Skip a Starbucks: Help Bring a Family Together

It will be officially five years this September. Five years for what you ask? Five years of a family trying to bring their daughter home.

I will let you read her story and maybe it will pull strings at your heart like it did mine:

What do you, a skipped cup of coffee, and a little Chinese orphan girl have in common? I'll get to that in a minute, but first, I want to tell you our story.

We had three biological boys in four years, and then I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. I had a hysterectomy and while I mourned the fact that I couldn't have any more biological children, I was certain our family wasn't finished. My husband wasn't so sure. :) I'd talked about adopting and I always saw us with a little girl from China. He came up with a ton of reasons why now wasn't the right time to adopt. Then, on Mother's Day of 2005, he leaned over to me in church and said, "We have a daughter in China. We need to start the adoption proceedings to bring her home." I adjusted to this unexpected news (we hadn't discussed adoption for months) in about 15 seconds. :)

The next day, we began researching adoption and we picked out her name: Johanna Faith. Johanna means God's Gracious Gift and Faith is what it is taking to bring her home. We signed up with Chinese Children Adoption International agency based out of Colorado. We completed our stateside paperwork and homestudy within a few months, sent off our dossier to China with the understanding that it would be a 6-8 month wait, and eagerly planned to bring our daughter home.

Soon, though, we began to hear rumors that the wait time was extending. Then we heard that the government had cracked down on orphanages who were receiving money from the state but who weren't keeping all of their beds full and the wait slowed to a crawl. Our dreams of having her home for Christmas were dashed. And then our dreams for having her home in time for summer were dashed as well. Before we knew it, another Christmas had passed and we were still waiting. Meanwhile, the Olympics were coming to Beijing, and the word was most adoption processes would stop altogether.

As the wait stretched from 8 months to three years, I struggled with depression. I could hardly bear Christmas, because she wasn't yet there. I shut the door of her bedroom and left it closed because I couldn't bear to walk past it in the hall. It hurt to think about having a child out there whom I couldn't protect. Couldn't love. Couldn't save. Three years became four with no real change. Our homestudy expired. Our immigration petition expired. Three times. Our fingerprints expired. Four times. And China raised the orphanage and court fees by thousands while we waited. Suddenly, the cushion of money we'd raised at the start of this process was almost gone, and China was picking up speed in their child match program.

In September, it will be five years since we officially started our adoption process to bring Johanna home. We expect to receive her picture, information, and permission to travel sometime by the middle of September.

I opened her bedroom door for the first time in 3 1/2 years.

 

Now if that story doesn’t just make you want to help, I don’t know what does. CJ is asking for our help now. They need 8,000 dollars to get the life of their daughter home and this is where we come in. If you click the button I have on the top right corner of my blog it will bring you directly you CJ’s post and how you can donate! You can do it through PayPal's or like me, who doesn’t have an account, send them money through the mail. You can email CJ for her address.

And, because CJ is such a kind woman, if you donate now you are entered into a GIANT giveaway she is hosted at her blog where you could win things from a set of Harry Potter book to Signed Mortal Instruments stuff and more!

And as if that still isn’t enough, there are links to a bunch of other authors and blogger who are hosting contest you can enter if you donated!

So, please, go over and donate, I did. You can click on the button below and read the rest of CJ’s post. Help bring their daughter back to them!

 

~Caitlin