Summer Update....It's been a while....

The end of last week was tough for me. This adoption journey seemed so hard, fear reared its ugly head, I was so sad as another week went by without a referral, and "the waiting" continued.  As I have already previously stated, some people say that one of the hardest things about the adoption process is the "waiting". There is the wait for paperwork to be complete, the wait for a referral, the wait to travel, the wait for a visa, the wait in China, and the wait to return home.  It really is a continual waiting game.  I try to remember, however, that these moments of waiting can be sacred times.  Times to pray, prepare our hearts and prepare our family. That is precisely what we have been trying to do, besides the ordinary everyday things required of a family of 6.  It is not very glamorous to blog about, thus the reason for the silence the past few months. 


Anyway, it always seems like when we walk through the valley of discouragement, God graciously provides moments that bolster our faith and remind us that He is in control. And that is what happened this week. You see, there is one other thing we have been doing the past few months and that is submitting applications for needed grants. Consequently, God has graciously provided a $500 matching grant through Hands of Hope (which was graciously matched by some offerings from our church given a while back). Then, this week, we received word that we were approved for a $3,000 matching grant by Lifesong for Orphans*.  It was such an encouragement to me this week, as if God was reminding me that His timing and His ways are perfect.


Speaking of encouragement, there are so many of our family and friends that have already given so far.  We are so grateful to you and have already been humbled by your support.  Because this is a matching grant, however, we are required to raise additional funds (with a goal date of August 4th) in order to receive it. So in other words, every dollar we raise will be matched up to $3,000 (for a total of $6,000). When we add this amount, plus some future t-shirt sales, and another grant we have applied for, we estimate that the adoption will be fully funded! It is hard to believe that this process was only started less than a year ago. Thanks for all your prayers, inquiries, and support.


If you feel like you can give so we can meet this goal, to give online please go here.  LifeSong Online Giving -For Family name please put- Walsh and the family account number is 4521. Or you can send a check to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40/202 N. Ford St.
Gridley, IL 61744
** Please be sure to write Walsh/#4521 in the memo line of the check.

Please note that Lifesong is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and your gift is tax deductible. 100% of all funds raised will go directly to cover adoption costs--nothing will be taken out for Lifesong for Orphan's administrative costs. As you give, know that we are so very grateful for your help. You are helping us bring our little girl home. If you have already given or are unable to give, can you please pray for our family and for our little girl? That means so much to us as well.

We appreciate you taking to time to read our update. We hope to have some more good news soon!


Blessings,
Michelle, writing for the Walsh Clan




 *Lifesong for Orphans is a non-profit Christian ministry dedicated to help meet the needs of orphan children around the world, and to obey God’s call to "visit the fatherless…in their affliction" (James 1:27). With over 147 million orphans worldwide, Lifesong seeks to mobilize the Body of Christ to love and care for orphans. Lifesong serves families, churches and orphans through adoption funding. Additionally, Lifesong brings joy and purpose to orphans globally in seven countries and domestically through foster care initiatives. You can visit their website (www.lifesongfororphans.org) for more information.  This specific matching grant is being provided by First Baptist Church of Orlando who is in partnership with Lifesong.

We are so blessed... and check out the Video!

Well, the Chinese New Year is winding down now, and our adoption agency should receive some new Children to be matched from China any day now.  We are praying that the little girl God has for us will come soon.  We are so blessed by so many of you praying, asking, encouraging, and giving towards our adoption.  Thank you for all of your constant support...it is more appreciated than you can know.  

Since we began this second road to adoption we have been saving money, and trying to figure out how much we would have in our personal bank accounts to go towards this adoption.  In looking over the figures this past week we figure we have saved up $9,000 to go towards the adoption (praise God!).  This should cover all of our airfare and travel while in China.  Our final expense will be our in country Adoption Costs which was initially $11,500 when we first applied to China, but has now risen to $13,200.  We are still waiting to find out if we are grandfathered in to the first amount.  With the $4500 we have raised over the past couple of months, this leaves us with only $7,000-$8,700 needed to take care of everything. (We are excited about this!)  

We have a SBC Pastors Grant that we will find out for sure when we get the referral which we hope is around $2,000, and possibly a matching grant with Funding Hope that could pull in $3,000.  I have talked to my great friend Jason Sobol who is a Lucas Arts Star Wars artist on designing a shirt, so those may be going on sale in the very near future.  Our Homeschool Coop sales have been going wonderful and the people have been very gracious to us...we are in route to raise $1,000 from there as well.  Any prayers are appreciated as we near completing this task... We are so excited about adopting again and if anyone wants to talk more about it we would be glad to.  Here is a video that we saw tonight that really rocked us to the core.  We cannot wait to get our little girl home...thank you for walking alongside of as in this momentous occasion.

A Major Step Closer!

