100 people, 50 dollars

a few days ago, i wrote a post about a book i had started reading called there is no me without you. that day, i was 30 pages into the 427-page book. last night, i finished. i literally could not put the book down. i wept often, i became indignant at many places, but i also laughed. it was an incredible story of suffering and loss, redemption and hope. i learned a lot about ethiopia's history, a lot of about the origin and spread of HIV/AIDS, and a lot about how the western world has failed africa and its people many times over. but i also grew to love haregewoin teferra, a woman who was no stranger to suffering and loss herself, because she used her one life to help others. i loved haregewoin because she stood firmly in her convictions. when her friends told her she was crazy for using her savings to care for orphans rather than to retire comfortably, she didn't listen. when people shunned her for taking in AIDS orphans, she didn't care. haregewoin teferra was a step ahead of the rest of humanity in so many ways because she realized earlier than the rest of the world that just because a child is poor, orphaned, and possibly infected with AIDS does not mean that child shouldn't have a chance at life.

this afternoon, i googled haregewoin wanting an update on her orphanage since the book only went through the events of 2006. imagine my sadness when i read that haregewoin died suddenly in march of unknown causes. i wept for her beautiful life, but also wept for the children she had left behind. she had become their mother, and now they had lost her in addition to the parents they had lost first. reading haregewoin's story has made me all the more anxious to get through this adoption process. if you have been reading our blog, we have been in sort of a stalemate since we decided to begin this process, and we are now humbly asking people to consider helping us so we can expedite the process. let me explain:

in april, we made the decision to apply to christian world adoption after several months of feeling nudged in the direction of adoption. at the time, we had carefully planned out where the first adoption fees would come from. however, in may, we found the perfect house and decided to make an offer on it knowing that it would mean disrupting our adoption plans. but the house was a great deal, and we have since found more confirmation in buying it because our friends the macoskos, who live across the street from our new house, also decided to start the process to adopt from ethiopia. what we would like to do is raise enough money to cover the front-end adoption fees so that we can get to the point where we can apply for grants (you can't apply for grants until you've completed a homestudy) that will help us the rest of the way. many couples do fundraising to cover the cost of their entire adoption, but we want to pay the bulk of it with the income we receive when jamie starts working in october so that we don't take resources away from couples who will need money on down the line more than we do. here is a list of all costs related to an adoption, with the costs we'd like to raise in italics:

$350 -- application to CWA (paid already)
$30 -- criminal background checks (paid already)
$2500 -- first fee to CWA for paperwork
$1250 -- homestudy fee
$650 -- postadoption fee (must be paid to complete homestudy)
$830 -- immigration paperwork processing fee and fingerprinting fee
$2500 -- second fee to CWA
$8500+/- -- adoption fee to ethiopia
$175 -- new passports
$175 -- online required parent training registration fee
$1000 -- postadoption processing fee to CWA
$5000 +/- -- travel for 2 to ethiopia

this does not include small fees like postage and paying for certified copies of birth certificates, etc., and probably some fees we don't even know about yet. but if we can raise $5000, it would enable us to complete our homestudy and begin the work for our dossier. the $830 to the USCIS (united states citizenship and immigration services) is for a document called the i-600A which is our petition for the government to approve us to bring an orphan to the united states and to qualify the child for citizenship. it can take at least 3 or 4 months for that to get processed and approved, meaning the earlier we start it, the earlier we can get it back. once you're approved, you get a fingerprint appointment. after that is done, you're pretty much ready to send your dossier off if all you're other paperwork is done. and after that, you wait for a referral.

we realize that times are tough for everyone. and if we don't raise any money, we will just trust that God has a different time plan for this than we do. but we wanted to ask, knowing that God can provide in this way. what we are hoping is that 100 people would be willing to donate $50 to this "campaign." and we are relying on our friends to tell others -- their friends, families, churches, co-workers, etc. share our blog with them, please. tell them about the child we want to adopt. we plan to use the blog to tell people how the money is used, such as when we write a check for our homestudy or when we send off a check to the USCIS. if you are willing to donate, please contact me at browle6@wfu.edu. if we raise this money, our child will be told many, many times about the wonderful people -- friends and strangers -- who helped bring him home. thank you all in advance.