Waiting for baby Sahara

Well it's been a long journey, but we finally have a baby girl! We received her referral September 23, 2011 at 10:36 am.

I so wish I could post her picture, but that must wait till she's officially ours.We will travel to meet her on Christmas. Our official court date is Dec 30th. She will be 7 months old that day. I will be staying in Ethiopia until she passes Embassy (which could take anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months). When she does, we will both head back to the U.S.

I hope to see y'all at the airport, even though I can't imagine how bad I'll look after many weeks of single parenting in a third-world country, and a 20 + hour flight alone with an infant (on second thought). :-) Who am I kidding. You won't be there to see me anyway!

Raising Money

One thing we've discovered on this journey to rescue orphans...ADOPTION IS EXPENSIVE!

We were already $12,000 into our non-refundable Chinese adoption when we felt God calling us to Ethiopia. At the time we were given an estimate of 21,000-$24,000 from start to finish. But that number has since gone up due to new Ethiopian adoption laws.

Here is where we stand:

  • We borrowed $10,000 from my parents' life insurance policy to get the process started. We will pay $500 a year in interest until that is paid off.
  • We still have paid an additional $2,500 in additional fees related to submitting our final dossier.
  • When we finally get our referral (picture of our child) we pay our final fees. The first is the $6,500 Ethiopia Adoption Fee. The second is the $900 Foster Care Fee which is a fee to help care for Sahara in between the time we agree to adopt her and when we finally pick her up (several months).
  • Due to a new Ethiopian law which states the adoptive couple must meet their new child and attend court prior to being considered for adoption, we must now travel twice. The estimated cost of each trip per couple is $6,000-$7,000. This could go up or down depending on the time of year we would be traveling. Our estimated total travel expenses including airfare, hotel and expenses is between $12,000-$14,000.
At the 8 month mark, we have saved approximately $9,000. There is a $12,000 tax credit offered to couples who adopt that can be filed for in the year the adoption becomes final. We will hopefully use this to pay my parents back plus interest. So to date we are in need of approximately $10,000.

SO we have decided to try to raise some money by selling t-shirts and coffee.

T-Shirts

Kevin's aunt and uncle, Rev. Barton and Ann Smith donated $500 and sweet Mrs. Cindy Locke (fellow adoptive mother) donated $100 which made our t-shirts a reality.

Front of T-Shirt


Back of T-Shirt


My hope is that by our friends and family buying and wearing the shirts (if even to the grocery store and the gym), it may not only help us bring little Sahara home, but it may start conversations about adoption and the plight of orphans around the world. Place your orders to your right!



Coffee


I've known for years that Ethiopia would be the birthplace of our daughter, but I only recently discovered it's also the birthplace of another favorite of mine...COFFEE! So I thought it very appropriate to join forces with Just Love coffee. By buying your coffee here, you will not only be helping us bring Sahara home, but you will also be supporting a ministry (run by adoptive parents) that will continue to help all the orphans we must leave behind. This one I can feel good about, and I hope you can as well. So to all my mocha-loving friends...let's buy some coffee!!



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