified, and apostilled, you take them to Fed Ex, give your documents a farewell kiss, and send them off to Eastern Europe.  And that is just the first batch.  I have about 20 other documents to do like wise with.

International adoption isn't cheap.  Take the above mentioned documents to certify, apostille, and send.  Then there are the many required documents like marriage licenses (we needed 4 and each one cost $3 each).  We had to have BCI/FBI prints taken.  $64/person.  Those prints have to have a date less than 6 months old when sent to EE, so we just had our prints done again. ($64 additional).  There was an upfront cost of our homestudy ($750) and our paperwork/fingerprinting for the US government ($890).  Then, when we do finally get a travel date, it typically is 2 weeks prior to traveling, so ticket prices are anywhere from $1200-$1600/ticket.  (And we are making two trips this time).  A one way ticket for our kiddos in the last two trips have been $800, and we are hopefully bringing home two kiddos this time!  Once in country, apartments/hotels are anywhere from $20-$80/night.  Doesn't seem liek much, but our first trip to Ukraine we paid $40/night and were in Ukraine for 42 days!

You don't have to be a great mathematician to know that all these items add up.  The cost is high, the paperwork is daunting, but in the end-

International Adoption is WORTH IT!  
Adoption is WORTH the TIME--every minute spent running from one county to another having items county certified, going to Columbus to have the pile of many documents apostilled.  Adoption is WORTH the COST.  How do you put a price on someone's life?  How can you tell someone that his/her life isn't worth every penny it took to get to him/her? 

Every day, I look at the pictures of our kiddos, waiting for us, and I am reminded of our Father's love.  HE told us we were worth the cost.  HE told us we were worth the time.  HE told us we were worth the effort.

God placed on our hearts to adopt children from far away lands.  To go out, and place children in families.  And so we follow HIS lead.  When he says go, we will go.  No, today we don't have every penny saved up to finance our adoption, but I truly believe that God will provide.  God provided us with a great support base of family and friends. We are humbled by the generous outpouring of love from those we know and those who believe in our calling to adopt. Stepping out and saying yes isn't always easy, but with the love of family, friends, and a heavenly Father, it's definitely worth it!