DTC=Dossier to China...LID= Log in Date

This picture may not mean much to most people but it means a ton to us!  A few months ago we set a goal to have our dossier (adoption documents) logged in China before the Chinese New Year (January 31st).  We had everything sent to China on January 17th and I looked online today to see if it had cleared yet, and discovered it was logged in on January 24th.  Woohoo!  Goal achieved.  Needless to say the Walsh family is EXCITED! So...what does this mean?
Now that we are logged in, Holt can use the large list of children from China to be able to find us a match(also known as a referral).  They estimate it will take 1-6 months to get our referral (and it seems like it will be more sooner than later) After that it is 1-3 months to travel.


At present, we are working on some fundraising ideas to get us to the next goal. (A friend at church is doing a photo shoot to raise money, we are going to make T-shirts, we have two grants we are waiting to hear word on, and we are open to any other ideas!) Thank you all for praying and helping and please continue to keep this process in your prayers that God will protect our little girl and guide us to her.  Your continued support and encouragement through this process means more than your know.

Dossier Complete!

Happy New Year dear friends and family.  The last time we posted a blog, we were all anxiously awaiting the holidays. It is hard to believe all that is behind us, and we have embarked on a new year. We certainly hope that you all had a wonderful time celebrating with family and friends. We spent a restful Christmas in Alabama with my parents. Now that the frenzy of all that celebrating is complete, we are looking ahead to the new year as we are planning and praying.


Also, we finally have an update!! Yes, it has taken that long to emerge from the waiting phase I spoke of last time.  Our Dossier (paperwork) is finished. This week we sorted, photocopied and finally mailed it to Holt International. They perused all the papers and made sure everything was in order. Then on Friday, it was picked up by Fed Ex and is now on its way to China. It should be logged in within the next two weeks, then the matching process steps up a notch. Up until this point, they have consulted their designated list of children for matching (this is a particular group of children that only Holt International can place.) However, now, as soon as our dossier is logged in with China, they can match us with a child from the "shared list". This is a broader list that is open to all adoption agencies. When I asked our agency the expected time frame after the log in date, they said it was anywhere from 1-6 months. We are all so excited! (At times terrified too!) There will be a brief delay because of the celebration of the Chinese New Year. That starts January 31st and many offices are closed for 3 weeks in honor of that holiday.


With that said,  can I just say that the beauty of embarking on a mission that is bigger than you can handle is that you see the way God provides. On the Sunday right before Christmas, we got a $4,800 donation from an anonymous source in our church. It completely took us by surprise and was such a great Christmas gift! Then, of course, He has also used many of you to help, as you have prayed and given to our cause. Thank you so very much. I wish I could hug you all and personally tell you how much it means to me.  And I as pray for our little girl, I am overwhelmed that she is already loved by so many.  So in total we have raised about $9,000 towards our goal!  I can't help but grin as I write that! God has a way of giving just what we need at just the right time!  We have a few more ideas for fundraising that will, hopefully, unfold in the next few months. We have also applied for some grants. We have had the answer of "maybe" from one agency so far, and the other one is on hold until we are actually matched. Whew. . .it is hard. But it is worth it. Thanks for reading this and please pray for our little one when you get a chance.

Waiting...

     As we have been with family and old friends this week, I have been asked several times about the status of our adoption. My response has been essentially the same. . .a big smile, a shrug and then these infamous words, "We are just waiting". Then I kind of feel bad because there is nothing else to offer. No new news (that looks weird). No exciting stories. No pictures. Nada. Nothing. Zip.
      Ahh. . . the ever difficult task of WAITING. Does it ever get easier? No matter the age, WAITING is HARD. Whether it is lovebirds waiting for their wedding day, or new parents waiting the birth of their baby, or even a child (or grown ups, for that matter) waiting for Christmas, time seems to drag. Thoughts are funneled into the expectancy of what tomorrow holds. Sometimes we yearn so much for the future that we fail to enjoy the present. Yep, it can be hard. But I think I have finally learned something the past few years about waiting. It is not a curse. It is not a bad thing. On the contrary, perhaps it is a blessing. It can be a time to prepare. A time to pray. A time to treasure the present before the future alters things. It is a time to be faithful with what you are entrusted with now. I know I still have a lot to learn about life, but I hope I wait well. Consider these lyrics to a song called While I'm Waiting:

While I'm waiting I will serve You
While I'm waiting I will worship
While I'm waiting I will not faint
I'll be running the race even while I wait.

I'm waiting, I'm waiting on You Lord
And I am peaceful, I'm waiting on You Lord
Though it's not easy no, but faithfully I will wait.
Yes, I will wait

And I will move ahead bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience...

Maybe you are WAITING for something too- a new job offer, a medical diagnosis, a new year for a new start.  Whatever it may be, let's wait well together, trusting that God's plans and timing are better than ours.

By the way, we got our fingerprints done this past Monday and are now awaiting our 1-797 form. Yes, we still wait. When that form arrives, we will step into overdrive to take our paperwork to get certified in Tallahassee and then send it to be authenticated to the Chinese Consulate in Chicago. Of course then, we will wait some more.

Thanks for reading. Thanks to those of you who have donated. We are so very grateful. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the wait until Christmas.

So... why is adoption so expensive?

