Help Jen & Jeff Adopt!
Donation protected
Dear All:
We are thrilled to invite you to a very special process. After many months of being in conversation around what it could mean to grow a family, we have decided to pursue an international adoption through the country of Colombia. We have shared much more below on all of this decision-making, but for now, we will just say that this decision feels right in endless ways and we cannot wait to bring our child home! Unfortunately, there are many upfront costs to get through the critical stages of this process and we don't quite have the abundance of income to support that while also preparing financially for our child coming home. Moving through the adoption process is so very worth it, but we have realized it is not something we can do alone. We need a community in this with us, and you--our global community--we hope you will join us in this practical way.
We also warmly invite you to share this campaign with those you hold dear if you feel comfortable doing so.
Our Story:
For those who do not know us:
We are Jeff Turner and Jen Grabarczyk-Turner; we currently live in Corpus Christi, TX though we met and fell in love in Seattle, WA. We have now happily been together for 8 years, married for 4, and have traversed more than one cross-country relocation from work necessity.
Jeff is a scientist, educator and currently works as a professor at a university. He was born in Louisville, KY but moved to Macon, GA at an early age. Jeff's parents overcame poverty and long odds to provide for him and his brother. The life-long commitment to parenting Jeff witnessed and received from his parents has been an inspiration.
Jen is an artist, a PhD student, and currently works in an administrative role at a university. She was born in Toledo, OH and lived there up until moving to Seattle for graduate school. Her mom was born in Budapest, Hungary, but her family left when she was four years old during the Revolution of 1956. For Jen, this piece of her mother's story has also been an important part of her own story. She grew up with an internal connection to a country that seemed far away while only knowing the US as her home. She continually negotiated a sense of self between countries and grew to feel at home in that in-between, dynamic space.
Why Adoption:
To reduce it somewhat simply, we believe that family is an incredibly expansive word. As humans, we are continually in the practice of forming families as we go through life and experience different communities. There is so much beautiful diversity to be found here. Through the sitting with, the listening to, and the wondering with each other, adoption continuously felt most right to us for looping a child into our own "immediate" family. The question of whether or not we were able to have our own kids didn't matter the more we imagined life together. Adoption is deeply meaningful to us. It resonates with our own narratives in profound ways. As we talked about the process together, it surprisingly and wonderfully drew out deep places within us in a way that is somewhat beyond language. Further wading through the details of how, where, and what organization to work with, it also became clear that an international adoption connected pieces of our own narratives in multi-layered ways, illuminating this as the path we wanted to pursue. Though neither of us have our own ancestral roots in Colombia, this country found us somehow deep in those deep layers. Since making this decision, it has been a rich experience to find new friends from the country, to begin re-learning Spanish, and to grow more familiar with regional foods from the country. As soon as we are able, we plan to visit Colombia, though we realize it may very well happen that our first visit to the country is actually to meet our child! Regardless, it will be an incredible experience to learn with our child where they are from and to support their own work of finding identity and relation to their home country, through the deeply loving context of home.
We are pursuing adoption for the age range of 2-5 years old, which means there is a good likelihood this child will have been in an orphanage or foster home for at least a couple of years. We are working with Children's House International (CHI), a reputable, Hague accredited organization. We have completed the application, officially been accepted as clients of CHI, have completed the required adoption education requirements, have spoken at length with a social worker, and everything is a go to move forward with the home study. The initial costs of getting through the application and home study are substantial, which is why we created this GoFundMe campaign. Every bit of financial support goes directly toward the adoption process. Once through the home study, more adoption grants become possible to apply for. We will approach as many of those as we can, but we still need help getting through the home study part!
Fundraising Goals:
This GoFundMe campaign is specifically to raise funds to get us through the first major phase of the process which adds up to approximately $10,000. The total adoption costs are closer to $25,000. If we wonderfully raise more than our initial goal, those additional funds will roll directly into phase 2 of our adoption process, which includes in-country fees with Colombia, visa/medical exams for our child, and everything wrapped up in traveling to bring our child home. If by some miracle even more funds are raised than what we need for our adoption, we will donate those funds to Children's House International, where we know without a doubt they will be used well to help adoptive children and families around the world.
One Puzzle Piece at a Time:
Because we're both visually oriented and felt the need for something tangible in this long process, we purchased a 500-piece puzzle with a map of Colombia. If you are able to donate to this adoption journey, we will include your name and location on the back of a puzzle piece. You will also receive a physical or digital postcard (your choice) from us with the same image as the puzzle as a little monument of your participation in this journey with us. We are already looking forward to sharing this puzzle with our kid and to talking with them about the faces, stories, and places represented in each piece. The puzzle will persist as a beautifully tangible reminder of how each of you participated in this momentous event for us and our child.
Updates:
We promise to share updates! We will update our GoFundMe page as this process unfolds. At any time if it makes sense to transition over to some other online sharing format, we will do so and let you know! We are also working our creative energies to consider what other kinds of creative community adventures we can participate in to nurture and help this process. If you live in south Texas, stay tuned as a music benefit show is in the works for this fall!
Please feel free to message us at any time if you would like to know more about this process. We will be happy to share more and will respond as best as we are able, as we are able. It feels like a gift to be at the point of inviting you into this process with us because we certainly cannot do this without our global community of friends. And truthfully, we wouldn't want it any other way. You all mean so much to us and it is wonderful to connect with you and your dear ones over this very special thing. It means the world to us that an expansive community can be a part of our child’s story.
Thank you for joining us.
