Bring Maria Home

Help us adopt Maria!
 Here's a little about our story. We are Chris and Esther,  married 16 years, with 2 fabulous biological children. Chris is an engineer (not quite to Dilbert standards) who loves coffee and climbing. Esther is a stay at home mom/part time photographer who loves Jesus, the mountains, sunshine, and Anne of Green Gables. Aidan is 14.75 and full of life, adventure, and humor. Chloe is 12.25 and full of sweetness, spunk, and sass.

For two weeks over Christmas break, we hosted a 15 year old girl from Colombia. Maria is in an institution that provides a home for children without families to care for them. She is shy, generous, nurturing. She loves to sing, dance, play soccer, and bake chocolate cake.


We chose Maria because she tugged at our hearts. Something inside said "pay attention". Maria is in a difficult place, she ages out of the program at the age of 16, which is coming very very soon.  We have been told that we are her last chance for a different ending. She hopes to be a baker when she grows up, but more than that, she wants a family that will love and protect her.


Please help us give Maria a chance. We know adoption expenses are a crazy lot of money, at least, it's a crazy lot of money to us. But we have committed to do our darndest to bring her home to Colorado.

We are currently working with a Hague accredited adoption agency in Denver; A Love Beyond Borders. They have promised to do everything on their end to make sure that all of the paperwork is done in time, and done excellently because there is not time for re-do's.

Nuts and Bolts:
We always said we wouldn't ask for help with adoption expenses. But that was before we held a sobbing teenager at the airport who didn't want to return to Colombia. I held her face in my hands and promised that we would do everything in our power to bring her back. 

Why So Much $$?:
An adoption from Colombia costs around $30,000-40,000. The fees are for services rendered in both the US and Colombia.
-3000 for home study
-1500 for psychological profile
-8000 for dossier contract (agency fees, foreign and legal fees, home study review)
-11,500 for fees at completion of dossier (foreign and legal fees and managment fees)
-9,500 due with acceptance of referral (agency fees, legal fees, in country intepreter fees)
(=33,500)
-Fees for USCIS, dossier authentication, pre adoption parent education, post placement visits, visas, and travel expenses have varying fees based on airfare, hotel costs etc, but add on an estimated additional 10,000.

FINALLY:
Thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for hearing our story! I cannot even begin to express our gratefulness.   So please know that our hearts are full with words that we do not know how to say for any help that we receive.