October Adoption Updat

A lot has occurred within the last few months! We had some hiccups with a big miscommunication in late August/early September, but thankfully our adoption agent and social worker helped us figure things out with the South American adoption committee. So the GOOD NEWS is our dossier was APPROVED and FILED in September!! YAY! We are SO excited and  so thankful!! 

As I was reading through our specific prayer requests from my last blog post, I was just  AMAZED at how the Lord has abundantly blessed our (and your) requests!!  

Not gonna lie—this has not been an easy process! We’ve had MULTIPLE hiccups and  roadblocks since we began. Almost like Satan the enemy was out to stop these plans, just like he’s tried to destroy other things in ours and others’ lives in the past few years. Spiritual warfare  for sure!  

But here’s the good part—literally for EVERY hiccup or roadblock that satan created, the Lord  was right behind him with deliverance and a blessing and assurance reminding us that He  wants these kids in our home to grow up with love and learning about Him, to grow His Kingdom, and reach Heaven one day! ❤️ We are deeply humbled that the Lord has called us to  this and more surrendering to His purpose and faith to trust His plan! 

We have received $10 to $2,000 donations from donors and we are deeply grateful for every.  single. dollar. Every dollar matters to give these kids a new life and love! So many have given  from sacrificial hearts and we are so, so humbled!  

We have been awarded several grants within the last 3 months! I’ll share those below…

1) In August, we received a $2,000 grant from our adoption agency! 

2) In August, we were awarded a $7,000 matching grant from LifeSong for Orphans! This  means that when we raise $7,000 in funds then LifeSong will match the $7,000 for a total of  $14,000!! This would cover the remainder of our immediate expenses (remainder of referral fee,  extra child fee, and Tyler and Jess’ visas, etc)!!😁🙌HUGE answer to prayers!!! This grant was  from direct, tax-deductible donation to LifeSong and also through Gobena Coffee fundraiser.  50% of everything purchased went towards our adoption! On top of that, LifeSong will match  the other 50% towards the matching grant!! Now, that 50% becomes 100%, meaning ALL that  you spend on this site will go towards our adoption (up to our grant amount of $7,000)! We love  sharing about Fair-Trade businesses, plus supporting many countries around the world! Since  we are adopting from South America, we love that several coffee varieties come from there! We  loved the story of how Gobena Coffee began, and their mission to help orphans! You can check  out their mission story here: https://my.gobena.org/about/gobena/ 

LifeSong for Orphans also had post-adoption grants for any special needs, therapies, etc. that  the adopted children may need, so that is really good and we plan to apply for these grants if  needed.  

3) In September, a $10,000 grant from ShowHope!! This was the last grant we were waiting to  hear from! This means we received grants from all the ones we applied for! We are so deeply  grateful!

4) In October, a surprise memorial grant of $7,000—we were nominated by our adoption  agency’s president to receive the Oliver Even memorial grant. 

When we received word of this, I was bawling crying with disbelief, gratitude, and grief. I could  barely read the words of Oliver’s story. Wow. What a deep gift of love to offer someone else  during their family’s time of grief! I feel like a small part of the emotion of gratitude as when a  parent feels like when their child received a donated organ and has a new chance to live  because another child didn’t live. 😭❤️ “Tyler” and “Jess” will have a chance of a better life  because of Oliver’s story and his family and friends’ financial sacrifices. It’s taken us a few days  to process this selfless gift plus the subtle connections we have with this family. Please pray for this family especially as the holidays are coming up and the grief will be there in a new way for  their family. 🙏❤️ 

God has abundantly blessed us in the financial portion of this adoption journey! It is just a  reminder when God calls any of us to any ministry or a purpose or mission He wants us to do,  then He will always provide for it!! 🙌❤️ 

We still have to verify with our adoption agent but it is looking like all our expenses will be  covered provided all of the grants are awarded as promised! ❤️🙌🙏 Thank you, Lord!  

We received an email from the president of our adoption agency: 

Dear William and Ansley, 

I wanted to let you know that we nominated you to receive a grant from another family. 

From Gregory and Cheryl Even Family 

We're making this donation in honor of our adopted son Oliver, who passed away this May  following complications from heart surgery. Many friends and family donated to Oliver's Go Fund  Me page so that another family could achieve their goal of adding to their family through  adoption. Oliver was adopted in a sibling group with his sister Brianna, so we’re excited to hear  you are adopting a brother/sister sibling group also. We would love to get a picture of your  newly enlarged family so that we can share it with all the people who donated. Praying for God's  support and wisdom as you adapt to having two more children in the home!  

Donation $7,000  

Read Oliver's story here: 

OLIVER'S STORY: When Oliver was born, he survived open heart surgery to repair a hole in his heart and a constricted aorta. During the first four years of his life, he lived in four foster homes before he and his older sister came to live with our family in June of 2014. At that time he had multiple mental and  physical health issues, which were slowly resolved over the following three years. We were blessed to adopt both Oliver and his sister, with the adoption being finalized in June of  2017. 

Oliver was full of life and joy. His favorite movie was Free Willy and all its sequels, which he  watched over and over again. At one point, he even wanted to become a marine biologist and  work with orcas. His favorite music group was BTS and his favorite song was "Dynamite." He  loved to dance to hip-hop music and played Just Dance with his sister on the X-Box. He earned  a blue belt in Karate at Chozen Martial Arts Academy, and always kept the classes very lively.  He was delighted to have nerf wars with his older brother and his brother's friends. He also  enjoyed splashing with his friends in the creek near our house. 

Oliver was extremely curious and very bright. He did internet research and found arcane unless  facts. For example, when we visited Hawaii, he let us know that more people died of falling  coconuts than from shark attacks. He was a star pupil in Sunday School and always knew all  the answers. He loved STEM and attended a STEM summer camp several years in a row. He  had a phenomenal memory for actors and movies and could even tell us about movies he  hadn't yet seen.  

Oliver loved food and during COVID, he always wanted to know the meal plan for the day. Even  if he had just eaten, he wanted to know what was for the next meal. He was an early riser on  weekends and would wake up his sister long before she wanted to get up. He didn't like  thunderstorms and would sneak into his sister's room to sleep next to her. His socks never  matched because he would lose one of his socks somewhere in the house. Oliver always said  hello when someone came into a room or came to check on how you were doing. Recently, Oliver shared that he wanted to become a teacher. Since school was very difficult for  him because of his ADHD, he felt he could help other children who struggle in school. Oliver went to Children's Hospital on May 5th to put in a stent to enlarge the aorta, where it was  constricted. Unfortunately, there were complications and Oliver went to be with Jesus on May 6,  2021. Although his life was short, he impacted so many people with his sense of humor and joy  for life. 

To say we are beyond grateful and overwhelmed with gratitude at how the Lord and many  others, including a grieving family across the country, have shown up for our kiddos is an  understatement!  

The latest quick update on our case from our adoption agent is that the South American  adoption committee is waiting on one more updated document to be able to issue the official  referral, but it’s coming!! So we wait, and pray, and wait some more. :) We are trusting God’s  perfect timing for all of us in this journey! 

William and Ansley Tingle

Miscarriage and Healing

In 1988, US President Ronald Reagan declared October as a month to recognize the unique grief of bereaved parents in an effort to demonstrate support to the many families who have suffered such a tragic loss. October 15th is the specific day we remember pregnancy and infant loss. The past 2 months I have been reflecting a lot on what my heart wants to share about this hard life topic. We miscarried our first child Labor Day weekend in 2013. September and October are months that I pause and reflect on our sweet baby girl who is now in Heaven. I pray for so many mommas who pause and reflect this month in remembrance also.

8 years ago, we lost our first baby at 10 1/2 weeks. It was the most devastating event I’ve ever  gone through in my life. I only knew a couple of ladies who had gone through this same grief,  and I talked with them a lot, and I’m grateful for the ladies who reached out to me, who I didn’t  know had experienced this. It’s a different kind of grief, very  personal and no grief journey is the same. I call my baby girl my stepping stone to so much emotional healing that I didn’t know existed. So much hope and love and freedom from trauma and past hurt and then her loss, too. Healing is so hard, and so beautiful, and so POSSIBLE!! 🙌💜Thankfully since 8 years ago, the once cultural stigma of not speaking about miscarriage or infant loss is breaking more and more each year. More of us mommas are speaking out, speaking our babies’ names, and offering love and support to those who join us on this road. 💜I now know literally hundreds of mommas who have angel babies in heaven now waiting for  them. I have prayed and cried with, and loved on so many mommas. I pray God can use all of  us to minister to others in this unique grief. If you’re reading this, and you have experienced this  grief, but it’s been too hard to announce, and you don’t want to carry this sadness alone  anymore...I’m letting you know, I’m here for you privately to pray with you and just listen. 💜 To those who haven’t experienced this loss, but want to know how to support women who have, I’ve included below a gentle reminder of words that are helpful over hurtful for this. 💜

I’d like to share my miscarriage healing testimony with you, to give you HOPE in your healing or  for you to share with someone who has suffered this unique grief and needs HOPE…  

We'd been using Young Living oils a little over a year for health cleansing and everyday basic  uses physically. Then my husband and I were surprised to find out we were expecting our first  child in the summer of 2013, due on March 25, 2014. The first Dr's appointment at 6 weeks was  good. But the 10 week appointment ultrasound showed we had lost our baby. We were so  devastated. I miscarried at home a few days later over Labor Day weekend at 10 1/2 weeks. I  felt like I was living a nightmare. I went back to work after two weeks, but had a very hard time functioning in day to day activities. It was mentally exhausting for me to focus on a conversation  or teach my 3rd grade students. During this time my husband was looking for another job to be  able to support our family financially enough for me to quit teaching and focus on my health. He found out he did not get a hopeful position so again my emotions and thoughts spiraled even  further down. Down so much that I felt nothing on all levels. I kept saying I felt like I was trapped  in a black box with no door...no way out. I kept feeling like this everyday. Our marriage was also  crumbling beneath us since the miscarriage, just co-living separately in the same house. I told  my school principal I needed more time off work because mentally I just couldn't function...I felt  like I was going to snap. So I took more time off work. I started getting counseling from a  Christian friend/counselor who also had had two miscarriages so she could empathize with me.  But she even said she couldn't 'speak to my emotions.’ I just wasn't getting any better. Every  day I kept replaying the miscarriage days in my head. It's all I thought about. As hard as I tried I  could not think positive. All were signs of post traumatic stress, which I did not know could  happen after having a miscarriage. Ignorantly then, I thought only soldiers in combat went  through that.  

About 4 weeks after the miscarriage, my Texas friend Keely and I talked and she offered to help  me do an emotional release. She had been using Young Living oils for a few years and had  learned how to do a specific emotional release for trauma. When I saw my GYN doctor, I told  her I wanted to try this emotional release with essential oils before getting on an antidepressant  medicine because I’d been on Zoloft previously for 6-7 years during high school and college and  had a very, very hard time with withdrawal symptoms and such when I weaned off of it in my  mid-twenties. So Keely and I, along with both of our moms (I was so out of it, my mom offered  the drive me to the meeting place), met at a midway point in Arkansas between east Texas and  Memphis. I started the emotional release session saying how I felt nothing and trapped in a box  with no door or windows, and I just so desperately wanted to be myself again. As I laid on the  massage table and we applied oils and I said the positive affirmation statements and Bible  verses out loud what Keely was telling me to say, I kept saying but I still can't find the door to get  out of the black box. Keely said I would find it and kept telling me to say these specific verse  over and over: “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” 2  Timothy 1:7 and “…perfect love casts out fear.” 1 John 4:18 

After applying several oils but mainly Trauma Life oil blend, Forgiveness oil blend, and Present  Time oil blend, I just suddenly "woke up" in my mind—like a light switch turned back on!! I cried a lot and felt AMAZING RELIEF! When it was all over I can't describe how my mental and  emotional state was just SO clear and peaceful! I felt like I was on cloud 20! I called my  husband on the way home and he knew I was ME again! My mom and I had the best car ride home. She'd never seen me that peaceful and happy! I let go of many, many years of emotions  I'd just been backpacking. I released more than just what I felt with the miscarriage. It was the  best I have ever felt in my life!!! When I went back to my GYN doctor a few days later, she was  absolutely shocked that I was in such a good mental and emotional place. I remember her  saying she just couldn’t believe it—it was like I’d been on Zoloft med for 6 months already! She  was so very happy for me! And as hard as I tried, I could not think of ONE negative thing for the  next few MONTHS! It wasn't until about the beginning of December that I felt a little stressed  again, just about life in general. So that emotional release lasted several months for me. A close  friend of mine also had a miscarriage a couple of months later in November 2013. When she  told me, a lot of feelings of sadness came back but I remembered some of the oils Keely had  me apply during the release so I applied the ones I had on hand before I went to bed that night.  I woke up the next morning emotionally stable again! To say that these oils have changed my  life is an understatement. I knew these oils helped my family physically but I had no idea how  they could help my emotional, mental, and spiritual state. The Sunday after the emotional release was AMAZING! I felt SO in harmony with the Lord and so much peace with Him!  

I won't say that everyone will have the same results as me because everyone is different. I BELIEVED these oils were the answer, and I trusted the confidentiality of Keely and her mom Karen who assisted, and I was ready to release an incredibly heavy burden of guilt, disappointment, and grief! While I do have times of sadness certain times of the year that I miss our sweet baby like around the time of her due date each spring, it is not the deep-seated grief  that I was in the black box mentality before the emotional release. It has never come back. It’s  more like, just flipping through a magazine looking at my life like, oh that happened, but there’s  no more trauma link to that miscarriage event. It is literally the most pivotal point in my life. I  never knew so much emotional healing and freedom could exist! I’m so, so deeply grateful for  God’s healing through His creation (plants —> essential oils!), prayer, scripture affirmation, and  two dear friends who gave of their knowledge and talents and unselfishly sacrificed their day to  help me!  

This story has a happy ending...a few weeks later my husband got a job promotion, I quit  teaching school, and we were able to spend time rebuilding our marriage and heal! God blessed  us with another baby in 2014 and he is now 7 years old! I encourage everyone to do an emotional release with these oils! Sometimes there are many layers (like an  onion) that need to be released so for some people it will take more than one emotional release for the trauma to be cleared. And that is okay! Everyone’s healing journey is different, but the Lord is always with us and desires us to be free from trauma to heal! ❤️ Please reach out to me you need someone to just listen and pray with you, and or if an emotional release is something you want to do and I will share the information with you! Grieving momma, know that you are seen and loved in your grieving and healing journey!

Ansley Tingle

July Adoption Update

July 29–One year ago today, we saw “Tyler” and “Jess’” sweet faces and started on a journey of courage and surrender to the Lord’s plan for our family. We prayed long and hard, as even though we’d talked about international adoption off and on for years, it wasn’t something that was on our immediate radar—more like on the back burner for whenever and if ever God lead us to do it. Within 3 weeks, the Lord CLEARLY showed us MULTIPLE times that we were to adopt THESE 2 specific kids.

Haha—I kinda laugh because around 15 years ago I was at peace with being single and was literally not looking for a guy or relationship and that’s when God had mine and William’s paths cross in the Spring of 2007. Some might think oh those two instances are “funny” or “happenstance.” But, I just believe God’s timing is perfect even if we try to avoid it or run from it or doubt it. God’s plans ALWAYS are best and they ALWAYS prevail! 🙌🏻❤️So here we are, one year into this journey. We have learned A LOT about surrender. Surrender is definitely a key word! Even though at first inwardly we felt like Sarah or Jonah, but the Lord kept gently pushing us to be an Abraham. And so we did. We kinda understand now how Abraham felt when God told him to pack up and leave his homeland. Going through international adoption is literally one step at a time with the Lord laying down the stepping stones in front for us and Him stepping on them first to show it’s safe and it’s a beautiful messy journey. ❤️

Here’s a quick update from this month...

1) We received USCIS immigration approval to adopt at the end of June and traveled to Nashville again to get it apostilled, sent off to our agency, and it arrived in South America. 👍

2) Forms updated—Our medical forms had to be approved again from our doctor and William’s letter of employment also needed updating. The South American country’s requirement is that medical papers and employment have to be current within 6 months of adoption court date and our medical forms and employment letter were done in February. Those were going to “expire” before we were in country for adoption court. We didn’t realize this until our adoption agent brought this to our attention—just too much to keep up with so we had forgotten about the 6 month expiration. This happened the week after we thought we had finished apostilling all documents. 😜 William could not take another day off work because he’s saving his days off for our trip to South America, and I couldn’t take it myself because we’re temporarily down to one car while we wait to get one fixed. So we’re VERY thankful to my college friend Christy Marrs who lives near downtown Nashville who offered to get these last few papers apostilled and mailed to our agent last week!! 🙌🏻👏👏 The have arrived in South America also!

3) So with ALL of our dossier totally completed now we’re celebrating!! 🙌🏻🎉🎉 YAY!!! What a journey that was!!! What happens next is the South American country’s adoption committee will meet and review our completed dossier. They meet every Monday so we’re not sure if they’ll review our case this past Monday (July 26) or next Monday (August 2). After they review our dossier, we will wait 2-4 weeks to get a referral from them. 🙏🙏 So prayers that we receive a blessing of favor with them! After they write a referral, it takes about a week for it to be translated. Then we will have up to 30 days to accept the referral including paying for remainder of fees (please pray we will get these from more grants!! 🙏). After we have accepted the referral we can then mail the kids each a special gift, a photo book, and video introducing ourselves, our lives, and community to them. Their social worker will do this introduction with them. Then we can begin Skype calling! 😍 Also after receiving the referral we have to send the referral to the USCIS (immigration) for an Article 5. This can take 4-5 weeks to receive. After that there’s a lot more steps like visas, then invitation to travel, etc. We’re just taking a few steps at a time because it’s a lot. 😜😂

4) GOOD NEWS!! We received a grant from Gift of Adoption for up to $5,500. This type of grant will specifically cover travel costs so this grant will be awarded right before travel! Also, William was told this week that with his new job transition, he will be able to transfer all of his PTO days for FMLA (which should cover the time we are all in South America), plus 2 weeks paternity paid vacation for when we get home with the kids, AND his new company will give at least $2,500 towards our adoption fees!! SO THANKFUL!!!

5) Our sweet friend and neighbor down our street, Melissa Jennings, hosted a Noonday jewelry show for us this month! Noonday is a company that was started by a lady who was adopting a child from Africa, so a big part of their company is giving towards adoption families! In July, the company gave 15% of sales of a show directly to the adoption families! This week will will receive a check from Noonday for $113!! So thankful to have this go towards our referral fee! Every dollar helps! 🥰 Thank you Melissa and thank you to those of you who purchased items from the show! I hope you’re enjoying them!

6) We are very busy cleaning out, selling lots of items, and reorganizing the house to get the kids’ rooms ready and new playroom/schoolroom ready!! 😍 Items sold will go towards the referral fee and the kids’ ESL tutoring fees.

7) Learning Spanish is still going well!! We’ve kept up with lessons over the summer months. Right now we’re focusing more on everyday conversation, needs, wants, and emotional words.

🙏🙏Specific Prayer requests:

—For this referral process—that the committee will have favor with us and allow us to adopt “Tyler” and “Jess” for an official match! Since they have been “waiting children” for over a year, we’ve had a soft referral since the committee accepted our Letter of Intent to Adopt back last September 2020.

—Pray for more grants awarded! We heard back from Lifesong and they want us to let them know when we have an official referral! Lifesong has 4 financial opportunities so this would be HUGE!

Still waiting on hearing back from another grant. Please pray specifically for $11,000 in grant monies within the next 30 days! We know all things are possible with God and we believe when He calls someone to do something then He will provide financially for it to happen! 🙏🙌🏻

—Prayers for us as we prepare our house and more so prepare physically, mentally, and emotionally for international travel with 3 kids!

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support! 🥰

William and Ansley Tingle

An Introduction to Homeschooling

Homeschooling. It’s been a hot topic word over the last 17 months around the world. Even though some kids were forced to do online or hybrid school, it wasn’t exactly homeschooling. Let me explain. Homeschooling is not what some think it is. And it’s not what others think it is either. Am I making sense yet? I’ll come back to this.

Last summer, I had several momma friends reach out to me about what homeschooling would or could look like for them and their child. I shared a lot of info and I felt it would be beneficial to write much of what I shared with them here on our blog in hopes it would also bless other families who are praying over their kids and what is the best decision for their education.

Just a little background on why I’m writing this and the perspective I am coming from...because perspective is everything.

I have an elementary education degree in K-8th grade. I taught over 7 years in a nearby county public school. I also substitute taught in many private schools in the area, plus 2 different preschools within the last 20 years. As a child, I went to 2 different private schools and then was homeschooled for 10 years. So, crazy as it is and what was not in “MY” plans, I believe God’s path gave me a perspective that only few have. I’ve experienced all 3 types of school environments. There are pros and cons to all 3.

And I will preface to say, not every family is meant to homeschool. Some parents and children just aren’t meant for it. Some kids do not come from emotionally healthy homes and amazing teachers and coaches have been lifesavers for these kids! But then on the flip side, not every child thrives with learning in a “traditional classroom style” environment, nor with sitting down for hours a day at a desk and with lots of distractions. This decision should be made for each family and each child. And there are seasons when some children in the family hop in and out of homeschooling—they make the decision year-by-year. What I’m saying is, it is not a decision to be made in haste. Take a good amount of time to pray fervently and ask the Lord for wisdom and discernment and for Him to clearly make the decision known to you. And He will because He is faithful.

When someone asked me what my dream job was growing up, I would always say (aside from when I was like 14 and wanted to be a marine biologist to save the whales, ha!) I want to be a wife, a mom, and homeschool my kids. And so I earned an elementary teaching degree so that if the homeschool laws ever changed in our country, I would still be able to homeschool our kid(s). But God had other plans and 7 months after I graduated from college, I landed a full time teaching position at a county school teaching first grade for 7 years. I had 5 principals and 3 superintendents in those 7 years. It was hard, no joke. But I also learned a lot of life lessons that I still carry with me. The last couple of years of teaching though, my conscience just couldn’t stand it any longer. There was SO much red tape in the public school system. Trying to get the REAL HELP some of my students needed. I fought tooth and nail for them! Yet they were still “passed along” and shuffled into the gaps in the “system.” I had kids cry because the lessons and standards were too hard, aka not developmentally appropriate (tis true!). It just crushed my heart to see these kids not having what they really needed. Yes, some needed better home lives. But some had great home lives, and the parents and I were all just doing our best. For some of these kids, learning just came for them differently (and I do not mean IEP—Individual Education Plan for Special Education). And as much as I tried to take advantage of those “teachable moments” I felt like we never had enough time to really let the kids learn through exploring like I would have liked - for them to really foster a deep love for learning!! At the end of the day, there is grace and I’m grateful. But it also started a process of thinking and asking questions in the back of my mind...and from this I really started to research more about different learning philosophies. The more I dug deep, I liked what I read.

Why we homeschool—

William and I feel homeschooling is best for our son because we want his education to come from a foundation of a biblical worldview plus good character development, while also being able to nurture and foster a love for learning in his individualized way that helps him learn the best. We want the freedom to explore and learn with him daily.

Ways to homeschool—

Homeschool info has literally EXPLODED since I was homeschooled in the 90’s!! Resources from Pinterest, TONS of curriculum choices, co-ops, community groups, different learning philosophies, etc!! A few years ago as I was looking into the homeschool world through parent-eyes this time, and I felt like I was just flooded with a million options.

In prepping for our son’s Junior Kindergarten year, I started watching homeschool YouTube videos. Some about curriculum, some about learning philosophies—different styles or “flavors” of homeschooling. Traditional, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Classical Conversations, etc.

This video was VERY helpful and it’s the main one I have sent to friends who ask about homeschooling: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LKAkKvZIHz4

Some of these learning styles are great for some specific kids, and others are not. Parents are the best at studying their kids and knowing them best, so really take advantage of this choice of learning opportunity for your own child!

Homeschool requirements—

Please note: Each state (and country) has different homeschool laws and requirements so be sure to check where you live. Some states are more lax than others. Here’s a link to what is required for each state: https://homelifeacademy.com/enroll-now/homeschooling-in-your-state/

Here’s a link to what is required for each country (HLA covers 90+ countries worldwide!): https://homelifeacademy.com/enroll-now/international/

A cover school or umbrella school is a really smart idea to do especially when you’re new to homeschool, if you’re in a state or country that has stricter homeschool laws, and or you want to be protected under HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Agency). I chose for our cover school to be Home Life Academy. They have been really great to work with! I have to register our son each year for school with them, submit our learning and curriculum plan for the year, and then at the end of each semester I submit his grades and days of attendance. They sent a helpful email reminder when these items are due! In our state, students are required 180 days of school each year.

Another beautiful thing about the freedom of homeschooling is you can set your own school days schedule. Some families follow the current traditional school calendar and some go year-round with several small breaks. Some have schooldays Tuesday through Saturday because of a parent’s work schedule.

So going back to my first paragraph about what homeschooling is...

Homeschooling is not a traditional virtual zoom class or sitting at a table with a stack of worksheets, workbooks, and assignments to complete for a teacher for hours and hours a day. It’s not cramming to learn specific info to pass “the test.” Homeschooling families are not hermits who never leave their house. Literally, the world is their classroom. It’s about having the freedom to learn in a variety of ways that is unique to each child and at their learning speed. It is a mixture of the steady needed book subjects like math, reading, writing, etc and learning through exploring every day. I think Durenda Wilson (homeschool mom of 8) described it best when she said in her book The Unhurried Homeschooler, “That’s the beauty of homeschooling—our kids have the chance to think their own thoughts and come up with their own ideas, and they actually have the opportunity to experiment. All of this is possible if we give them time.” And she also said, “Children are adept at learning on their own, in their own way, if we allow them the space to do so. Be a student of your child, observing what strikes interest and curiosity in them. Trust and respect their natural ability to learn.”

I’m excited about this section of our blog to share a lot of homeschool related info that I hope will truly bless you and your family, or for you to pass on to a friend who is thinking and praying about if homeschooling is the right fit for their family! Stay tuned for homeschooling posts about tips for various ages, curriculum and book reviews, guest bloggers sharing their homeschooling journey and more! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to brainstorm homeschooling ideas—I’d love to chat with you!

June Adoption Update!

With adoption, there’s a lot of “HURRY UP” and then “WAITING.” It has been quite the whirlwind  the last few months with some ups and downs and more hoops to go through and waiting than  we thought! Finishing the home study and dossier deadline literally became a second job for us,  so many things had to be put “on hold” for a season, one being this blog! But we’re thankful  we’re in a “waiting time” right now and can jump back on our blog and start sharing a lot of  content here again! :) 

Several things to update on… 

Home Study & Dossier— 

Our home study was completed and approved in March! Yay!! Then we had until May 14th to  complete the dossier (international adoption file with home study, lots and lots of paperwork,  and immigration approval included).  

Some things we worked on since March: 

-I created a 6 page photo collage showing our family, pets, house, yard, family, and friends, and  photos of us doing things we like to do as a family. This is for the adoption agency board to review along with the dossier and video. 

- We created a video tour of our home and introducing ourselves for the adoption agency board in South America. 

- FBI background and fingerprints 

- William and I both had a psychological evaluation and report clearance from a psychologist  proving we weren't crazy people. Haha! This evaluation is just standard for each adopting family  for the country we’re adopting from.  

- 3 recommendation letters from friends 

- We applied for USCIS immigration approval to adopt mid-April. 

- We received all of our passports at the end of March. 

- We had two separate applications forms for the South American country’s adoption agency  and their government immigration clearance. 

- We wrote a post adopt letter. 

- William and I went the the local immigration office (Homeland Security) to get fingerprinted for them. Yes, we have had a total of 3 sets of fingerprints since January! Haha! - MOST of the paperwork or like birth certificates and marriage license, medial clearance, etc.  all had to be notarized, then certified by the county clerks, and the apostilled. Apostilled was a  new vocabulary word for us! It is a special seal that certifies foreign documents. And it has to  be done at the state capitol or Washington, D.C. UPS became our best friends! :)  

So, now we are just waiting on USCIS immigration clearance which can take 8-12 weeks. We’re  coming up on the 8 week mark this week, so we should hear back within the next few weeks!  

Travel— 

I know a lot of you are asking if we have travel dates yet, next steps, etc. With USCIS  immigration taking 8-12 weeks for our I800-A papers to be accepted and cleared, and then after  hat these immigration approval papers will go into our dossier. Next, an official referral phase  can take 4-6 weeks. Then upon accepting country’s official referral she said travel time could be  around 4 months out from that right now. So...now we’re looking at September for the  earliest...possibly October.

That’s a very brief summary but I assure you there’s A LOT more work and details in all of that.  Haha! We were really hoping to go this summer but we are trusting God’s perfect timing!! It’s so hard to know when everything exactly will be as a timeline is fluid with international  adoption! Both countries agreeing and have their own processing times, etc. The good news is, after the official referral acceptance (we are in a soft referral meaning we have given the country  our letter of intent to adopt 2 waiting children), then we can Skype video call them!!! We’re  thankful that Maritza and Moises from our Hispanic church family have agreed to help us with  translations in these video calls! Even though we are quickly learning Spanish, we don’t want to  spend a lot of time figuring out what all they are saying to us as these Skype calls will be brief  10-15 minutes!  

Spanish— 

We are continuing Spanish tutoring through the summer with Koen’s Spanish teacher who is  from South America and has 25+ years teaching Spanish and ESL. She will also be helping our  new kiddos with ESL, too! Since our “Tyler” and “Jess” do not know any English yet and will  have only had a short amount of time with ESL lessons shortly before we arrive in country, we  feel it’s really important for us to learn Spanish as much as we can before we arrive in South  America. We want to be confident in communicating with the kids and also around the town we  will be living in for 3-8 weeks.  

Since the beginning of May, we have started going to the Spanish-speaking Bible classes on  Sunday nights and Wednesday nights so we can get familiar with being immersed in the  Spanish language and also to build relationships with the Hispanic members at church. They are  all so encouraging and looking forward to meeting and loving on our new kiddos! We are very  grateful to them for their love and support! Our intent is for our home to be bilingual indefinitely!  We feel like the kids’ first language is part of their identity and we do not want to take that away  from them. Our goal is for all 5 of us to become fluent in Spanish and English! 

Fundraising— 

March, April, and May were amazing fundraisers to finish our goal of raising enough funds for our dossier fee. We reached our goal!! We are VERY grateful to each one who donated funds to reach this goal with us! Thank you!! 

March fundraisers:  

Matilda Jane & Noonday Jewelry 

Our sweet friends Moriah McCrary (Matilda Jane) and Melissa Jennings (NoonDay jewelry) did  adoption fundraiser shows for us! $266 was raised with that and went straight to our dossier fee!  Thank you so much ladies!! 

Egg My Yard for Easter  

“Egg My Yard” fundraiser went great! We “egged” 23 houses and over 1,100 eggs and raised  $825 that went straight into our dossier fund! A HUGE THANK YOU to each of you who gave  funds to purchase items for it or donated candy, small toys, and eggs—because of you, we were  able to put all of the sponsor donations straight into our dossier fee! And another HUGE  THANK YOU to all of the parents and “surprise Easter Bunnies” who sponsored another family’s  yard—thank you for supporting us and letting us have some fun for your kids! We really hope  they loved it!!

April Fundraiser: 

Bake sale- Bakin’ for Dough 

College friends Kathryne Guinn and Cayla Slater organized and hosted a virtual bake sale.  They do these as a service gift fundraiser to adopting families! There were several bakers for this event who donated many different baked goods! We’re so thankful for all of their time and  talent! They raised $721 which all went straight into our dossier fund! This was a HUGE blessing  for us for friends to volunteer to organize and execute a successful fundraiser for us in April, while we were incredibly busy (and tired many days) finishing up last minute dossier paperwork  and appointments! 

May fundraiser:  

Virtual 5K on May 1st, A Home for Jolee Foundation Grant $5,000.00  

This is a yearly event every May! We plan on making this an annual event for our family to  support other adopting families, and we encourage you to do the same! :)  You can click here to register: www.ahomeforjolee.org/fundraisers 

Funds Update—our personal funds so far: $8,650 

Fundraisers and AHFJ Grant: $12,000 

Remaining estimated total cost: $28,950 

Our next big fee is the referral fee $10,100 + extra sibling fee $5,000 + Kidsave Family fee  $2,000 = $17,100—this amount is due in full upon accepting the official referral. We estimate  this could be as early as July, So far we have $6,400.00 of this total. 

After these fees we will still have more agency and in-country processing fees, travel costs for  all 5 of us, adoption court fees, and visas and passports for “Tyler” and “Jess.” 

We are praying hard that we will be awarded several grants! There’s no guarantee as there are  A LOT of families applying for these grants! Most of these take up to 60 days or more to review  and receive funding. Please pray abundance over these grants we have applied for in May and June: 

- our adoption agency’s foundation grant 

- Show Hope 

- Life Song (this one offers a matching grant for up to the amount we have already fundraised!!)

- Gift of Adoption (this one covers travel costs, and is awarded the month of travel!!) 

Again, thank you for your continued prayers, encouragement, and support! You guys are lifting  us up through this whole process! The Lord is giving us strength and guiding us in daily  surrender to His plan and perfect timing! Those of our adoption-family friends will agree with us  when we say this process is not for the faint of heart! Deepened faith, perseverance, grit,  patience, and love are grown in the process! It is beautifully messy! It takes a lot of time, mental,  and emotional sacrifice. Will it be worth it? Absolutely! 

By the way, as much as we would LOVE to share their photo with you here on our blog, we  signed a privacy agreement with our agency that we cannot share their photo on social media or  websites until the adoption is final. However! If we are visiting in person, I will gladly show you  their photo from my phone, just ask! They are so cute!  

With much love,

William and Ansley Tingle

Adoption Update!

February 21, 2021 - the last 7-8 weeks have been extremely busy with getting as much of our home study and dossier (aka HUGE paperwork file for international adoption) as quickly as possible!!

When we wrote our letter of intent to adopt to the children’s home country in September, we then had a deadline of 8 months to complete our home study and dossier, and for it to reach the home country in Spanish translation. Our goal is to have the home study completed by the first week of March so we can apply for USCIS (United State Citizenship and Immigration Service) approval—our home study has to go into this government document. This government department is responsible for determining eligibility of parents to adopt and the children to be immigrated. This general takes about 2 months to come back, but we’re praying for less! Then both of the home study report, copies of our passports, and USCIS approval will go into the dossier. Then, everyone can review it and it can be translated into Spanish ASAP. We are praying it will all be in the country by the 8 months deadline!

We are 50% finished with our eAdopt home study file and about half way with our dossier, too!! This is what we have completed so far:

-Application 

-Orientation Training with our agency

-Written a Letter of Intent to the country stating that we want to adopt both kids, along with a PDF of photos of our family and home

-read required article readings on adoption-

-sent off and have received new copies of all of our birth certificates and our marriage license and they are notarized and apostilled 

-All 3 Passports have been mailed off and are currently in the processing phase

-All 3 of us have had medical examination clearance appointments and all passed

-2 interviews with parents who adopted from international countries and interview reports submitted

-Personality Analysis online assessment for William and Ansley

-Background checks and fingerprints

-Autobiographies of William and Ansley

-Questionnaires and other miscellaneous forms

-Completed 2 Hague Parent Training courses (3 more to go!)

-Additional 2 hour training with our social worker

-We’re all learning Spanish, too! This Spring semester, Koen and I have a private homeschool tutor who is from South America!

We still have a couple more meetings to go, including our home study visit, which has been rescheduled twice because of the ice and snow we got this week in Tennessee. Hopefully that will happen in the first week of March now! We also have 3 more Hague courses to finish, finish all 3 resource books plus book reports, additional country of origin readings, and a little bit more paperwork. Plus, praying our passports get back before the end of March!!

Our plan to cover the needed funds of this adoption is a mixture of our personal funds for the upfront costs, fundraising for the dossier in this middle phase, and apply for and hopefully receive several grants once our home study is completed. Many grants require a home study report before application can be submitted, and sometimes it can take a month or two to receive these funds. So, we are still fundraising in this middle phase to cover the cost of the USCIS approval and dossier.  In total, the adoption will cost approximately $58,000 including travel expenses for all 5 of us.  We have personally invested around $7,000 into the adoption so far to cover the up front cost of the application and orientation fees, expedited passports and medical evaluations for all of us, Hague training courses, resources, upfront beginning home study fees, and other miscellaneous costs. We have also raised a total of $5,438 to go towards the dossier. We are deeply grateful for those who have donated and sponsored our 2 fundraisers so far!! Once the dossier is completed and submitted, we will have to pay $10,000. The USCIS approval is around $900. We will have a few more fundraisers in March to finish covering these two costs! We also have a tax-deductible donation link here: 

https://adopttogether.org/families/?fundraiser=2-countries-1-family-a-new-adventure 

A few of our friends have asked us about adoption as they’re considering it. Maybe as you’re reading this, you’re also considering it. And even for those who haven’t considered it but would like to know good resources about the topic, here are 6 that we have found very helpful so far! 

The top 3 books in the photo are for our home study and dossier book reports.

The Whole-Brain Child: This book has been on my “to-read list” for a few years now. I’m super excited that our social worker approved it as one of our book reports! Thank you Carol Fennell Unrine for letting us borrow this and recommending it! This book is great to understand children’s behaviors and 12 strategies to help them with nurturing and developing.

 The Connected Child: So while this is geared towards parents of foster and adopted kids, honestly William and I both believe every parent and educator needs to read this book!! I know I could have greatly benefited from reading it when I taught first grade as I taught many kids who were from dysfunctional families, troubled or a hard emotional background, or with special behavioral or emotional needs. The strategy tools and techniques that this book shares to help these types of kids is a HUGE perspective change and teaches you how to connect and bond and develop trust with the child. We will talk more about this book in-depth in another post soon! Just note: if you have a child with emotional or behavioral needs or you are a family member or close friend with this type of child, or you’re an educator, we highly recommend getting this book and reading it!!

 Are Those Your Kids?: This book was on our list to choose from our agency’s book report list. It’s a great one to read about many different families who have adopted internationally and how they answer this question. We will share more on this topic later also because it’s one that gets asked a lot nonchalantly but it can be very hurtful to ask this question in front of adopted kids from another country. 

The last 3 books are just very good resources for adoption in general about financing, questions to ask, and emotional support.

 You Can Adopt Without Debt: Thanks to our sweet cousins Richard and Glyn McKay for sending us this good resource! (Side note: please pray for them too as they’re in the process of adopting a domestic newborn baby!!) This book has been so helpful!! Yes, adoption, especially international and for more than one child, can be very costly. But there are MANY grants out there—many of them require a completed home study first, but once that is finished then there are many to apply for and receive! This is our plan after our home study is completed! There are also a few grants that will give 0% interest loans as well! It also gives you fundraising ideas, including things to sell or make to bridge the gap. 

 Before You Adopt: This was a good resource recommended to us by Richard and Glyn also and had MANY questions for you to go through and discuss and pray over if you’re considering adoption. It talks about the many avenues to adopt—expectations, general questions, becoming a multicultural family, foster care, private domestic adoption, international adoption, embryo adoption, and finding the right agency. Note: if you’re seriously considering adoption and would like to know what agency we are using that does all of these types of adoptions, send me a text and I’d be happy to share that privately. Our adoption agency and home study agency have both been very kind, professional, and organized! 

 Calm, Cool, and Connected-An Essential Oil Guide for Foster/Adoptive Families:  We love using Young Living essential oils for everyday life, but we started using them for emotional support after our miscarriage almost 8 years ago! They have truly been life-changing and we’re humbled and deeply grateful we have these wellness tools for our kids to help them process and release emotions, especially during the times of transition and grief waves. So, I was super excited to see a Young Living oils momma, Amy Hancock, who after 4 years decided to share specific oily routines for morning and bedtime, and fun positive sensory recipes she used successfully with her kids. She even references The Connected Child book also and I thought that was really awesome!

All of these books are available on Amazon or most retail bookstores, and some might be gently used at Thiftbooks.com 

Please continue to pray for our journey—thank you! ️

William and Ansley

Marriage through the Struggles

I wrote this on on our 11th anniversary in November of 2019–the hardest year of our life.

I shared it on social media, but felt like our first blog post for our Marriage page needed to be this! We hope it encourages you and stirs up a strong grit to fight for your marriage, pray for your spouse, and do the hard work together! ️ There ARE rainbows after walking through fire together! We give God all of the glory in our journey!

11 years. ️️

11 years of marriage with my soulmate. My best friend. ️

We just watched our wedding video. We laughed a little seeing how much different we are now (thankfully!), and what those vows of “for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” truly meant. We had no clue what the next 11 years would bring. The longer we are married I’m confident that with each anniversary that is celebrated each spouse chooses to stay and love each day. And that EVERY marriage goes through mountains and valleys! Some longer, taller, or deeper than others.

The longer we are married I’m seeing our friends the same age, older or younger, celebrate their anniversaries and I applaud you!!! And sadly, many who are no longer married. I know so many of my friends who have done the hard work and tried to make their marriage work and yet the other spouse walked away. Makes my heart so sad. If you’re a spouse that worked hard, I applaud you too!Please hear me, as this is something I feel God is stirring up in our hearts to share in a humble voice, not prideful. William and I both could have walked away from our marriage more than once. Satan has tried to steal, kill, and destroy our marriage and family just like he has tried to do with sooo many others! He doesn’t want us BOTH to choose to make each other a priority. He wants us to get DISTRACTED with our busy lives. He wants us to be selfish of our own desires first. For grief to cause division. For unrealistic expectations to show a perfect family. For resentment and anger to build up instead of surrendering and forgiving for grace and love to take it’s place.

What I’ve learned from a wise friend is if you aren’t INTENTIONALLY feeding your marriage then you’re feeding your divorce! Choose to intentionally feed your marriage! What does that look like? I think it’s different for every couple’s needs. But one thing in common is intentionally growing closer to the Lord individually and together daily. Praying for each other specifically. This is something I haven’t done on the regular until I read the chapter in Priscilla Shirer’s book Fervent about praying for our husband and children. Prayer is powerful! And is the BEST tool against Satan attacking us!

My sweet friend La’Nette shared this list today of how we can pray for our husbands!

Here are 10 Ways You Can Pray For Your Husband:

(PS–I recommend you insert your husbands name as well... make your prayers personal! Get detailed with God)

♥️I pray for my husband’s relationship with God.

♥️I pray that my husband would have a soft heart toward God.

♥️I pray that God would bless my husband.

♥️I pray for my husband to be a devoted spiritual leader for our family.

♥️I pray for my husband to have a heart for our children.

♥️I pray for my husband to make wise choices.

♥️I pray for my husband’s emotional, mental and physical health.

♥️I pray for my husband to flourish at work.

♥️I pray for my husband’s strength to resist sexual temptation.

♥️I pray that I will show my husband respect, grace and kindness.

William isn’t on social media any more, but I still want to publicly say how much I love him and how proud I am of him!! For two years now he has stepped up to be the most amazing husband and dad for me and Koen! I’ll share more of our story later, but I’m just so deeply grateful for all of his unconditional love, selfless care, patience, and most importantly how he has become a STRONG Christian leader for our family and has learned what it means to pray hard for and over us! ️️️ He took today off work to spend the day with me and Koen and made us the yummiest Italian wedding soup for our anniversary meal tonight! I am so, so blessed! We are both imperfect but perfect for each other! ️

How are you intentionally feeding your marriage today? ️

The Homesteading Dream

I have always had a dream, or maybe it should be called a vision or a desire.  The desire to raise livestock and grow a garden.  Not to have a commercial farm, but to have a spread of land with enough food production to provide free healthy organic fruits, vegetables and meat to people who are in need.  Maybe even staring a foundation to support this endeavor.  But in truth I have not acted on this vision.  Maybe the lack of movement could be blamed on fear or just life happenings.  In truth I could not tell you what keep us from jumping in the farmy or homesteading community.  It was like the dream had vanished.  The dream had died!  Not the homesteading dream, but the bigger purpose behind the reason of wanting to homestead.  It just seemed that it was an afterthought.  But life has an interesting way in resurrecting dreams.  I truly believe that even in the darkest days, there is always sunshine.  It might be behind the darkest of clouds, but it is there waiting to be discovered, waiting to be basked in.  For me this sunshine was the Coronavirus.

 I know.  How could anyone list the Coronavirus as a sunshine?  The virus has caused a health crisis, schools to be closed, countries to be shutdown, jobs to be lost, businesses to fail as well as creating an additional pandemic which is the surging growth in depression including children.  In a way the pandemic affected all of us in a negative way!  But it is in these hardest of times humanity has risen above.  Mankind has overcome so many obstacles.  In a sense, I am of the same belief of which William Faulkner spoke in his Nobel Peace acceptance speech.  His context was dealing with fear of being blown up and the causes it creates in writing.  That this caused writers to forget the problems of the human heart.  That man must relearn the problems of the human heart and until he does, he would write as if he was watching the end of man.  Faulkner would say, “I refuse to accept this.  I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.  He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance”.  We have all endured and sacrificed in 2020.  Maybe the sunshine was just a cause of the Coronavirus.  The need of homesteading was emphasized while standing in a Kroger grocery store in April 2020 looking for food.  

The fear of the pandemic initially took the form of panic buying and that has significance for my family.  We choose to eat as much organic and GMO-free food as possible because Ansley has to eat clean food for health reasons (MTHFR, healing, detoxing, etc).  I could not simply just go pick up any piece of meat.  With stores not having the food that my family needed, we had to turn to alternative sources.  We had to go straight to the local farms, which in most cases was even more expensive.  While this was happening, I was determined to figure out a way to not be in this situation again.  How to do this? And how could we do this living on a small plot of land in the city of Memphis, TN? I know we must produce our own meat.  We need to get food production animals.  We needed chickens—for at least eggs for our daily breakfast! The truth is that we were dreaming of homesteading.  The pandemic just pushed us to dip our toes in the water.  

So in May 2020, Koen and I came home from Tractor Supply with 6 Isa Brown chicks just about a week or so old. 

Their names are Rosie, Browna, Sweetie, Snow, Daisy ,and Goldie. Our son also has had a dream of being farmer cowboy since the age of 3.  So, we are letting him get a hands-on experience in farming.  He is selling chicken eggs in warmer months.  He refers to the location as “Chicken Backyard Farms.” But in truth this is bigger than chicken eggs.  This is a step closer to homesteading and a step closer to rekindling my dream of producing food for people who are in need.    

-William

Two Countries, One Family: a New Adventure

In early summer this year, I kept asking the Lord a question most days. God, you have clearly given me a second chance at life for a reason (Read the last blog post here to understand what I mean by second chance).

God, what do You REALLY want me to do with my life? I feel SO deeply thankful and my heart is full just being William’s wife and Koen’s mommy, but I have this feeling you have even more for us…? What is it? He answered that question when I opened an email on the last Wednesday of July and I saw two photos of 2 sweet kids who needed a loving home.

When we were first married, we were not sure if I could have babies because of some health issues at the time, and my congenital heart defects. So the topic of adoption came up and we said if God ever had this in our plan down the road, that we wanted it to be international. 

We have both loved learning about and experiencing other countries and cultures since before we were married and throughout our marriage. Something else we considered many years ago was being short or long term missionaries. We even took a survey trip to New Zealand in 2010. And even though we loved the country and the people, God showed us that was not His plan. We didn’t understand at the time, but we do now. And we have recently learned, international adoptions have drastically gone down within the last decade, mainly because of the length and depth of a very long process. 

So fast forward about 8 years when I Google searched for international adoption agencies. I signed up to receive one agency’s weekly emails and for over a year they came into my email box—some opened and some not. Until the last Wednesday in July this year, I opened one. I saw two sweet faces—a brother and a sister—who melted my heart. I felt something stir inside me, almost like a magnet drawing me to them. So I immediately forwarded the email to William. He replied with—what does this mean?! Ha! See, when we’d talked about adoption over the years, our plans were always to adopt a baby from another country. But we know now, God’s plans are ALWAYS better than our own. He sees the BIG picture, and knows what is BEST for us! 

So, we sent an email to the contact agent that evening, and she replied the next morning with the kids’ files. We read the over the pages of detailed files and prayed over all of this for almost 3 weeks, and asked a few close friends to pray intentionally with us, too. The Lord clearly showed us multiple times that we were meant to adopt these two siblings. So we went forward with the initial application, orientation, letter of intent to adopt to the country of origin, etc. over the next few months. There are a million steps to international adoption—and every country’s requirements are different. We are now in the “long middle” phase of beginning our home study and dossier. This can take 3-5 months of collecting documents, appointments, home study visits, adoption parenting certified education and trainings, etc. Once this phase is completed, the dossier paperwork will be submitted to the U.S. Government and the South American country for approval. After the approval, the South American country will make a reference for the children, and invite us to go to the country. Then, we will stay in the country with the children (and Koen is going with us) for 3-4 weeks. During this time we will go to adoption court, go to the US Embassy for the children to become US citizens, and then travel back home. We will have a lot of resources upon coming back home to help the kids transition into life here, as well as several post-adoption home study visits for the next 2 years.  

Our agency has very specific rules put up as privacy protection for the children. We are not allowed to share publicly what country we are adopting from, nor their real names or any personal details of their story at this time. After the adoption, we will be able to share the country and the children’s real names. For now, we will refer to them as “Tyler” and “Jess.”

Why? Why are we doing this big, scary out of the box adventure? Three simple reasons. 

1-God is leading us to this for some big purpose that’s HIS purpose, and bigger than ourselves. We trust Him and surrender to His plan for our lives. This is the mission work He has called us to do.

2-To be one for someone. At Young Living Essential Oil’s convention in 2020, the focus was “Be one for someone” in advocating for the many direct charities that the Young Living Foundation sponsors. But this can be in anyone’s life, especially children.

When I taught first grade for many years, I could tell the impact that just ONE positive role model or mentor had for my students—it made a difference! Matthew West has a song “Do Something” in which he is saying that people see others in need and asking God, why won’t someone DO SOMETHING?! Then by the end of the song, he’s had humility poured over him and realizes, I (ME) need to be the one to DO something! We both have a passion for ministering to others, especially children, and make a difference in others’ lives!

3–To leave a legacy. The humble feeling that you have unselfishly forever changed the life of one or more people, to guide your family to the Lord is worthy and priceless and giving God all of the glory! These kids will hear the message of Jesus, and have the hope of Heaven.

We would be humbled and appreciative of your prayers, love, and support! We see this as the mission work God has called us to live out! 

Some specific prayers—

—for the whole international adoption process to be smooth with processing times and travel without restrictions

—for the kids, “Tyler” (11) and “Jess” (8), that they will transition well and feel joy and love, their courage and trust would be strong, that God would comfort them in their grief of leaving their foster family and home country, and that they would be able to learn English with ease. 

—for mental and emotional strength as we go through specific international parental education courses and as all three of us learn Spanish in the next few months.

—that God will abundantly bless our family financially in following this mission both in adoption fees and immediate needs of the children upon bringing them home. 

With this mission, it would be very beneficial for our friends and family to join our support team! If you feel led to help, these are some ways we have thought of so far:

—volunteer your time, skills, or talents in helping organize fundraisers and bake or make items to sell for fundraisers

—if you can speak Spanish, welcoming “Tyler” and “Jess” home and volunteering to befriend them and make them feel loved and wanted in their own language as they transition to speak English.

—donate items like gently used clothing and shoes

—give financially—2 options: 

• donate directly through PayPal or Venmo; 

• donate using this adoption funds organizations which is tax deductible (has a small fee for credit card processing)
  

PayPal or Venmo: tingleadoption@gmail.com

Link: https://adopttogether.org/families/?fundraiser=2-countries-1-family-a-new-adventure 

We’re also having a kick-off fundraiser! Read the graphic below for info on how to participate and please share!

We hope that by inviting you into this process, you will see yourself as part of the community we hope to build around our children as they grow up. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at tingleadoption@gmail.com. And if you wish to be a part of our private Facebook group to follow along on more details of our journey, send us an email, IG or FB message, then I will add you to the group.

Thank you for your love and prayers, they truly mean a lot to us!

William and Ansley

The Joy in the Storm

Some people share their story as they walk through it, and others share it after the storm is over. We are the latter. 

With courage, I am being transparent in humbly sharing our story, with the intent that it will give someone else hope who is going through some of the same. Feel free to share this with anyone you know who needs to hear a story of hope and redemption, or even someone who needs understanding of someone with a chronic illness or their caregiver. Either way, I sincerely hope this blesses you and brings glory to God who is my Healer. 

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” I Peter 1:6-7

If I could take a snapshot of the 3 deepest emotions we have felt over the last 3 years, it would be—grief, redemption, and joy. 

Grief—During this time I realized, we can grieve over many losses in life, not just death of a loved one! (And this year in 2020, I believe just about everyone on this earth has experienced this grief, too.) Loss of normal day activities, dates with William, driving my car to the grocery store or taking Koen to the park any day I wanted to, attending worship every week, Bible classes, ladies’ retreats, fun parties and events, friends ‘ weddings and graduations, holiday traditions, walking and jogging at the park. Loss of friendships from betrayal, close friends moving away to another state, trust in our marriage, and actual grief of death with 3 of my grandparents passing away within months of each other in 2019…just A LOT!

Redemption—Since the summer of 2018, we have experienced deep grief and redemption in our own marriage struggles (more on this later, too).

Joy—When I was bedridden last fall and couldn’t walk or even sit up in bed for many weeks, the Lord kept the phrase, “Joy in the Journey” in my mind. I wasn’t sure why it stayed in my mind then, but I tried to stay as positive as I could and I fought HARD to stay alive & heal! The Lord was trying to tell me to “count it all joy.”

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4

My chronic illness journey started in 2011 when I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was diagnosed with candida overgrowth—and that story will come in another blog post because it’s really how I was catapulted into natural health and wellness! But really, since being born with several congenital heart defects, fighting for life and my health has been a life long journey—more on this later, too. :)

Since 2017, I missed out on a lot of life. Not by choice, but because of chronic illnesses—my body went into sympathetic lock mode, mono (Epstein-Barr reignited from 10 years before), discovery of MTHFR mutation, abnormal cellular growth, and detox pathways weren’t working right, loss of nutrition absorption, parasites, sensory overloading (anxiety with large crowds, loud and high pitched sounds like bells in hallways and alarms, etc.), EMF sensitivity, heavy metal toxicity, copper toxicity, CIRS (fatal) from mold toxicity, mycotoxins from mold, heart problems (aside from my congenital mitral valve stenosis issue) such as tachycardia, high heart rate —cardiologist started me on 2 heart Rx meds, one which I found out I was allergic to a year later that was causing shortness of breath and chest heaviness. I had to find a new cardiologist because my previous one wouldn’t get me off of the 2 meds regardless of my serious side effects. The summer of 2019 I couldn’t leave my house because when I stepped outside, the humidity felt like a 50lb weighted blanket on my body. My body couldn’t regulate my temperature—I couldn’t feel any cold air blowing on me even with A/C at 70 and 2 fans blowing on me. At the worst, I was 100% bedridden because my body felt like the heaviest elephant all over. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t even lift up my head, sit up in bed or in a chair for a few weeks. It took me about 3 months to walk unassisted again. Isolation in my own home was, in some ways, worse than the physical illness itself. I went to several doctors (both western and holistic), ER for fluids and observation 3 times, health coaches, etc. and some misdiagnosed me. And thankfully, some helped me—some gave me healing pieces of the mystery puzzle. Through the whole 3 years I kept praying, Lord, PLEASE send me who I need to help get me well and find out the ROOT cause of all of this!! Please Lord, just heal me so I can be a real wife and mom again. He did send me an AMAZING doctor last fall who literally saved my life! She said I was very, very close to dying. I’ll share more about her and more details about all of those issues later, because we’ve definitely learned a lot about chronic illness and how it can be buried for years, and why some doctors misdiagnose and miss the root problems. I’m a HUGE advocate to keep searching for a doctor until you find one who will help you heal all of the root problems! In following posts, we will look at some of these issues in depth more and share resources and what we learned from doctors and healthcare professionals, because this information needs to be shared and advocated as I’ve seen SO MANY people like myself who are desperately PRAYING for ANSWERS and healing! 

HOW? How did I get ALL of those problems? Some of them were apparently buried for years and triggered with exhaustion, and some were from what we were going through at the current time with being exposed to hidden mold in our own home, other places we stayed over a few years, and re-exposed in my part time workplace. For a couple of years I was working myself to exhaustion because we were drowning in debt for a few years since I’d had to stop teaching school. William at the time was making a very low salary working for a bank. So when Koen was about 2 years old, I began working 3 part time jobs (substitute teaching at my old school and our 2 home businesses) just so we could not put as much daily needs on credit cards. I had so much shame in our situation. That shame pushed me into working long hours with not enough sleep, so my body and immune system started wearing down. Lack of sleep doesn’t allow the body (especially adrenals and immune system) to rest and restore/reset and detox everyday. I didn’t have the self-care and self-love I needed—I thought my value and worth for that season of my life was working as much as I could just to pay our bills and avoid putting basic monthly expenses on credit cards, even though that’s where we were at the time—groceries and everyday expenses on credit cards. I was so ashamed. I was deeply thankful to stay at home with Koen, but I had to work through and release a lot of guilt for stopping teaching (I’ll share why I stopped teaching school in another post because that was THE BIGGEST PIVOT of my life and our marriage!)

This also triggered a lot of the above issues into a domino fall. The one root issue all along was mold toxicity, then so much of the other was triggered from that. According to my doctor now, I’d had mold toxicity since a child from living in an old home. I continued to be exposed to it daily when I taught school in an older school building for several years—my classroom had water leaks a lot. We then found out in the summer of 2019 that our bedroom and master bathroom had hidden mold—who knows how long it had been there. Thankfully, William and Koen did not get chronically sick like I did, because they had not had multiple exposures over decades of time. 

Mold is serious and severity and symptoms depends on each individual person. It hides in the body for years and doesn’t allow the body to completely heal or detox easily (more on this and MTHFR mutation in another post—your mind will be amazed just like ours was—SO much new knowledge from my doctor!). One or multiple exposures of mold can wreak havoc on someone’s body. And the more they’re exposed, it just keeps piling up, causing more and more serious symptoms and chronic issues. It is not something that is easy to get rid of by just taking a pill for a week and moving on. Someone has to have a VERY specific protocol to get rid of it—slowly and safely under a doctor’s supervision. I’m going to share more about mold toxicity in a future blog post because if you’re like we were, we didn’t know anything about this. And we’ve learned it makes a lot of people very sick, but many times they are misdiagnosed. I’m in a Facebook mold support group with over 25,000 members! Some of these people’s stories are so incredibly sad.

What did my day look like the first year? I missed out on a lot because I was physically so exhausted, plus the treatments I’d started to cleanse my detox pathways (enemas, juicing, ozone therapy, and Rife) were a very strict protocol with specific times of day to do and follow. So I couldn’t just hop in the car everyday and go to a store or park or event with friends. Added to that, I had major sensory overload—many times I couldn’t go to Bible class or sit in the auditorium at church because a room with a lot of people in it sent me into a panic attack. We sat in the children’s training room a lot (which was good because it was easier to help Koen in there or lay down if I started getting very dizzy or tired) or in the back pews by the door. I couldn’t take loud sounds like an alarm or bell ringing; couldn’t go into large grocery stores as it was too much stimuli, even left Costco in a legit panic attack one day. We would later learn all of this is a major symptom of mold toxicity. After a year, these cleansing protocols did their job—my detox pathways were open again, but I was still SO tired. One of the heart Rx meds was a beta blocker, of which a major side effect is fatigue. But we would learn in 2019, that mold toxicity was the root issues. And I’d had it for years. 

A lot of days of isolation at home that was not my choice. That kind of grief trauma hurts very deeply. I had a lot of days I was sad that my “normal life” wasn’t happening. I was missing out on church, fun friend events, sweet memories and traveling with Koen and William, weddings, graduations, and one of the hardest is I had to miss all three of my grandparents’ funerals in 2019. 

I had ZERO control over the speed in which I healed. If you or someone you know has had mono from Epstein-Barr virus  (aside from everything else mentioned above), then you’ll know that the virus arrives and leaves at it’s own time. Mold is very much the same “timeline.” It is like having the exhaustion of the flu every day for weeks and months. What I did know, is I just had to be very consistent with the daily protocol of starting to cleanse my body and rest a lot and pray for A LOT of patience. 

I would rest up for a few days and build up enough energy to go to an hour of church or an hour or two to Koen’s Pre-K school events or travel to a family event like a wedding out of town, but then miss other outings or events right after because I was still needing several days in between to rebuild energy. 

Bottom line—any chronic illness has NO timelines or guidelines and NO QUICK silver bullet healing pills! It is HARD and MESSY, but there CAN BE GOOD to come out of it also! 

1) A MUCH DEEPER faith and connection with the Lord—walking through a valley creates a strong “teamwork” mindsets in a marriage—you hold hands as you walk daily through the mud and muck, and you do not let go of each other’s hands. Ever.

2) It teaches you real life empathy. You’re no longer quick to judge or criticize or gossip about people and behind someone’s back. Because if we’re really honest, EVERYONE is going through, has, or will go through a hard valley of some kind! We are all human! Life is messy in seasons. And life is not perfect, no matter how hard we want it to be or try to make others think it is from the outside. Our life was not meant to be perfect, or how would we long for Heaven—our perfect home.

We do not have control with a lot of things in life. We do have control over our own emotions and reactions. And we can choose to be bitter or better. 

3) It’s given us a unique, detailed perspective on families and individual’s needs during chronic illness. To become an advocate. More conscious awareness for home bound friends or church members. 

4) And last, for the new, real friendships the Lord has brought to me—so many young mommas with little ones in tow, just like me who have had years of chronic illness—lyme, mold, and other toxicities. We validate and understand each other and deeply rejoice with each other for even the smallest of daily victories! We pour hope and encouragement into each other! Reminding each other to dig deep and keep up the healing protocols because our husband and children need us and we love them so, so much! 

To the one who read this and is going through some of the same. I’m here telling you I SEE YOU! You ARE validated. You ARE worthy of complete healing! 

There is HOPE—DO. NOT. GIVE. UP! There ARE GOOD DAYS COMING! Good family memories you will be present for! You will travel again! You will have normal days again! Please know our site is a safe place for you to feel welcome and understood. Feel free to reach out to us if you just need someone to listen, so that you won’t feel alone. I’m so, so thankful for the new friends who did this for me. I want to be there for others also. 

To the spouse, family member, or friend of someone who has gone or is still going through chronic illness—my heart is asking you to please believe them, validate them. You may never understand it because you’re not living through it. But what they are living through is very real. They need prayers, love, and support, not judgment or opinions or gossiping assumptions spread about them. Sadly, I was there once with a friend—I went radio silent with a her several years ago when she became very ill with lyme disease. She was mostly bed ridden for several months. I didn’t understand it. And ashamedly, I didn't slow down in my life to really give her the support she needed. When I became sick, she was there for me because she understood. I deeply apologized to her for not being there for her back then, because I just didn’t “get it.” I am very grateful for her prayers and support during this time. It made a huge difference for me. 

In a later post, William is going to share his perspective on this journey as the spouse and main caregiver, because he has a lot of wisdom to share. 

We are sharing this summary of our story (and more in future posts), because we feel like if we can give just ONE person HOPE and ENCOURAGEMENT, then it’s worth it! 

Essential Oils

A post on this topic will be coming soon!

Health & Wellness

A post on this topic will be coming soon!

Introduction

What if God had told Job that he was going to lose all that he did before it happened? That Job knew he would suffer so much for a short time? 

What if Joseph knew from the time his brothers put him in the pit until he was second to Pharaoh—13 years—that he would be waiting on God to bring deliverance to his life after almost being killed, sold, lied about, then put in prison for doing the right thing in God’s favor?

What if God told us before we’re going to go through a season of suffering, on any level—physical, emotional, financial, marriage, grief of passing loved ones or loss of friendships, etc.—would our faith and deep grit stand through the fire? Would we come out on the other side or would we give up because we’re tired of fighting? 

For most of us, our human side would come out first and say no God, please, please don’t let Satan drag me through the fire! Just tell me who I need to be or what I need to do on the other side of the fire of suffering and I’m all in!  Just give me the “easy button” in life, right? 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. - John 10:10

I didn’t really know deeply what this verse meant until the last couple of years. Friends, there is a literal spiritual warfare in our world. Satan is attacking us on ALL sides. We must have our Armor of God on (Ephesians 6) every. single. day. It has to be intentional. Not perfect. Intentional.

Back to Joseph...going through all those years of “fire”...what if he hadn’t gone through that to be at Pharaoh’s right hand to save so many lives during the famine? But he did. Because what others meant for harm, God meant for good! Like gold and silver are refined in the fire. We are the same. 

Have you ever stopped to reflect on a “fire season” or “valley” in your life...what others under the influence of satan meant for harm, but on the other side God turned it into something AMAZING at the end?! 

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. - Ephesians 3:20-21

GOD IS ABLE! FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY THAN WE CAN ASK OR THINK!! Wow!! Read that again and just let it soak in! 

We have lived out John 10:10 and Ephesians 3:20-21. William and I are going to share our story of the last three years, and even some before and also what God is laying in our future before us on the other side, because we feel like there are others in this world under real spiritual warfare and can find hope, encouragement, and healing in our “joy in the journey” and that God will be FULLY glorified in EVERY SINGLE STEP of this journey that we share. It is by God’s grace that we are writing this! We hope our story blesses you. 

With much love,

William & Ansley Tingle