Our Very Warmest,
Jen & Jeff
We are thrilled to invite you to a very special process. After many months of being in conversation around what it could mean to grow a family, we have decided to pursue an international adoption through the country of Colombia. We have shared much more below on all of this decision-making, but for now, we will just say that this decision feels right in endless ways and we cannot wait to bring our child home! Unfortunately, there are many upfront costs to get through the critical stages of this process and we don't quite have the abundance of income to support that while also preparing financially for our child coming home. Moving through the adoption process is so very worth it, but we have realized it is not something we can do alone. We need a community in this with us, and you--our global community--we hope you will join us in this practical way.
We also warmly invite you to share this campaign with those you hold dear if you feel comfortable doing so.
Our Story:
For those who do not know us:
We are Jeff Turner and Jen Grabarczyk-Turner; we currently live in Corpus Christi, TX though we met and fell in love in Seattle, WA. We have now happily been together for 8 years, married for 4, and have traversed more than one cross-country relocation from work necessity.
Jeff is a scientist, educator and currently works as a professor at a university. He was born in Louisville, KY but moved to Macon, GA at an early age. Jeff's parents overcame poverty and long odds to provide for him and his brother. The life-long commitment to parenting Jeff witnessed and received from his parents has been an inspiration.
Jen is an artist, a PhD student, and currently works in an administrative role at a university. She was born in Toledo, OH and lived there up until moving to Seattle for graduate school. Her mom was born in Budapest, Hungary, but her family left when she was four years old during the Revolution of 1956. For Jen, this piece of her mother's story has also been an important part of her own story. She grew up with an internal connection to a country that seemed far away while only knowing the US as her home. She continually negotiated a sense of self between countries and grew to feel at home in that in-between, dynamic space.
Why Adoption:
To reduce it somewhat simply, we believe that family is an incredibly expansive word. As humans, we are continually in the practice of forming families as we go through life and experience different communities. There is so much beautiful diversity to be found here. Through the sitting with, the listening to, and the wondering with each other, adoption continuously felt most right to us for looping a child into our own "immediate" family. The question of whether or not we were able to have our own kids didn't matter the more we imagined life together. Adoption is deeply meaningful to us. It resonates with our own narratives in profound ways. As we talked about the process together, it surprisingly and wonderfully drew out deep places within us in a way that is somewhat beyond language. Further wading through the details of how, where, and what organization to work with, it also became clear that an international adoption connected pieces of our own narratives in multi-layered ways, illuminating this as the path we wanted to pursue. Though neither of us have our own ancestral roots in Colombia, this country found us somehow deep in those deep layers. Since making this decision, it has been a rich experience to find new friends from the country, to begin re-learning Spanish, and to grow more familiar with regional foods from the country. As soon as we are able, we plan to visit Colombia, though we realize it may very well happen that our first visit to the country is actually to meet our child! Regardless, it will be an incredible experience to learn with our child where they are from and to support their own work of finding identity and relation to their home country, through the deeply loving context of home.
We are pursuing adoption for the age range of 2-5 years old, which means there is a good likelihood this child will have been in an orphanage or foster home for at least a couple of years. We are working with Children's House International (CHI), a reputable, Hague accredited organization. We have completed the application, officially been accepted as clients of CHI, have completed the required adoption education requirements, have spoken at length with a social worker, and everything is a go to move forward with the home study. The initial costs of getting through the application and home study are substantial, which is why we created this GoFundMe campaign. Every bit of financial support goes directly toward the adoption process. Once through the home study, more adoption grants become possible to apply for. We will approach as many of those as we can, but we still need help getting through the home study part!
Fundraising Goals:
This GoFundMe campaign is specifically to raise funds to get us through the first major phase of the process which adds up to approximately $10,000. The total adoption costs are closer to $25,000. If we wonderfully raise more than our initial goal, those additional funds will roll directly into phase 2 of our adoption process, which includes in-country fees with Colombia, visa/medical exams for our child, and everything wrapped up in traveling to bring our child home. If by some miracle even more funds are raised than what we need for our adoption, we will donate those funds to Children's House International, where we know without a doubt they will be used well to help adoptive children and families around the world.
One Puzzle Piece at a Time:
Because we're both visually oriented and felt the need for something tangible in this long process, we purchased a 500-piece puzzle with a map of Colombia. If you are able to donate to this adoption journey, we will include your name and location on the back of a puzzle piece. You will also receive a physical or digital postcard (your choice) from us with the same image as the puzzle as a little monument of your participation in this journey with us. We are already looking forward to sharing this puzzle with our kid and to talking with them about the faces, stories, and places represented in each piece. The puzzle will persist as a beautifully tangible reminder of how each of you participated in this momentous event for us and our child.
Updates:
We promise to share updates! We will update our GoFundMe page as this process unfolds. At any time if it makes sense to transition over to some other online sharing format, we will do so and let you know! We are also working our creative energies to consider what other kinds of creative community adventures we can participate in to nurture and help this process. If you live in south Texas, stay tuned as a music benefit show is in the works for this fall!
Please feel free to message us at any time if you would like to know more about this process. We will be happy to share more and will respond as best as we are able, as we are able. It feels like a gift to be at the point of inviting you into this process with us because we certainly cannot do this without our global community of friends. And truthfully, we wouldn't want it any other way. You all mean so much to us and it is wonderful to connect with you and your dear ones over this very special thing. It means the world to us that an expansive community can be a part of our child’s story.
Thank you for joining us.
Our Very Warmest,
Jen & Jeff
Organizer
Jen Grabarczyk-Turner
Organizer
Corpus Christi, TX
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