We have had several people ask us lately about the cost involved in international adoption (not just inquiring about our adoption, but contemplating adoption themselves) so we just wanted to lay it out for everyone to see.  Back in 2000 when our oldest son, Noah was born, I think we paid a co-pay of $150 and that was all the expenses we had.  So when we first began looking into adoption we were initially floored by the cost.  So here is the list of our expenses for this adoption and they are very similar to when we adopted Meili three years ago...

Adoption Agency Application Fee- $300
Fingerprints for agency approval- $110 ($55each)
Passport Photos for Adoption- $40 ($20 each)
Required online adoption classes- $145
Homestudy- $500 (this is usually around $2500 but our home study agency used part of our last home study...praise the Lord!)
USCIAS Application/Fingerprints- $875
Certified Birth Cert./Marriage Cert.- $50
Getting Dossier Authenticated and Certified- $665
U.S. Processing Fee- $3,000 (To the adoption agency facilitating the Adoption)
Adoption Program Fee- $11,500 (The majority of this goes to the orphanage the child is coming from along with other in country fees/visa/passport for the child as well as supporting the childs cost during the wait for the adoption process to be completed)
Travel to China and home w/child- $10,000 (2 roundtrip airfare, 1 one way airfare, hotels for 2 weeks, in country travel, and food).
Post-Placement Home Study- $1,000 (required)
Estimated Total cost of Adoption- $27,720

In bold is what we have already paid (which totals $5,685).  Please be in prayer as our next big expense will be the US processing Fee which we will submit probably before Christmas.

Current Fundraising Numbers:
Garage Sale- $300
Homeschool Co-op Snackshack- $1,100
Given in Celebration Designated- $7,020
Random Gifts- $260
Given through adopt together online giving- $400
Total raised as of 01/18/13- $9,080

Thank you everyone for your support through prayers, encouragement, and financially.  Many of you have just taken time to ask how it is going and that means more than you know.

Some people may wonder...is it worth it?   Here is a video of our little Meili... around 8 months after we had arrived home from China...

It is so worth it.  If you feel led to adopt and would like to talk with us about it we are always available!

Working Together

A brief update:  1.)We just received notice that our biometric fingerprints are scheduled November 25 at the homeland security office. After that is completed, we will then receive our 797 approval within a few weeks. That is the last piece of paper we need before we can move onto the next step! 2.) We raised about $850 this semester doing the Snack Shack for our homeschool co-op. It was hard work and a lot of cooking, but it is something we did as a family. I want to thank every family who bought snacks and lunches from us.  Many of you gave extra, so thanks. We appreciate your support. 

Thoughts for the day:  I had an interesting conversation with a friend last week. As we were eating lunch, she said something like this, "I wish I felt called to adopt, but I just don't. . .at all! I feel bad about that!" I didn't quite know what to say to her because, truth be told, as Christians aren't we all "called" to different things? Certainly there are things every believer does because the Bible clearly expects it (i.e. tithing, giving to the poor, witnessing, praying, etc..) But aren't we all "called" to different things? I am not just talking about those things that we get excited about (that can be fleeting). But I am talking about that desire God places in us which cannot be quenched, regardless of how difficult things get.  It is the desire that spurs us to action. Daniel was a prophet, statesman and government official. David was a shepherd and a king. Paul was a missionary. Gideon was a judge. Joshua was the leader of the Israelites. Hosea was called to marry a harlot. I have friends who are missionaries. Some who are pastors. Some who foster.  I know those who adopt and those who work at soup kitchens. These things are hard. Yet they press on. What makes one person go to India and another to China? I know I still have so much to learn. Thus, I hesitated to respond to my friend. I wanted to encourage her and I wanted to speak truth. So in essence this is how I responded. God calls us to do different things, because there are different needs. We can't do it all. But we can help each other! (I hesitate to say this because I do not want it to come across the wrong way. I, by no means, intend this to be a plea for financial help. I am just telling you what I told her.) I don't foster, but I can give hand-me-downs to parents who need them. I don't live in a foreign country, but I can pray for my friends who do and provide items when needed. I am not a king (queen), but I can pray for our president. You get the picture.
       Let me give you an example.When we got back from China last time, I was completely overwhelmed with life. Adding a fourth child was exhausting! But I had a friend who offered to take loads of laundry to wash for me. She washed and delivered them neatly folded to me. What a blessings that was! No she did not adopt, but she certainly helped me! Then of course, there were those who gave financially and gave us clothes for Meili and prayed for us. So many pitched in and were a part of that adoption. So I told my friend, there was no need to feel guilty. There was only a need to help as she saw need,  just as hopefully someone will help her in her hour of need. That is what the body of Christ is, after all, isn't it? It is each person doing their part so the gospel is shared, people are loved, and needs are met. It is looking after the needs of others. Sometimes we have to say no for various reasons. (in fact we may need to say "no" more often in this fast- paced culture, but that is a whole different issue!)  But when we can offer help, we should. It takes prayer and discernment. Just this week I was asked to donate to five different causes. How do you choose???? I haven't quite got that one figured out! I am seeking God still. Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts on this issue. What would you have told my friend? Stay tuned. . . next post will be so cute you won't want to miss it!