Adoption Update

We have quite an update...

 

 I haven't written much lately, because frankly not much has been going on...

We have done a lot of waiting, and some more waiting, and then we waited a little more with really no word and hardly any referrals coming out of Bulgaria at all. There are always some kind of delays. It's hard not to get frustrated. It's really hard not to get impatient.

 

 We started this journey almost two years ago. We had so much excitement at the beginning about becoming parents, saving orphans, and following God's will for our lives. In the meantime, we have just been going on living life as usual and that excitement has dwindled, if not completely gone away. But then I got a call last Wednesday that changed everything...

 

 Now don't get too excited, it wasn't our official referral. Our adoption coordinator had information about a little boy that she wanted us to consider. This boy was referred to another couple who just didn't think he was right for their family. Instead of telling Bulgaria that it was a no, our coordinator wanted other families (who had matching criteria) to look at him. We were the first ones on the list. Of course we want to adopt a sibling group and this was just one boy, so my immediate reaction was "no". But I wanted us to be able to at least consider and pray about him first. So she sent us his information, pictures and medical report. He is an adorable 2 year old boy, he was born very premature, but is very healthy considering. His sweet chubby cheeks made my heart melt! Justin and I started talking, reading his information and praying immediately. Amazingly, neither one of us had peace about saying yes or no to him. Now, if you know us, then you know that Justin and I do not always (hardly ever) agree. But when it comes to the adoption, we are always on the same page. We spent the next 5 days considering everything. We prayed and talked and cried about a million tears; we even talked to family, friends, pastors and fellow adoptive parents. We had so many people praying with us and for us, but still we had no clear answer from God. This made us question everything. Justin and I discussed more about the adoption than we have in at least a year. I wanted this boy, I wanted to hold him in my arms, I wanted him to call me mom, and I wanted to call him my son (I even re-named him!). After a long talk and even more tears, I realized that every reason that I wanted him was completely selfish: I wanted to save an orphan, I wanted to be a mom, I didn't want to say no, I didn't want to wait anymore. While none of these reasons are necessarily bad, they are still all about me and not at all about this boy. This wasn't what God has for us, we had to say no.

 

 "Now, why would God ever want anyone to say 'no' to an orphan?" you may ask. This was never about the orphan, God has a specific family waiting for him, I have no doubt. God was teaching something through this.  Do I know exactly what? No, but I have a few suspicions: God wanted us to choose waiting over fulfilling our own desires, He wanted to remind us why we are adopting in the first place (it's about the orphan and following God's leading), He wanted us to get excited about the adoption again, He wanted Justin and I to grow closer and talk to each other about what God is telling each of us to do (We both still feel very strongly that God gave us the desire to adopt a sibling group, at least 2, maybe 3)... Whatever else he was using this situation for, we may never know, and that's okay. God's will is perfect and His timing is perfect! This didn't make it any easier though, it was extremely hard and still is. Our hearts are completely broken! I don't know when another chance like this will come, it could be another year or more, that is devastating! But this is where patience, faith, and trust in God come in. Our time is coming. There is a song by Tenth Avenue North that is basically exactly what I am feeling and going through right now. Listen to it if you get a chance, it's beautiful. Here are the lyrics:

"Worn"

 

I’m Tired, I’m worn
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing
I’ve made mistakes
I’ve let my hope fail
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

I know I need to lift my eyes up
But I'm too weak
Life just won’t let up
And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

My prayers are wearing thin
Yeah, I’m worn
Even before the day begins
Yeah, I’m worn
I’ve lost my will to fight
I’m worn
So, heaven come and flood my eyes

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause all that’s dead inside will be reborn

Though I’m worn
Yeah I’m worn

 

 

 

 

Please continue to pray for us: that our broken hearts are healed, that we get renewed strength and patience. And please pray for this little boy: that his family will find him very soon. I can't give out his information, just call him "Ray in Bulgaria" and God will know who you are praying about.

 

 

 

Another Mother's Day...

For the last several years, Mother's Day has been a hard day for me. I was always sad that I wasn't a mother, even though God had given me such a strong desire to be one. I would look at young mothers and feel sorry for myself.

 

I decided that this year was going to be different...

God has blessed me so much. He has allowed me to observe so many wonderful mothers, young and old, over the last several years. He hasn't done this to punish me, but to teach me. I feel like God is preparing me to be a mother to my own children, by watching those around me. Adopting older children from another country is going to be hard, and God knows that I need all the help that I can get. I have also been learning that there are no perfect mothers out there. We all make mistakes, but that's how we learn to depend on God. Thank you to all the mothers that have been a good influence and encouragement to me over the years.

