Thank You!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support through our adoption process.  We will be traveling soon to pick up Abigail and we appreciate everyone who has helped us get this close to the finish line of the adoption, though parenthood has just begun!

Final Adoption Fundraising Post

Alright, folks.  We are on the homestretch for raising funds to go pick up Abigail from Bulgaria.  We don't know our exact travel dates yet, but it is likely we will be traveling as early as August 14th.  Because of some circumstances beyond our control, we may end up needing to stay in country for two weeks instead of the standard one.  Nothing is definite yet, but we need to plan for the contingency and expenses of two weeks in country.  What exactly are these expenses? you might ask.  Well, here is an estimated breakdown:

Airfare - $5,000
In-country adoption agency fees, translators/drivers, and accommodations - $2,100
In-country personal expenses (food, items needed for Abigail, unexpected emergencies fund) - $1,000
Abigail's VISA - $404
Final payment to English Tutor for Abigail - $300

Total: $8,804

We have about $4,800 of this amount already saved up, so we are asking for people to help us fundraise the final $4,000 needed.

$4,000 in 2 and a half weeks - that is essentially the airfare cost left.  Wow! sounds overwhelming and at times it is.  But I know that wherever God leads, he will get us there.  If you can help out in any way, that would be awesome.

Short of sending us a check for the airfare (for which we would be totally grateful!), there are many fundraising venues we have running for you to donate funds to our adoption that will also give you something in return (besides a warm fuzzy feeling in your heart).

Looking for a tax deduction for your donation - Check out our Adopt Together page here: https://www.adopttogether.org/thegrubaughs

Looking to buy some highly recommended coffee - Our page at Just Love Coffee is the place to go: https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/childofprayer/

Perhaps you want some discounted prices for restaurants - We have a link with CoupAide as well: http://coupaide.com/deal/grubaugh-adoption-fundraiser/

Closet looking a little empty, need a new t-shirt, or want to show your support for adoption - Check out our Adoption Bug T-shirt Fundraiser Site here: http://www.adoptionbug.com/grubaughadoption/

We are also selling some collectibles and vintage toys on Etsy here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TreasuresbyEllie?ref=em

and at Ebay here: http://myworld.ebay.com/trghpu/

You can also link to all of the above using the images to the right on this blog.

Some friends of ours are also helping us do another garage sale next weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, August 1 - 3, the address is: 740 Fox Run Trail, Saginaw, TX.  Come on by!

Thank you SO much for your time in reading this post and considering how you could help us with these final airfare expenses to bring our girl home!

We are parents!

We passed court today!  Woohoo!  We are officially the parents of Abigail Grubaugh. Adopted into her forever family on July 22, 2013.

Thanks everyone for all your prayers so far.  Now comes the wait for travel dates.  It might take two weeks to get the travel dates assigned, and another two to three weeks until actual travel (sometime end of August beginning of September).  Then we get to go pick her up and bring her home to her family!

Praise the Lord from whom all blessing flow.

Court Date!

UPDATE (7/18/13) - We have been notified that the Court Date was moved forward to July 22nd! Woohoo!  And our apostilled final home study agency confirmation letter is on its way now to North Carolina to our adoption agency, and they will send it on to Bulgaria today.  Thank you Lord, for moving that smoothly along.

Text of original post:

Our adoption court date has been scheduled for July 25th!  We have to get one more document from our home study agency that we should have in hand by tomorrow to send for apostille.  It is looking like we will be able to get that document back to Bulgaria in time.  Yay!

Typically, the travel week to pick up the adopted child is four to five weeks after court.  There are a lot of factors involved, so we won't know the exact date for a while yet, but if all goes smoothly, by mid-September, our daughter will be home.

Praising God for his watch-care over us, even when my faith felt small, compared to the mountains of paperwork and process it took to get to this point.

Received Signature - now waiting for Court Date!

Hello everyone! I am excited to report that we have received the final Minister of Justice signature for our adoption file, and our file has now moved to the Courts for the adoption proceeding to officially make our girl part of our family.  Yay!

We are now waiting to hear when our court date will be scheduled.  The agency is pretty sure it will be scheduled for this month, which means it is likely our girl will be home in America sometime in August.  It is getting so close now!

Doing a happy dance.

Conversation with Abigail

We were able to message with Abigail through Skype today.  It was so good to talk with her.  It is all through text messaging as they don't have voice or video capability for Skype at the orphanage where she lives.

