Tag Archive for: NC

We have a very long story. We started hosting this young man years ago. We hosted him and his younger sister first initially. We actually started the adoption process for the both of them before hosting them on blind faith. Our hosting went fairly well, but we learned quickly his sister did not want to be adopted. She was very happy with her foster mom and she didn’t want to leave Eastern Europe. So, the adoption stopped as they had to be adopted together since they were a sibling group. We hosted Daniils again the following hosting season and his sister did not come with him this time. We had 3 straight years of hosting him off and on during Christmas & then in the summer. Our girls literally grew up with him. During this time period we moved my husband’s parents into our home with us so we could care for them as they were both terminally ill. They both sadly passed away within four months of each other and we were able to care for them for a year.

One day I was driving down the road and the adoption agency called me and asked me to brace myself that Daniils had worked to get himself legally separated so we could indeed adopt him as this is what he truly wanted. We quickly started the adoption process back up and by winter we were traveling for trip one. We were in country for 3 weeks with our daughters to bring him home. On the third visit with the social worker he said “no” to the adoption. We were shocked and devastated. We never saw that coming. We sadly had no translator support in country and at this point Daniils would no longer speak English to us. We left, crushed and confused as you can imagine. There was no word for this loss at the time as I knew his future would be very bleak. Three months went by and his sister called me. She asked if I would like to speak to Daniils. I of course wanted to and it was so great to hear his voice. The first thing he said to me was. “Mom, I am so sorry”! Those words rung in my head and it was like ripping a band aid off. He also told me, ‘he made a huge mistake and he tried to come back to us the day after he left us but they told him we had already left the country”. It was all so hard. About five months after Daniils said no to the adoption his foster mom had the court place him in an orphanage as she could no longer handle him.

About 6 months went by and God placed on our hearts to adopt again and China was placed in our hearts. We locked in a little boy and we were very excited. Then two days later I found another little boy through advocacy. We like to say that, “God obviously thinks we can handle much more than we think we can”. We traveled in the summer of 2016 to China to bring them home. They have adjusted so well and are a true blessing.

I have always continued to stay in touch with Daniils. He was always so happy for his new brothers and never bitter. We would facetime and send messages back and forth via facebook. We talk every other day currently. Our relationship continued to blossom and a few months ago it hit me like a ton of bricks the reality that he was aging out in March. My son would no longer be adoptable and would forever be classified as an orphan. I thought to myself that I have made so many mistakes in my life as a young adult and I always had my family to fall back on. We spent about 3 weeks asking Daniils questions about what he wanted. We openly talked about our feeling with the adoption loss with him, that we truly loved him, that he had always been our son and always would be no matter what. He never once brought up us coming back to adopt him. We decided to ask him if he would want this and he sobbed. He told us that he wanted this more than anything and that he was so sorry for saying no. We of course spent a long time talking to him about making sure he truly knew in his heart that, “yes” was the only answer for him because our family could not handle that kind of heartbreak again. My son is gypsy and has a very rough go at life in Eastern Europe.

We heard a sermon this summer and the visiting pastor spoke of “living uncomfortably” and asked were we doing all that we have been called to do? So, this will be number 4 adoption in two years. We used our savings for the first adoption in Eastern Europe. No funds from that adoption were returned to us. We took out a home equity line of credit on our home for our boys from China and we honestly don’t have the money to adopt our son in Eastern Europe. My dear friends had an online “square buying fundraiser” a few weeks ago and that paid for our first large fee with our adoption agency. We just had two huge yard sales and raised money doing that. I have sold all designer anything I have to make money at the women’s consignment sale. I’m doing a shirt fundraiser currently and a Mud Love fundraiser currently. I am starting to put together an online auction to fundraise now. I literally am doing everything I can to make this happen and I’m still coming up short. My son ages out in March so we are in a rush to get all approvals and funds raised as soon as possible.

We believe in forgiveness, we believe in second chances and we believe in redemption! Please, I ask for your consideration for help! We would be forever grateful!

7/26/2018 — TRIP 3, Sept 9-16