List of Fundraisers
Individual Donations (mostly given by those attending fundraisers below) - $11,918 (April 2010-October 2011)
Raffle Fundraiser (ran July 13th- August 13th, 2010) - $1,295
Raffle Fundraiser (ran July 13th- August 13th, 2010) - $1,295
Carinos Restaurant Fundraiser (one time, July 2010)- $540
Chick-fil-A Fundraisers (passed out flyers monthly) - $378.88 (July2010-Nov2010.)
Adoption Bug T-shirt Fundraiser - $300.00
Closed fundraiser in January 2013 after we had brought one of our daughters to the states.
Just Love Coffee Fundraiser (donates $5 per bag)- $268
Chosen Marathon for Adoption - $1,725 received from runner registrations in the 2010 race.
We raised $1,095 from our team recruits and we were blessed to be the recipients of an extra $630 in registration monies from Team Asher running in honor of their son adopted last year. Thanks to our awesome team and a special thanks to Jenni Lord for her vision to help orphans and their forever families and the many ways she sacrificed to make the Chosen Marathon a reality. Be sure to check out this race every year!
$1,450 received from 2010 Chosen Marathon sponsorships. Thank you to all who sponsored us!
$3,269.52 received from 2011 Chosen Marathon! Thank you to our Chosen and Much Loved Team!
Abba Fund - $5,000 adoption grant received to pay for final adoption expenses after exiting IBESR, and another $7,000 loan at 0% interest that we were able to pay back with a tax refund after our adoptions were completed.
Why Fundraise?
Adoption is typically expensive and unaffordable for many families (like ours) otherwise. But even on a meager income we are testimony that adoption is not impossible. We initially found out about our girls through the hope of Humanitarian Parole after the January 12th, 2010 earthquake hit Haiti. We signed up for the potential opportunity to bring the girls to our home with a minimal cost of $500 per child, along with other paperwork requirements such as the Home Study. We had been shy of pursuing an international adoption in the past due to the enormous expense. We believed the Lord was opening the door for our family to adopt through this incredible opportunity that seemed financially manageable for us. The opportunity arose for Elisabeth to go meet the girls on April 17th, 2010. We did not have the funds available for this trip in the short time we had to purchase the flight, so we began our initial fundraising. Three days before her flight left in April, we sadly discovered that Humanitarian Parole was closing, and that our girls would not have the opportunity to come to us via this route. We were thankful that Haiti was re-opening for traditional international adoption, but we knew this would require a much larger financial agreement than we were prepared for originally. We prayed about this decision and because Elisabeth had already met the girls and we believed the Lord had called us to pursue their adoption, we immediately began our dossier (paperwork to submit to Haiti for adoption process), and used every last scent in our savings and tax return money to complete it. We sent our completed dossier along with $1,000 for adoption fees to go to the attorney which was supposed to be $6,000 but we asked for a grace period to raise the rest of this money, since it had only been 3 weeks since we found out Humanitarian Parole had closed). So we were now broke and still had $5,000 to raise for the initial adoption fee already due (which is half of the total adoption fee), plus future required trips to Haiti which would add up to thousands more. We estimated the total cost of the adoptions for both girls would cost around $20,000-$30,000 (including paperwork, adoption fees, and travel expenses...it ended up costing way more.) This figure is beyond us, but we know that it is a very small thing to our God who brought these girls into our lives. The fact that adoption cost so much is a stumbling block for many. We admit that for many years it was for us as well. There are many expenses that make sense in the adoption process, and many that sometimes don't. We have learned in this process to consider the cost of adoptions as a "ransom". How much would you pay, fundraise, beg for, if your beloved child was held captive in a dark corner, waiting and longing to come home? How much did Jesus give as a ransom for us? While it is humbling to ask others to help us financially, we have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams and we have found that involving others in this process has been a blessing to them as well. Through our fundraising events many have asked, "Why are you doing this?" and this gives us the great pleasure of introducing them to our great Savior who has so graciously adopted us. Thank you for being a part of our adoption story! We pray that by openly sharing our journey that others will be encouraged to pursue a waiting child and/or support a family in the adoption process...until every child has a family to call their own!
We raised $1,095 from our team recruits and we were blessed to be the recipients of an extra $630 in registration monies from Team Asher running in honor of their son adopted last year. Thanks to our awesome team and a special thanks to Jenni Lord for her vision to help orphans and their forever families and the many ways she sacrificed to make the Chosen Marathon a reality. Be sure to check out this race every year!
$1,450 received from 2010 Chosen Marathon sponsorships. Thank you to all who sponsored us!
$3,269.52 received from 2011 Chosen Marathon! Thank you to our Chosen and Much Loved Team!
Abba Fund - $5,000 adoption grant received to pay for final adoption expenses after exiting IBESR, and another $7,000 loan at 0% interest that we were able to pay back with a tax refund after our adoptions were completed.
Why Fundraise?
Adoption is typically expensive and unaffordable for many families (like ours) otherwise. But even on a meager income we are testimony that adoption is not impossible. We initially found out about our girls through the hope of Humanitarian Parole after the January 12th, 2010 earthquake hit Haiti. We signed up for the potential opportunity to bring the girls to our home with a minimal cost of $500 per child, along with other paperwork requirements such as the Home Study. We had been shy of pursuing an international adoption in the past due to the enormous expense. We believed the Lord was opening the door for our family to adopt through this incredible opportunity that seemed financially manageable for us. The opportunity arose for Elisabeth to go meet the girls on April 17th, 2010. We did not have the funds available for this trip in the short time we had to purchase the flight, so we began our initial fundraising. Three days before her flight left in April, we sadly discovered that Humanitarian Parole was closing, and that our girls would not have the opportunity to come to us via this route. We were thankful that Haiti was re-opening for traditional international adoption, but we knew this would require a much larger financial agreement than we were prepared for originally. We prayed about this decision and because Elisabeth had already met the girls and we believed the Lord had called us to pursue their adoption, we immediately began our dossier (paperwork to submit to Haiti for adoption process), and used every last scent in our savings and tax return money to complete it. We sent our completed dossier along with $1,000 for adoption fees to go to the attorney which was supposed to be $6,000 but we asked for a grace period to raise the rest of this money, since it had only been 3 weeks since we found out Humanitarian Parole had closed). So we were now broke and still had $5,000 to raise for the initial adoption fee already due (which is half of the total adoption fee), plus future required trips to Haiti which would add up to thousands more. We estimated the total cost of the adoptions for both girls would cost around $20,000-$30,000 (including paperwork, adoption fees, and travel expenses...it ended up costing way more.) This figure is beyond us, but we know that it is a very small thing to our God who brought these girls into our lives. The fact that adoption cost so much is a stumbling block for many. We admit that for many years it was for us as well. There are many expenses that make sense in the adoption process, and many that sometimes don't. We have learned in this process to consider the cost of adoptions as a "ransom". How much would you pay, fundraise, beg for, if your beloved child was held captive in a dark corner, waiting and longing to come home? How much did Jesus give as a ransom for us? While it is humbling to ask others to help us financially, we have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams and we have found that involving others in this process has been a blessing to them as well. Through our fundraising events many have asked, "Why are you doing this?" and this gives us the great pleasure of introducing them to our great Savior who has so graciously adopted us. Thank you for being a part of our adoption story! We pray that by openly sharing our journey that others will be encouraged to pursue a waiting child and/or support a family in the adoption process...until every child has a family to call their own!