 

Happy Mother's Day!

The one mother that I am the most grateful for is my own. My mother has such a tender heart and a compassionate spirit. I am so thankful that she has passed even some of that down to me.

 

I remember, as a child, that my mom would give me a kiss and say "I love you" every night. One night, for whatever reason, I wasn't able to tell her "I love you" and I actually laid awake that night worrying that something could happen to me and she wouldn't know that I loved her. I realize now that it isn't about saying those words to one another. Even if my mom never said "I love you" to me, I would still know that she loved me through her actions.

Mom, thank you for being such a loving example for me. You have taught me more than you will ever know. Even though I don't say it every night anymore, please know that I always have and always will love you with all my heart!

Happy Mother's Day!

So this year, I may not physically have my children with me. But they are in my heart and my prayers always. Everyday that I am not with them, I am learning patience and my love for them is growing more and more. Please continue to pray for all of us. Maybe they will be here with us next year! :) 

Why Bulgaria?

   
    I have been wanting to write this blog for a while, but haven't been sure what to say. God has been showing and telling me little by little and now I think that I can answer the question, "Why Bulgaria?". We get this question a lot. Some people are just curious and some are really asking, "Why not America?". Let me start off by saying that when we started the adoption process, we weren't limiting ourselves to any specific country. And if I am being honest, I thought we would adopt domestically. So we are in no way opposed to adopting children in America! God has given us both an overwhelming burden for orphans. It doesn't matter what country they come from or what race they are. An orphan is an orphan! They all need a family and they all need to be shown the love of God. The idea, that as Americans we should adopt from America only (or first), is absolutely an American mindset not a Christian mindset. We aren't told to only minister to and help our fellow countrymen. In fact, we are told the exact opposite: "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." (Mark 16:15) This command wasn't just for missionaries. We are to love take care of people from every nation. I was reminded of this while reading my devotions this morning. It was the story of the Good Samaritan. (If you don't know it, please read Luke 10:30-37) When Jesus finished telling the story, He asked who had proved themselves to be a neighbor to the wounded man. The answer was, "The one who showed mercy toward him". That speaks volumes to me! "And Jesus said to him, 'Go and do the same'." (Luke 10:37b) We hope one day that God will give us the opportunity to adopt domestically, but we will wait on God's leading. Anyone who is offended or doesn't get it or thinks that we should be adopting domestically, I just ask that you search your heart. It may be that God has placed American orphans on your heart for a reason.
   
    So then... Why Bulgaria?
   
    We started praying for God to prepare us for adoption about 5 years ago. this was before we were even married, but we both already knew that we had a burden for adoption. We did try to get pregnant for almost 3 years, but I hesitate to even tell people that anymore. We are not adopting because we can't have "our own" children! We fully planned to adopt regardless. God has used infertility to get our attention and tell us, "Now, I want you to adopt now, don't wait." So we started looking into it. We got information on adoption agencies and prayed that God would direct us to the right agency. He clearly lead us straight to "All God's Children International". Through them, God directed us to Bulgaria. Do I understand "Why Bulgaria"? Honestly, no. But this morning our pastor preached on two very well-known verses that explained it to me:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall direct your paths."

(Proverbs 3:5-6)

   

    I don't understand, and I don't need to. But I do know that God has directed us to Bulgaria, and we absolutely believe that is where "our own" children are. 

Where to start...

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!

A Happy Mother's Day Indeed

We are currently working on our dossier, which is basically all of our paperwork, including the homestudy, background checks, pictures, medicals, etc, etc, in one giant packet. We have to have our dossier completed to move forward with the adoption. The last thing that we needed was our NBC approval, which is Immigration giving us permission to bring our foreign born children into the country. This takes up to 3 months to get. As part of the approval, we travelled to WV to get our fingerprints done about a week ago. This past Sunday (Mother's Day), I checked the mail because I hadn't checked it the day before. In the mail was our NBC approval!! We didn't expect to get it until mid-July. As you can imagine, this made it a wonderful Mother's day for me. We are one step closer to getting our kids!!!

Now all we have to do is get all of our notarized documents authenticated. Then send everything (our dossier) to the adoption agency to be translated and sent to Bulgaria. Once Bulgaria receives our dossier, we will be registered and officially waiting for our referral! We will have to pay an agency fee as well as a translation fee when we send in our packet, so we are scrambling to get that together. But we have had some amazing people send us unexpected donations, which we are extremely thankful for!!! (You know who you are... Thank you!!!)

