Friends and Family: Your Involvement
Our decision to adopt was made with a lot of prayer and discussion. We took time to educate ourselves about the process and the procedure and the opportunities and the challenges. We feel very good about our decision and are very excited about having a new little baby in our family. The decision was our decision and we are committed to completing the process regardless of its challenges. We trust without a doubt that God will provide for us each step of the way.
We realize however, that we belong to communities that love us and even love our new baby. We thank you so much for the excitement and the support that you have demonstrated to us. You have already helped us through your encouragement. Over the past few months we have had some people ask us how they can help us in the process. Although there is no obligation at all on our friends and family to help us out, we have created this page for those of you who would like to be included in the process.
Pray for our baby.
Every day we spend time praying for our baby. Although we don't know his name or his age, whether he has been born yet or if he's already living in an orphanage, our thoughts are with him constantly. We pray for his development, that he is growing and receiving the nutrition that he needs. We pray for his environment, that he is safe from disease, toxins, and other harmful possibilities in pregnancy and infancy. We pray that he receives love from his caregivers, that they are patient and caring to him, that he receives stimulation and touch.
We also pray for his birth parents, that God will give them comfort as they deal with relinquishing their child. They are likely struggling with poverty, disease (probably AIDS) and other conditions that make it seem impossible to care for their baby. We ask God to give them peace as they give up their child in the trust that he will have a better life.
We ask that you will remember our baby in your prayers, that you'll pray for him while we wait for him, and then after the adoption as he adjusts to his whole world changing in every possible way. We are confident in the power of prayer and rely on it completely as the only way we can parent our baby boy at this time.
Travel Plan -- Flying on Points
Option 1: Donate your Air Miles
Once our child is referred to us, both of us need to fly to South Africa to pick him up. Some of our friends have offered their airmiles for our flight. We have looked into flight possibilities through Air Miles, and have discovered that it will cost between 8,000-12,000 Air Miles each, (depending on time of year). Flying on airmiles could save us about $5,000.
Donating your airmiles then is one way you can help.
Airmiles donations is a bit of a complicated process. It requires you to close your account and transfer ALL of your Air Miles to our account. Once this is completed, you can open a new Air Miles account. The difficulties with this is that you can't donate only a portion, it must be the total amount and you will have the inconvienience of having to have a new airmiles account. If you don't mind this inconvienience and would like to explore this option, send us an email, we appreciate your consideration.
Option 2: Donate Your Reward Points Through Coupons
If closing your Air Miles account is not a possibility, or if you collect a different reward program (ie Aeroplan, PC Points, etc), a second option that has been suggested is that you redeem your points for food or gas coupons and donate them to us. We would then put the cash value of those coupons into our adoption account. In this way, points can turn into adoption expense payments.
Financial Contributions
Some friends and family have offered us money to help with adoption costs. Although we feel that the financial costs of adoption was part of our committement in the process, we are open to contributions. If you would also like to contribute financially, give us a call or an email. Please note, however, that as we are not a charitable organization, we are unable to issue donation receipts.
People are Surprising
People have gotten creative in their efforts to help us. We have had help with childcare, with suggestions for reading, people have given us "boy" clothes to help us get ready. People have offered to help us with the "baby room" and taking photo shoots for our profile to be sent overseas. If you have a gift that you'd like to share, we appreciate your offer and your support.
