Money

I want this blog to be a place where I can be honest and answer questions and address fears that one may have about adoption. Financing adoption was one MAJOR fear I wrestled with. I think I am not alone in this struggle.

I am learning to have faith in God’s provision. I wanted to post the cost breakdown (beginning to when we turned in our dossier), not so you can feel sorry for us, or say, “what a sacrifice”, but to show you, it is nothing to be scared of. If we can do it while starting a new business and building out an old house, anyone can. Is God calling you?

• Agency Application Fee: $150
• Home Study Fee: $1500
• Agency 1st Fee (due after application due): $1900
• Agency 2nd Fee (due when turning in dossier): $3200
• Passport Renewal Fee (ours were old): $208
• Physician’s Visit: $0 (covered by insurance)
• Certified Copies of Birth Certificates: $44 (2 copies each)
• Certified Copies of Marriage Certificate: $15 (2 copies)
• Fingerprinting to receive Criminal Record Check: $42 ($24 each)
• USCIS (Immigration) Filing and Fingerprinting: $830
• Authentication of notary signatures at Secretary of States Office: $100
• MyChineseDocs.com (someone to walk paperwork through the Chinese Embassy in Houston): $150
• Certification of all documents at Chinese Embassy: $260
• FedEx services  - $100
• China’s Center for Adoption Affairs fee – $1050
• Printing photographs taken by friends: $20
• Gift cards to those who generously helped us (notaries, photographers, friends): $100
• Visa Photos at CVS: $30

Total (paid to date): $9,799

We managed to pay for our first fee and home study because we received a small inheritance from Jason’s grandmother. And recently, we remembered I had a life insurance policy we could cash in at anytime! That was another little bit we added to our savings! God is providing! Doing a start-up company and adopting was not in our plans, but it was in God’s. So I have faith. I am not worried (I have to continually tell myself that to believe it)!

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26

Lastly, here are additional ways financial needs might be met:

• Saving – we are trying to be diligent and save, save, save!
• Grants: ( list of websites below)
• Adoption loans
• Fundraising – (creative ideas for fundraising listed below)
• Support – consider sending out support letters / emails  to friends and family.
• Adoption tax credit – This was hidden in the health care bill signed into law. The adoption tax credit has been extended until the end of 2011 and increased from $12,170 to $13,170 for adoptions occurring after January 1, 2010 (it’s retroactive). The credit is also now refundable.You can read the bills text on page 903 of 906 here.

Please join us in praying for us to be diligent in saving and wise with our money. Please pray for us to have faith, and trust in God’s provision. He is good. He is gracious. He has called us. We are trying to answering in faith.

Grants:

• Abba Fund
• Show Hope Ministries
• A Child Waits
• Affording Adoption Foundation
• God’s Grace Adoption Ministry

Fundraising Ideas:

• Make something and sell it on Etsy.
• Benefit dinner and silent auction at your church
• T-shirt design and sell
• House concert – people come and make donations

Gifts that have appeared on our front stoop: