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

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

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

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