So much has happened since the last post that I am finding it hard to know where to start! Let's see... well, Justin's work was very slow, they were telling him to not even come in a couple days out of the week. If you don't work, you don't get paid. With agency and translation fees staring us in the face, we were getting very worried. But once we turned to God and let Him handle it, He did. Justin got the opportunity to work in SC with guaranteed, out-of-town pay. While we didn't get to see much of each other for a couple months, we got caught up on a lot of things and were able to put aside the money for the fees and get the translation started. I also got the opportunity to work full-time and overtime during that same time. This was a lot of hard work for both of us, but it was definitely God's answer to our prayers.
Since then, we have gotten our translation finished and are officially registered with the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice. They are the ones who will look at our file and match us with available children. This is called our "referral". The referral consists of all of the information that they have for the children, including: medicals, photos, history, etc. We could receive our referral at any time, however this could take up to 24 months. Once we get our referral, we have 10 business days to decide if these are the children that God has for us. Once we accept, we will be flying within 1-2 weeks to go meet them.
We had applied for grants from HelpUsAdopt.org, LifeSong and Show Hope. We were declined any help from HelpUsAdopt.org, this is not a Christian organization and it was a last minute application that we sent. We were not expecting anything from them, but we were hopeful. It was still a disappointment. We had gotten a call from Lifesong, they were just verifying our information, and we should hear a final decision in 2-3 weeks. After 5 weeks went by with no word, we assumed it was bad news and I had to call! I was told that they had run out of funds for grants, however our application was sitting on the director's desk and they were reaching out to other sources to fund us. We asked everyone to pray, and we were on pins and needles until we finally heard back from them. A church in VA had decided to fund a matching grant for us!! It is a $2,500 matching grant! Praise the Lord! They also approved us for the "Both Hands" project which I went into more detail about in a previous blog. Basically, we will get a team together to help us work on a widow's home, doing anything from cleaning, painting, fixing things, yard work... whatever they need done that we can feasibly do in one day. All of our team members will send out letters to their family and friends asking to be sponsored while they work on the home. (Much like being sponsored for a 10K). 100% of the donations will be tax-deductible and go directly towards our adoption expenses, and the first $2,500 will be matched dollar-for-dollar. We will be helping a widow with one hand and an orphan with the other, and using "Both Hands" to carry out James 1:27. We are extremely excited about this fundraiser, we also hope that it can help us to be fully funded for the adoption, which will allow us to accept a referral sooner. We also heard back from Show Hope and they approved us for a $4,000 grant! The Lord is certainly showing Himself faithful, and we want to thank everyone for their prayers!!
This may sound like a lot of money, so let me break it down a little bit. Once we accept a referral and until we bring our children home, we will have to pay two international fees and another translation fee, totaling about $11,500. Then we will have to travel to Bulgaria twice, which will be about another $8,000, not including the in-country costs like lodging and food. Then if we do get a referral with more than 1 child, we will have to pay additional fees. So far, we have only been paying fees based on adopting 1 child, so we will have to pay approximately $9,000 more to cover a second child, and a few thousand more for a third child. This is not including re-adoption fees and post-adoption fees, and these are all just estimates. So, this might put into perspective why this fundraiser is so essential to finishing up our adoption.
We have so many specific things to be in prayer about: Right now, we need to find the widow that God wants us to help. We also need more people to be on our Both Hands team. Without these two things, we can't move forward with the project, so please be in prayer for this. If you would like to be involved in any way with the project, whether you want to be on our team or just help stuff and address envelopes with us, please contact us. We also welcome any questions, we know that this fundraiser is very involved and it can be hard to explain exactly how it works.
We also would appreciate prayer for God's timing and our patience. Hearing that it can take up to 24 months to get our referral was very discouraging. But God has been faithful to us in this whole process and we need to continue to keep our faith in Him!
We are very excited to be moving along with this process and we are looking forward to finally seeing our children's faces and getting to know who they are! Please pray that God would protect them and help them to understand that we are diligently working so we can bring them home.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions, or just a word of encouragement at JHans2678@gmail.com.
Also, check out the Both Hands project at www.BothHandsFoundation.org. And be in prayer about becoming involved with this fundraiser in some way.
We are still selling the "Shirts of Hope", which you can purchase by clicking the link to the top-right. ----->
If you feel led to donate towards our adoption and would like for it to be tax-deductible, you can send your check to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St.
Gridley, IL 61744
(Important: the Memo line must have "Preference Hansen #2821 adoption" for us to get credit!)
Thanks for your continued prayer and support! God Bless!
