December Letter

There has been a request for the posting of our December letter. A few things have changed since this letter. Our costs will be closer to $33,000 (even without having to travel twice), and we have almost completed our agency payments so money sent in will no longer go towards our adoption (but to an equally noble cause - the Babushka Fund for children left behind). Here it is.....

Dear Friends and Family,

We want to take this opportunity to wish you all a blessed Christmas season and to share some exciting news. We are preparing to grow our family through adoption. We started the process at the beginning of November and hope to soon adopt a baby from Kyrgyzstan, a small country in Central Asia.

We are not sure of the timeline, but we believe that God may already be preparing a new baby sister or brother for Violet. We are hopeful that we might bring a baby home sometime in the next 6 months, but nothing is certain with international adoption. As we said, it is exciting for us but also a step that is testing our patience as well as our faith in God’s will for our lives.

Psalm 68:5-6 tells us that as the Father to the fatherless, God delights in setting the lonely in families. It has become our conviction that responding to the scriptural mandate of caring for orphans, such as the one found in James 1:27, is an act of obedience as well as an opportunity to experience, in a profound way, the joy of God by being a part of His sovereign plan for His precious children.

God is working in our hearts and minds as we read more about this process and talk with others who have adopted. We are still early in the process, but have completed our homestudy (possibly the most arduous part of the adoption process) and are beginning to prepare our dossier (international paperwork). After that, we just wait. Already, though, we have put a substantial amount of money into the process and the expenses will continue to increase. The estimated cost of the adoption is between $25,000 and $30,000.

Because it is so costly, adoption is often only available to wealthier families. We are fortunate to have an adoption reimbursement available through Nate’s company and will also be able to take advantage of an adoption tax credit in 2008. Although the reimbursements will cover a large portion of the adoption, we are trying to obtain part of the remaining $5,000 - $10,000 through fund raising. We are writing to invite you to be a part of our adoption process. There is an opportunity through the agency we are working with, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, to sponsor us through a program called the Babushka Fund. The program was established to help families finance adoption. We are hoping that God might move in the hearts of people we know to give toward our adoption.

If you’d like to help, please know that 100% of your contribution goes toward our adoption (no administrative fees or anything like that), and it is tax-deductible. You can write a check to Nightlight Christian Adoptions – just include our name on a note with the check – and you will receive a donation receipt from Nightlight.

We thank you for considering this financial support, but of course we would also appreciate prayer support for this process, our baby, and our family.

You can send your checks to:

Nightlight Christian Adoptions
801 E. Chapman Ave., Suite 106
Fullerton, CA 92831

With many thanks for your friendship and the important role you’ve played in our lives,
Nathan, Amanda and Violet