These Are Days: Financial Update

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Financial Update

We did finally hear back from Caroline's Promise, the other organization to which we applied for a grant. We were not selected to receive a grant, so that door is closed. Still we say, praise God for his sovereignty. He's gone before us and knows our needs. I'm not concerned. Several people have asked recently about the latest financial situation, so here is an update:

If my calculations are correct, the remaining unpaid costs are approximately $9,000 - $10,000 to complete our adoption and travel. The remaining adoption fee is $4000. Travel costs will be approximately $5000 - $6000. There are also some miscellaneous costs like vaccinations (yikes -- never knew THOSE were so costly!) and passport fees, etc.

Here is how God is providing:

God is using Shaohannah's Hope to provide us with $2000, lowering the needed total to $7,000 - $8,000.

Thanks be to God.

God is using Mike's company to provide us with $2500 in reimbursement, lowering the total needed to $4500 - $5500.

Thanks be to God.

We have an adoption awareness-raiser/fund-raiser planned for April 6 with another adopting family (adopting domestically) from our church. We are excited about this opportunity to share God's love for orphans with our friends and church family and are praying for how God might provide for both our families through this event. I will post more about that event soon.

I just want to remind everyone that we started this process with having only the $200 application fee. God has faithfully revealed or provided every single penny needed at exactly the right time to guide us to Tinsaye. Please don't ever let finances stop you from adopting. Yes, it is often scary -- downright terrifying -- to take that step of faith. But know this: God will supply.

2 comments:

Monica said...: Don't ever forget that God is good ALL the time and that His plan in His time is perfect. We don't always (rarely, in fact) see the big picture, but we can rest in the knowledge that He knows what He is doing. I will pray that you can find that rest. Hugs, M.; March 25, 2008 at 4:14 PM
Jennifer Sr. said...: Could you put a "donate button" on your blog, maybe to your paypal account?

Maybe you have some "cyber friends" that would like to get in on this!

Please forgive me if you don't like this idea, I havent' thought it through or anything, it just popped into my head.

And also forgive me if you already have something like this and I just haven't seen it! lol

Sincerely, Jennifer; March 26, 2008 at 8:10 PM

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Why Ethiopia?

*Ethiopia is a beautiful landscape and a country rich in culture, history and heritage
*Ethiopia is an ancient Christian nation, named in the Bible as Axum
*As a culture, Ethiopians value their children and love them with a love that sometimes transcends our understanding
*One in ten children die before their first birthday
* One in six children die before their fifth birthday
* 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
* 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted due to malnutrition
* The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years; the average life span is 37 years
* Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school; 88% will never attend secondary school
* Ethiopia has the highest HIV/AIDS population in the world
* There are 4.8 million orphans in Ethiopia; 1.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS alone
* Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
* In the 1980's one million Ethiopians died of starvation
* Drought struck the country again from 2000-2002 (1st year no crops, 2nd year no seeds, 3rd year no animals)
* Only 24% of households have access to safe drinking water
* 82% of the population survives on less than 1 dollar a day
* Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002
* Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
* In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports

(adapted from a Yahoo group web posting and Unicef-Ethiopia)

How Much Does Adoption Cost?

One of the most frequent questions we get is: "How much does adoption cost?"

Philosophically, the first answer to this question is that adoption, by its very nature, will have cost our child everything. Our child will have suffered more in his short life than we have ever, and, by God's grace, hopefully ever will. Our child, through the lens of three, four or perhaps five years of childhood, will have witnessed the death of his parents; will have perhaps been forced to wander the streets for food and shelter; will perhaps have been taken in by a stranger and then dropped in an orphanage where there is no familiar sound, smell or smile -- he will have experienced the kind of fear that causes you to close your eyes to shut out the desperate world around him. Adoption will have cost him everything.

I've heard several people comment that our child is so "lucky" to be adopted by our family or how "good" we are to be "doing this." I understand the heart of these comments -- and honestly, I think before I really started learning about children who have been orphaned, I probably would have had the same thoughts -- but when we stop to think about it, NO child is lucky to be adopted, because to be adopted one must first be orphaned.

What adoption is, however, is God's hand of love and grace and mercy on a child who, through no fault of their own, has lived in the depths of our fallen world where tragedy and death are realities. Adoption has nothing to do with US and it has everything to do with God. This is not a story of what WE are doing. It is a story of what GOD is doing. God loves this child SO much that He is giving him a second family. For reasons I do not necessarily understand, God has chosen us to be part of HIS plan for HIS child. As a result, God is putting HIS love in our hearts for HIS child. We will love him as our own. But he is not lucky and we are not good. We are, however, both loved beyond measure by our Father in Heaven and we are being used by Him to fulfill His perfect plan for us.

Now, before you get frustrated with me, I understand that most people are asking about our financial cost, however, and the answer to that question is: "a lot." :-) Since we are being very open about our Ethiopian adoption, I thought I would go ahead and outline how the fees are broken out:

Initial Application Fee: $200

Homestudy Fee: $1400 + $200 for the update we needed

Immigration Fees: $685

AAI Agency Fee: $2000

Ethiopia Country Fee: $6000 (for one child, 7-9 years old; $2000 is paid with dossier submission and $4000 is paid after the adoption is finalized in Ethiopian court)

Travel: $7522

Total: $18,007

As I've posted before we have never had this entire sum sitting in our savings account. To God's glory alone we have had the needed amounts available in our savings account each time a fee has been required. (We have made it through the first part of the country fee.) We have gratefully and humbly received gifts from friends, family and even people we don't know or haven't met! No gift has ever been too small and each one has come at precisely the time when we needed some help to meet one of these fee deadlines. We continue to walk in faith that God will use people, organizations and opportunities to provide each amount as it is required according to HIS timeline.

These Are Days

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Financial Update

2 comments:

Promises

Ethiopia

Local Time, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Why Ethiopia?

How Much Does Adoption Cost?

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