Crunch Time

Thank you for all the love that filtered through different channels in response to the ‘breaking’ news of the beginning of our adoption process. We are so thankful for so many friends and family scattered all over the globe. Thankful – yes indeed!

Some of you are more familiar with the adoption process than others so for those who are not really sure about the process allow me to fill you in. Once you have been accepted with an adoption agency you can move forward to arrange and pay for a Homestudy. The Homestudy with Small World Adoption agency is priced at $2,800 and consists of four appointments with the first one being in your home. As the director of Small World told us they just need to make sure that you live where you say you live J.  Over the course of the four appointments we anticipate being asked many questions about who we are, our marriage, reasons for adopting and a myriad of others. Once we receive our Homestudy we will then begin the real ‘paperwork’ party (a.k.a the Dossier). This is the major packet of documents that is prepared for the Lesotho government. After the Dossier has been sent to Lesotho it really is a waiting game until we receive a referral which is the actual names and photos of the two children being referred to us. If we accept the referral, more paperwork comes and at some point the adoption becomes finalized. Once we hear that it is finalized we are free to travel to Lesotho to meet our two little ones and are free to return home with them. We are required to stay in Lesotho for 14 days with our children to ensure we familiarize ourselves with Lesotho culture. Easy right? Well this process could take up to 2 years so we are in for a wait.

The final cost of adopting two infants from Lesotho is approximately $40,000 (gulp). The encouraging thing is that we don’t need $40,000 all at once so we can gather the funds little by little. Once we have a completed Homestudy we should be eligible for a number of grants so we are hoping these will be a major part of our cost but we will also be conducting a variety of fundraisers that we are hoping will help us with the cost. We have already been blown away with the generosity of others. Our newly established fund at Small World already has $4,000 in it which means that we were able to pay for the Homestudy and really get the ball rolling. WOW!  Thank you for those who were so quick off the mark to help us – we are humbled and grateful.

Personally, I think the most overwhelming aspect thus far is trying to figure out what fundraising we should do and when. I have so many ideas, but thinking about what we should do and when really starts to do my head in. I have a few large fundraisers in mind (watch this space) and some smaller ones already on the go. Not many people actually enjoy asking for financial support, myself included, but I have had to come to the realization that in order for us to reach the $40,000 that we need our community of friends and family to help us – big or small.

Here are two of our newest and smallest fundraising campaigns that are all go:

1.       JUST LOVE ROASTERS. Some of you have seen recent FB posts of ours that include that beautiful aroma of coffee. If you haven’t watched the video about this company can I urge you to spend a couple of minutes to watch it and see just how they have designed their company. The short of it is that you get great coffee (Cam approved) and part of the proceeds goes toward our adoption fund. Check out the video here https://justlovecoffee.com/ and then head to our storefront at https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/clausingadoption/ to buy some coffee. They also have some other great stuff all things related to coffee that you can purchase. How about thinking who you could buy some of these things for Christmas?

2.      

      Our newest Fundraiser are personalized t-shirts that you can purchase and again, part of the proceeds go toward our adoption fund. We absolutely love the t-shirt and think it certainly captures the heart of adoption. We need to sell 50 t-shirts before any of them are sent out so again, share the word and buy a t-shirt. If any Australians want a t-shirt, email or FB message me and we can arrange a bulk shipment. Go to https://www.bonfirefunds.com/clausingadoption/?r=17312 today to buy your shirts.

Thank you for walking with us. Thank you for supporting us. I will keep you updated once we have the Homestudy booked in. Until we meet again…

With gratitude,

Taryn (& Cam)