We didn’t think that hosting an orphan in our home would change our lives forever. We had no intention of adopting; it wasn’t even on our radar. In fact, my husband said, in no uncertain terms, “We can do this, as long as you promise me we won’t adopt.” And I agreed. Because it was crazy enough to have an almost-teenager–from another country, who was an orphan—stay with our family for four weeks over Christmas. We were willing to commit to short-term crazy, but not to life-changing, forever and ever crazy. Famous last words!

During Christmas 2012, our eyes were opened to the needs of orphans around the world through the ministry of New Horizons for Children. This ministry gives children the chance to experience the love of a family and the love of Jesus for four-five weeks at Christmas and during the summer. Hosting is like a missions trip from the comfort of your own home! We hosted Mariana, a girl from Eastern Europe, in order to make a difference in her life, and we found that ours were the lives that were changed!

When Mariana came, and our family quickly fell in love with her. Our three daughters, Katelyn, Elise, and Alison, easily accepted Mariana into their hearts. And “promise me we won’t adopt” quickly turned into “We can’t send her back.” But we didn’t have a choice—we had to put her back on an airplane, and feel the pain of a piece of our heart go to Eastern Europe. New Horizons for Children does not facilitate adoptions—they are strictly a host-only organization. But once we learned Mariana was cleared for adoption, we signed up with an adoption agency and started our home study.

Funding our adoption has been a journey of faith! A large amount of our adoption costs involves the travel for the three trips required by the Eastern European government and the one-month stay in country that is required for the first trip. Chris has done work on the side as a computer programmer/consultant, and we also pulled money from personal savings. We received two grants right before Christmas, which was a big encouragement. Since September, Lindsay been baking bread every week as an on-going fundraiser.

We also sold t-shirts we designed through Fundthenations.com, and it was a blessing to see friends and family all over the country support us by buying a shirt. Partnering with the ApParent project was another amazing blessing: we sold bracelets made from recycled cereal boxes. These unique pieces of jewelry help families in Haiti provide food, shelter, and health care through a sustainable business model. We had a very fun “Christmas Shopping Party” fundraiser at our home in November where seven different direct-sales companies and other businesses were represented. Friends donated their commission for sales made that evening, and we also had businesses who donated 50% of the purchase price towards our adoption! We shared a video of pictures of our time of hosting Mariana and had Christmas cookies, coffee and eggnog. It was a great way to tell others about our heart for adoption, and we were able to raise $1000 from that evening. In January we launched a fun online auction which raised $2000.

Our three on-going fundraisers are through ScriptCharms jewelry, Umweo Bags, and Just Love Coffee. ScriptCharms has unique bracelets and necklaces which can be customized with your favorite Bible verses; the link for our fundraiser is http://www.scriptcharms.com/?Click=13. Umweo Bags helps fund a feeding clinic for severely malnourished children in Zambia, Africa. Their beautiful, handmade bags help parents care for their children while helping our family adopt as well. The link to their online store is http://umweobags.storenvy.com/; enter HillAdoption in the note at checkout for us to get credit! Just Love Coffee was started by an adoptive family who wanted to give something back to their daughter’s home country of Ethiopia while helping other families adopt. The link to our coffee store is https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/miraclesform/

Our journey from hosting to adoption can be found at our blog at www.miraclesform.com. We are very excited to bring Mariana into our home forever—no more goodbyes!

We are the Hanlon Family: Jim, Christine, Zach (age 19) and James (age 5). We are adopting through China’s Special Needs Program.  The call to adopt came quite unexpectedly last summer, as God worked his plan through the words of our youngest son, James.  His message took root in our minds first, and then quickly bloomed in our hearts.  We happily accept the mission set before us, and we hope our story inspires others to care for orphans in any way they can. (James 1:27) You can read how our journey started, and where it goes from here at our blog.

When we set out to learn more about adoption, we had no idea the cost associated with it. Although the initial estimate stung a bit, it did not deter us. We know that we are more fortunate than most people in the world (According to the World Wealth Calculator, if you make $33,500 a year, you are among the richest 5% in the world.)  We don’t measure our overall wealth in dollars, (James often says, “We’re rich with love, right mom?”), but with statistics like the one above, we can’t help but know that sharing our blessings with someone who needs a family is the right thing to do.

