Solheim Family Dream

This is a long story, but it explains why I am doing this.  No fancy games or gimmicks.  Just asking for help.  My wife and I are teachers.  Our parents were all teachers too.  We love kids.  We had our son Jonah in 1994.  When he was about 2, we began trying for our second child.  We had trouble.  We decided we needed some help and went through a year of infertility treatments.  Nothing.  The doctors asked how we had Jonah.  They were amazed that he was born with little complication. More tests, and found out my wife had stage 4 endometriosis.  She needed surgery to repair and minimize that damage.  Also, the news came, no more kids.  After much stress and worry, we decided to take some time and concentrate on our son.  That feeling of wanting a bigger family was stronger than ever. We felt the call to adopt and through help from family, we were able to, after a 2 year process, travel to China and find our daughter Molly.  She was just 14 months old.  Jonah was 11 at the time and he came along with.  Taking out loans from family, using credit cards, we began accumulating debt.  At the time we were able to keep up.  Two years later we received a call that there were week old twin girls who needed a family from Chicago.  We said yes even though we knew it would push us financially, but our decision was made from the heart, not from our wallet.  Molly was about 3 when the twins joined us.  That's when her issues really surfaced.  She has been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder due to trauma from her time in an orphanage in China.  No one really knows what she experienced, but early attachment did not happen and she has a lot of troubles adjusting to new situations.  In order to help with all of our family changes , my wife worked part time for a year.  This is also where all of our financial troubles began.  Molly requires a lot of therapy to help her work through her issues.  In 2011, the state of Wisconsin also changed politically and teachers and state workers finances changed again.  Being that we are both teachers, we were hit hard again.  We began falling behind in all of our bills and even had to decide what to pay and what not to pay.  We could not keep up with mortgage, property taxes, credit cards, therapy and insurance bills while our salaries were being cut as teachers and on top of that, because of the politics, we could not earn more either.  The changes in our state made it so that even either of us received more training/classes, we could not earn more money.  We were stuck.  All finances around us, food, gas, electricity, water, heat, we're all increasing and we were lagging farther and farther behind.  We also sent our son Jonah to college during this time too.  He did earn scholarships which helped, but we wanted the best for him.  His college bills are even adding up.  Again, family helped us out.  What is tough for us is that we feel we are doing what we are supposed to.  We both teach full time, I coach 4 sports during the school year and teach 4 weeks of summer school to help with extra checks that can come in.  Trouble is, it isn't making a dent.  We can't save because we need everything we earn.  So, it got to a point where we needed to make some serious changes.  When we were getting our taxes done, our advisor said he needed to give us a hard talk.  He said we needed to sell the house and downsize or file for bankruptcy.  We really wanted to keep our kids in their home and make sure they had consistency.  We chose to file  for bankruptcy.  This included a repayment plan that takes half of each of my paychecks right now.  We felt we could fight for our home and pay what we owed.  We are still falling behind.  Our lawyers have been working on our behalf to try  a loan modification with our mortgage company to reduce our monthly payments.  It has been 2 years since we began that process.  Now, because of the lengthy process to try and reduce those payments, our bankruptcy is now costing us $9500 and counting.  That is draining us even more.  We are asking for help to pay off our mortgage so we can get out from under all this stress.  We deeply believe we have more to offer others, but feel very stuck where we are.  Help us get out from under this crazy mortgage company so we are free to pay it forward to others.  Molly also wanted to visit China and her Provence.  She feels a large hole in her heart for her beginnings.  There is no way we could go to China.  It would take us years to save for that.  It would be a dream come true for her.  We want to save for that and pay our way, but we want this big thing taken care of first.  The evil mortgage.   I really feel if we can get that paid off, it would be our dream come true.  Currently, Jonah is 20 and studying Communications at college.  Molly will be in 5th grade.  Lilly and Lucy will be in 2nd grade.  Help our family achieve the most unbelievable, unimaginable dream ever.  We look forward to paying it forward when we can.  Why so much?  We have refinanced 2 times already. Now, because of all the financial troubles, we are a credit risk and cannot do anything to help with payments or interest rates.  We are in a limbo of loans.  Stuck.  We recently had a guy come by our house taking pictures, someone we didn't know.  I went out to meet him and asked if I could help him.  He said it was all okay and that he was from the mortgage company.  He needed to take pictures to see if there was anyone living at the residence.  Weird.  Nobody at the mortgage company seems willing to listen or willing to work with us.  Just willing to make it impossible to get ahead.  Thanks for all your support in helping us achieve this impossible dream.  Mike, Aimee, Jonah, Molly, Lilly and Lucy.