We are still waiting to hear back from the grants that we have applied for, please pray that the Lord will guide these organizations to make the right choice, whether that is us or not. We are also working on a few fundraisers for the near future. Please continue to pray for our patience and that our faith and trust in Christ would grow even more. Also, keep our children in your prayers!



P.S. We are still selling our "Shirts of Hope". These shirts are an awesome way to show your support of adoption and help us bring our kids home!






.

Shirts of Hope

Our "Shirts of Hope" fundraiser is up and running! 45% of the profits of all shirts sold will go towards our adoption. Please help spread the word about adoption by wearing your shirts proudly. You will also be helping to bring our children home and we will be forever grateful!

Here is the link to follow and purchse your shirts:
 www.adoptionbug.com/BurdenedForAdoption

Here are your shirt options chosen by us (The Bulgarian one is my favorite!):

Homestudy...Check

It has been a while since my last blog. I have felt like nothing is happening, we were still working on the same thing and not getting anywhere... until now!

We started working on our homestudy 4 months ago. We had our interviews back in January. Since then, we have been gathering tons of paperwork, and doing loads of adoption education. Finally on Tuesday, April 3 our homestudy was approved and finalized!!! This is a huge accomplishment. We are getting so close. The next process is the NBC approval and finishing the dossier. The NBC approval is basically the government giving us permission to bring our foreign child/ren into the country. This can take up to 3 months. We are also starting to get our paperwork translated so it can go to Bulgaria. This can take from 4-6 weeks, but it is being worked on at the same time as the NBC approval. So hopefully within the next few months our dossier (all the paperwork) will be sent to Bulgaria and they will start deciding who our children will be! Basically, after all this waiting, we are just a few months away from the "waiting stage".

In the meantime, we are applying for adoption grants. We have applied for HelpUsAdopt.org, they give grants between $500 and $15,000. We are also getting our documents together to apply for the Show Hope grant and the Lifesong grant. Lifesong will give us the opportunity to receive donations which will be tax deductible. My previous blog explains the fundraiser that we are also applying for with LifeSong, "Both Hands". We are doing a fundraiser with Show Hope and Adoption Bug starting next week, Shirts of Hope. We will have our own online store where you can purchase adoption t-shirts and 45% of the proceeds with go towards our adoption. A small portion also goes to Show Hope and helps other families adopt as well. You can wear your shirt proudly, promoting adoption and knowing that you helped bring our children home. (We will share the site address as soon as we get it.) We will be working on some other fundraisers as well. The next fees we will have to pay will be very large (about $10,000), and this is not counting our travel to Bulgaria twice. {I have posted links to all of these grants and fundraisers on the bottom of the blog.} 

One of the most amazing things that we have been blessed with was meeting a family who is also adopting from Bulgaria. A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of meeting a family that lives just 5 minutes away. Amazingly enough, they have been working with the same adoption agency and adopting from the same country for the last 4 years. they are a lot further along in the process than we are, in fact they have already travelled to Bulgaria once and met their son. It was such a blessing to meet them, they can answer every question we have about the entire process and even the country where our children are. God works in wonderful ways! When we moved here in January 2011, we didn't have any plans to start the adoption process, but God knew that we would and He knew that we would need help and encouragement. I have no doubt that He put us this close for a reason. How cool will it be, when we finally get our kids home, that they will have a friend just down the road who shares the same home country with them? We have also been in contact with a family about 40 minutes away that are also adopting from Bulgaria. There are about 5-6 families in our area who have finished the process or are still in the process of adopting from Bulgaria. We will be able to have wonderful get-togethers, where our children can interact with other children all from Bulgaria... it's just too amazing for words!

Thank you for all of your support and encouragement! We love encouragement, we can't get enough of it. Please don't hesitate to send us a quick note letting us know that you are thinking about us and/or praying for us. We would also be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Please continue to pray for us! Please pray that the NBC approval will be a quick process. And pray that we can raise and save all the funds that are quickly coming due, pray for the grants as well. Of course, continue to pray that God will grant us the patience to continue in this long process. We have both gained so much trust and faith in God, but pray that we will continue to strengthen our faith and our relationships with our Saviour.


Links to all of the grants and fundraisers:
http://www.showhope.org/AdoptionAid/AdoptionGrants.aspx
http://lifesongfororphans.org/adGrantLoans.html
http://www.adoptionbug.com/shirtsofhope/?ref=SoH