Abigail is beginning to be able to write short English sentences. We asked her some of the books she was reading with her teacher's help.  Here is the list (I fleshed out the info, we just got titles during the text session):

Through the Bible in Felt – Betty Lukens

In a People House – Dr. Seuss (Ages 2-5)

Let's Visit the Zoo – Harcourt Early Reader (Grade 1)

A Rainbow of Friends – P.K. Hallinan (Ages 3-5)

Never Ride Your Elephant to School (Preschool – Grade 2)

The Day Papa Came Home – Barbara Justus and Caroline Starbird

Baseball Blackout – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #6 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

Meet Big Foot – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #12 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

Treasure Hunt – Scooby Doo Picture Clue Book #13 – Level 1 (Ages 4-8)

As you can see, she is working with Kindergarten through 2nd grade books on English reading right now.  She just finished sixth grade in her own country.  We don't know how quickly she will catch up with English reading.   Will it be faster than learning reading in her original language?  Possibly she will, because she already knows the words, just in a different language, rather than learning the concept of sentences, paragraphs, etc. for the first time.  We are hoping she will be at a strong 3rd grade reading level by the end of the summer.  Her tutor that we hired is doing a great job, and we are glad that they have the resources (English language books) from which to teach her.  I am sure that helps a lot more than simple word lists.

We do not yet know what grade we will place her in for school here.  There are a lot of reasons to place her in seventh grade when she gets here, one of which is so that she stays on age with her peers.  But we will decide that in conjunction with the advice of the school, once she is here and we meet with the administrators.

We don't have any new information regarding the adoption process itself.  We are still waiting on a government signature, then a court date, then 2nd trip to pick up Abigail and bring her home.  We are hoping now that the second trip will be early to mid-August, but it could hit as late as October depending upon the timing of the government processes.  Praying that we will have patience to last another four months of waiting if need be!  It has already been three months since we last saw Abigail, and the wait is very rough for all of us.

Thanks for your prayers.

"I will not leave you orphans ..."

From the Mayo Clinic website:

"Cystic fibrosis is a life-threatening disorder that causes severe damage to the lungs and digestive system.

An inherited condition, cystic fibrosis affects the cells that produce mucus, sweat and digestive juices. These secreted fluids are normally thin and slippery. But in cystic fibrosis, a defective gene causes the secretions to become thick and sticky. Instead of acting as a lubricant, the secretions plug up tubes, ducts and passageways, especially in the lungs and pancreas.

... Although cystic fibrosis requires daily care, most people with the condition are able to attend school and work, and have a better quality of life than in previous decades. Recent improvements in screening and treatments mean most people with cystic fibrosis now live into their 20s and 30s, and some are living into their 40s and 50s."

In the last sentence of the above quote, the "recent improvements in screening and treatments" does not mean this is available everywhere in the world.

Here is a quote from the Cystic Fibrosis Worldwide Website:

"The average life expectancy for a CF person in Bulgaria is about 15 years."

We are adopting a 12 year old girl from Bulgaria who has been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.  Within the next few months, she will turn 13.  

We are excited to have her become part of our family.  We are excited at the prospect of being parents.  But as important is the ability to provide this child access to medical treatment that can literally add years to her life.

If you take much time reading on the web, you will see people who are supportive of adoption, those who support only domestic adoption and think people should not adopt internationally, and you will even read those who despise adoption fundraising.  Perhaps, you, my dear reader, are one of those people.  Perhaps you even now are thinking some of the things I have read ... why are they adopting if they can't afford to do so?  They should save up the funds before they start the process? Isn't this just buying a child?  No one helped pay for my child when he/she was born.  And so the list of questions and comments could go on.

I thought I might address a few of these topics.  First of all, if everyone was required to have $32,000 in the bank before giving birth to a child, I think there would be much less children on the planet.  Just because adoptive parents are fundraising for adoption expenses (agency fees, lawyer fees, government fees, travel expenses), does not mean that they are buying a child (none of this money goes towards getting better service or convincing parents to "give up" their children, if correctly done through Hague accredited government processes). It also does not mean the adoptive parents cannot afford to raise a child, just as it did not mean that you could not afford to raise a child if you did not have $32,000 in the bank free and available the day your child was born.  I cannot speak to the last comment regarding "no one helped pay for my child when he/she was born" because I think that is more a comment about how society has failed to live as a village supporting one another in time of need, than really related to adoption at all.

So I do not apologize to those out there who might come across my blog and despise adoptive parents who are sharing their needs and fundraising.  I had considered stopping doing so on my blog, so as not to "bother" people.  However, I have found that my heart cannot stop writing because of the sense of urgency that is tied into special needs adoption.  

This child does not have time to wait until the money is saved up and every circumstance of life is perfect.  God asks us to step out in faith and we have done so.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

So if you have read this far, and I hope you have, you have heard my heart.  I do not ask for help because I decided I needed a child and that all my friends should help "pay for it."  It is frustrating to hear when people couch adoption in those terms.  I ask for help because there is a child without a family on the other side of the world, hoping she beats the odds for the life expectancy of CF and finds a family.  

We need to raise an additional $6,000 for plane tickets and related travel expenses.  We hope to travel sometime mid to late July.  There are many links here on this blog which you can use to help donate toward this cause.  The next time you are ill and schedule an appointment to go to the doctor, or stop at the clinic to get medical care, please think of our girl, who is waiting to get to America, and find treatment she desperately needs.  I beg you, I implore you, do not harden your heart to adoption fundraising, whether it is for our girl or others who may cross your paths.  Adoption is the heart of God.

"I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you."  John 14:18