Jon Smith, child custody assistance

Hello & thanks for reading. If you know me then you also know my heart's desire to dedicate much of my time & energy for the benefit of helping others. I am in my comfort place when I am serving others & I take great satisfaction in watching lives become transformed, knowing that God is using me as a catalyst to help create an environment in order for that to happen. I literally cannot get enough of that feeling. To the point that I often use serving others as a way of escaping my own tribulations.

The hardest thing for me to do is to ask for help. I don't mind asking on behalf of someone else but when it's myself or my family who is in need I feel awkward, selfish or like I'm being a burden. This is something that I am working on & allowing God to direct me in strengthening this area of my character. Not to become one who seeks handouts, but to be vulnerable enough to lay down my pride & expose myself to the point of allowing others the opportunity to serve the needs of my family when appropriate to do so. Sometimes, it just takes a few helping hands to corporately join together as a team to relieve a massive undertaking, which may be otherwise too overwhelming for one to endure alone.

So, it is with this renewed spirit that I come to you today with humbleness & humility as I ask for needed assistance with a trial in my life in which the outcome will have a long term effect on my children as well as my relationship with them. To give you a better understanding of the situation at hand, I will briefly share with you a summary of our story....

For the past several years I have been struggling with various trials. 6 years ago, I abruptly became a single father of 3 while simultaneously going thru a divorce, loss of employment, foreclosure & destruction of personal credit. I neither received nor asked for any physical or financial assistance from outside sources, including my children's mother, who was primarily absent during these troubled times. The children & I lived for more than a year without central heat & air & our utility services were often interrupted for non pay. We survived off of mac n cheese & learned to make the best of our situation. We had to get creative with life & the experience of doing so ultimately brought us closer together & made us more aware of being thankful for what we did have, primarily each other. As a result, we became stronger & grew in our faith that God would provide us with opportunities to meet our needs, & that he did. Yes, times were hard but in hindsight, I would not change a thing, for having lived through these seasons is much of what has formed me into the person that I am today.

2 years ago, I was blessed to marry a wonderful woman, life mate & incredible step mother to my children. We merged our families & life was good for us. Unfortunately, we soon became the victims of jealous personal attacks & false accusations from my ex, which led to multiple DFCS & police investigations among other turmoil to say the least. My new wife & I have since endured much emotional stress & financial hardships in the process of clearing our names from false accusations of child abuse, drug abuse & alcohol abuse from the opposing parent. Aside from that, I could write a novel about all of the insanity associated with these endeavors. But to make a longer story shorter, I am now under additional legal attack for custody of my children, despite the facts that I have been their primary caregiver since the day they were born & their primary legal custodian since the finalization of my divorce to their mother in February of 2011 with little to no participation from her since.

4 months ago, I was served with a restraining order against me based on falsified manipulations & my children were forcefully taken from me by police escort. I did not even have the opportunity to say goodbye. I have not seen my children since & my attempts to contact them have been detoured until November 30th, when the court ruled in favor of securing some safe guards in place for me to be able to have contact with the children. I was finally able to see them in court & was allowed 3 additional hours of visitation, which went wonderful. I will also have them back for 6 days during the upcoming Christmas holiday & have reasonable visitation options beyond that. Unfortunately,  the children are currently residing in south Florida with their mother, approx 500 miles away, which creates additional logistic, transportation & financial related obstacles.

We are making strides in moving forward although we have already spent over $9,000 in related legal expenses & are nowhere near finished.  We arr thankful to have met our initial goal in order to obtain attorney reforestation for the temporary hearing, which was a huge accomplishment.  However, the related fees are escalating quickly & we are now 2-3 behind on most of our bills as we struggle to maintain basic survival needs as a result of these setbacks. I am currently receiving notices of various collection efforts & have experienced interruptions of utility services as my primary residence is also in jeopardy of being lost.  In addition, I am now under court order to pay child support. I do have a strong case and we have already made great advancements although we still have a long , expensive battle ahead & I need your help in order to maintain momentum. This is a humbling experience as for I have exhausted all other options & now face the desperation of publicly asking for your help.

If you decide to make a donation, rest assured that 100% of all the funds raised will go towards legal and child custody related expenses as stated until our immediate needs are met (less gofundme related fees of approx 9%).   Any additional funds raised beyond that shall go towards our household arrearage in attempt to catch up with bills & salvage what we have in moving forward.  Whatever amount that you feel led to comfortably contribute is greatly appreciated.

Aside from monetary contributions, I ask that you join me in prayer for peace to reside over this situation with clarity & truth being revealed in the name of justice. I'm praying for my children's overall well being so that God's will shall be served, even if beyond our own way of understanding. I am also praying that this intervention may be an opportunity get the help that we need & move forward with cooperative parenting under the microscope if the court.

For anyone who wishes to contact me regarding this matter please do so via Facebook private messaging and I will be happy to share my phone number with you from there as gofundme recommends not to post phone numbers here due to potential for unwanted solicitations. 

I encourage you to share this campaign & help spread the word & i thank you in advance for your related time, efforts & consideration.

Sincerely,
Jon Smith & Family