Approved Home Study and Grant Writing
Well team, after ten months since J. and I started what we thought would be a 4-6 week process, we finally have an approved home study!!! This means that we can move forward to the next stage!
While we are incredibly excited about this, we are also trying to take things one step at a time. The next few steps in our adoption process cost about $30,000, and that is not including attorney fees. So far, God has proven to be sovereign over the finances and we know that he will continue to provide, but we would be lying if we didn’t say that this is a daunting number.
With that, J. and I are working hard on applying for grants. The grant writing process is tedious and takes a ton of time, but we are slowly putting in application after application. If you are aware of any grants, please let us know! We are always open to new ideas.
I am also continuing to offer family photos for fundraising. If you would be interested in having photos done, please reach out to me, and I’ll be glad to schedule a time with you. Also, since they were such a success last year, we are working to put out another fundraising calendar this year. If you are interested, just stay tuned. We hope to have an announcement within a month or so.
Along with that, we continue to work on our profile book. This has taken longer than planned because we want to do a great job on it, but the weather has not created many good photo opportunities, and professional photography is rather pricy in our area. Once we have completed the book and we feel more comfortable with our money situation, we will move to the match-ready phase.
Here, we are open to being matched, and the match could literally come at any time. Realistically, we are expected to be in this phase for 1-2 years, and J. and I are okay with that. It’s not knowing when that will be the hardest part…
With that, below are some praises and prayer requests:
Praises:
Home study is complete!
We still feel incredibly supported by our community in our process!
There are so many places to apply for grants!
Prayers:
That we can raise a lot of funds through grants, and will not need to rely too heavily on more fundraising and savings.
God sustains us throughout all of the tedious work and keeps us sane through it.
We continue to stay encouraged, even while looking at the obstacles ahead.