#igorforever

A message from Tyler:

We started this journey three years ago, hosting Ukrainian children and showing them what family life was really like.

When Amy came to me with the idea, my response was “Sure, if we can raise the money I can’t argue with it. Let’s try.”

The first time around we raised the money in less than a month. The second time we hosted was Igor, and this time the money was due in less than 2 weeks. Again, my thought process was “If we can raise it that quickly, I definitely can’t argue!”

Sure enough, two weeks later we were fully funded.

We fell in love with Igor, but we knew we were not prepared to adopt at the time. We found a family about an hour away from us that was. They got to know and love him as well, and hosted him the following summer with every intention of adopting him.

Long story short, once paperwork was filed it was discovered that Igor wasn’t even available for adoption, and with no definite future in sight as to when he would be, the family had to move ahead with adopting another child.

Since Igor was classified as “host only” we decided to invite him into our home for a second Christmas, knowing that everything with his status uncertain, and even worse his country was in turmoil fighting with Russia.

By this point, the deadline for hosting had already passed, but a spot was being saved for Igor “just in case” we were able to raise the money. And again, when Amy shared all the information with me, my response was -- you guessed it: “Sure. If we can raise the money after the due date, there’s no way I can argue with that.”


It was hard though, knowing that he wasn’t even on the adoption registry, and we weren’t sure when we would be able to see him again after that Christmas.

The following summer Igor wasn't allowed to travel back to America. We still continued with the hosting program, but none of the other children we hosted ever felt as right as Igor did for our family.

Now we need your help. We thought we had lost Igor forever until a few days ago when we found him on a waiting child list with a new agency. It turns out the family Igor has in his country cannot care for him and Igor says they will allow him to be adopted if a suitable family is found. We are that family!


We have three other children that absolutely love Igor. I light up every time he’s around. With him our family just feels...complete.


Please consider donating to our campaign. The hosting cost for Igor this summer is $3,300 alone, and the adoption fees added on to that--by the time we file paperwork, travel to Ukraine, live there for a few weeks, court fees, lawyers, etc. -- we’re looking at just over $30,000 total!

That sounds like a lot of money, but at the same time $30,000 is the cost of a new car in America. Our boy's life is way more valuable in comparison!

We know it won’t be easy, but our family is dedicated to making this happen, no matter what.

Thanks for your support!

You can follow along on our journey (and read up on our past hosting experiences with Igor and other children) at www.halfheardinthestillness.com . Click on the Adoption and Hosting tab at the top of the page.

Please share our campaign! Loving these forgotten kids has been the best thing our family has ever done, and we hope the story behind #igorforever will inspire others to get involved in orphan care. There are hundreds of thousands of children just like Igor who are waiting for their Mama and Papa to come for them too.