Every child deserves a home.  Every child deserves to be loved.  This is a concept we have always agreed on.  We have provided a home and lots of love to the five children we have been blessed with, but can we do more?  The answer is “yes we can, we can all do more.”  God says in James 1:27a, Religion that is pure and undefiled before god the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. 

We started the foster care process, thinking this was a logical way to grow our family through adoption, and something we felt we could do.  It certainly made the most financial sense.  There are plenty of kids in our own community who deserve/ need a loving family.  We found the foster care process to be very long and daunting.  It led us to questions on whether or not bringing in kids from traumatic backgrounds was really something we could handle.  Would we be asking too much of our own children to take on this “mission”?   Around this time we found out about orphan hosting through New Horizons for Children.  This seemed like a reasonable solution to our questions regarding foster care.  We could host an orphan for 6 weeks and see how our family handles it.

We reviewed the photo listing of available children multiple times.  We inquired about a few sibling sets, but they were either already taken or did not seem like a good fit for our family.  There was an older looking boy, with a goofy grin, who I just could not stop thinking about.  His profile said he loved soccer and wanted to be hosted by a large family.  We had both of those requests covered.

So, just to recap: “our plan” was to try out orphan hosting, so we could decide whether or not we would pursue foster care.  Have you heard the saying, “If you want to make God laugh, make plans?”  The heart of man plans his ways, but the Lord establishes his steps, Proverbs 16:9.  We had no idea how completely and totally God would open our hearts to this boy.  We had no idea how amazing the hosting experience would be or that we would be so devastated when we had to say good-bye.  If you had told us when we started the hosting process, that next year we’d be in the middle of an international adoption, we would think You were the crazy ones! 

Since the 6 weeks over the summer, we were able to spend another 4 weeks with “D” over Christmas.  The time we spent with him over Christmas affirmed our hearts and solidified our choice to pursue adoption.   


      
Due to social media rules we are not allowed to share his name or country of birth, we will refer to him as “D.”  “D” was shy at first, but thankfully warmed up to us pretty quickly.  He loves playing soccer and doing anything active.  He was reserved about trying some new things at first, but with encouragement and love he became bolder over time.  He loves our animals and was very attentive to them.  He also loves swimming, especially at “babushka’s doma” a.k.a. “grandma’s house.”  He made it quite clear to us that he was interested in being a permanent family member, by referring to himself at “D” Havens and counting our family members in a photo and pointing to himself saying, “me #8.” 

Now to the nitty gritty……money, (this is a crowd funding site after all)

An International adoption like this is estimated to cost around $35,000- $40,000.  We are about 1/3 of the way through the process and need to raise the rest of the money.  We have donated to others during their adoption process and wholeheartedly agree with Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  We have had some success with our two t-shirt fundraisers and are considering another fundraiser for the summer.  Soon, we will be applying for adoption grants as well.  We have also put together a proposal for Jeremy’s company to add an adoption employee benefit.  If you participate with us in giving, you will receive desires in your heart that come from the Lord- who knows, the desire may even be to adopt! 

 We so appreciate your prayers and words of encouragement along the way.  There is still a MYRIAD OF PAPERWORK that needs to be done and approved before this desire becomes a reality.  We are praying it all goes smoothly and miraculously gets approved the first time through. 

If you have any specific questions or need more information, please do not hesitate to ask us.  We are happy to discuss any concerns with you.  Thank you for reading this! 

Love,

Jeremy, Nicole, Gabrielle, Garrick, Carter, Cayleigh, Brody, and soon to be “D” Havens