Initially, using savings and a few other tactics, we managed to pay the first few bills ourselves.  Jim and I are both 6th grade teachers, so taking on a few tutoring jobs and coaching soccer were ways we could use our talents to bring in some extra money. We also received a $500 grant towards our home study. Now that our dossier is just about finished, we are faced with much larger bills, and so we are beginning to reach out to others who might be called to support the tragic state of 14+ million orphans worldwide.   We recently signed up with Adopt Together, a 501 c 3 charitable organization designed to reimburse families for adoption related expenses.  All donations are tax deductible. Within the first week that our site became live, several people jumped on board to help us reach our goal. We are blessed with such kind family members and friends.

To keep the momentum going, we decided to add a little twist to the fundraising efforts. For every $50 donated at our Adopt Together site, your name will be entered for a chance to win a week stay in a 4-bedroom vacation villa in Kissimmee, Florida from August 7-14, 2014.  (See the villa at homeaway.com, property #905233.) This raffle fundraiser will only last until the end of March, to give our winner the chance to make travel arrangements. You can enter as often as you wish, for example $100 = 2 chances to win, $200 = 4 chances to win, etc. You can also donate with a check by printing out raffle tickets here.  Tickets will be automatically generated when donating online; paper copies are only needed when donating with a check. You don’t have to participate in the raffle to donate to our mission.   There are directions on our Adopt Together site on how to have your name entered into the raffle.

Which little girl has God chosen for our family? We happily wait for news of who she is, and will gladly carry out God’s plan for her future. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Thank you for kindly following our family’s adoption journey and for supporting one little girl’s future.

We are Brent and Lori of Illinois, and we have been married for twenty-two years now. We have been blessed by God in many ways, two of which are our biological children that are 21 and 18 years old. We first felt called to adoption in 2010. It took us several months to commit due to the costs that seemed overwhelming. On Feb 13, 2011, we made the firm decision to adopt. Little did we know, but our daughter had just been born two days earlier in China. Over the next seventeen months, God revealed to us the miracle of adoption. Then on July 23, 2012, we completed the adoption for our beautiful little Mia, now a 3 year old.

Once again, Brent and I both feel that we have been called to adopt from China, and we would love to give Mia a sibling from her birth country. We are requesting a boy or a girl waiting child between the ages of 3-5. If anyone had told us when we were younger that we would be adopting not only one, but two children in our mid to late forties, we wouldn’t have believed them. But here we are on this journey together, with God leading the way.

For Mia’s adoption we did one big fundraiser (a dinner at our church) that was coupled with a matching grant of $2,500 from Hand in Hand. That was very successful. We had generous donations from our families as well, and a grant for $2,000 from A Child Waits right before our travel. Unfortunately, we did take on debt (an interest free loan) to complete Mia’s adoption. This time around, we are determined to adopt completely debt free. As Dave Ramsey says, “There is not one example in the Bible of God calling someone to do something and then using debt as a tool to accomplish it.”

We are in the early stages of fundraising for this adoption. So far we have had a Christmas giveaway through our blog. We gave away a Keurig K75 coffee maker and a LeapFrog LeapPad Ultra. Entries were one for a $10 donation or three for a $25 donation. This brought in $1,000 in donations ($723 after the purchase of the giveaway items.)

At the same time as the giveaway, we set up a Pure Charity account where we hoped people would do their online Christmas shopping. While some families have great success with Pure Charity, we did not. We are not promoting Pure Charity for donations because they take a 5% fee. Donations are better made in person, through our church, directly to our placing agency or through Paypal; whose fee is much less.

A current fundraiser we have going is through Funding Factory. We are collecting used cell phones, other used electronics, and certain ink and toner cartridges. These are then mailed in batches of at least twenty items or 20lb. to Funding Factory with the pre-paid shipping labels they provide. Funding Factory then pays a set amount for each item. We are getting close to having our first twenty items to send.

We will be doing more fundraisers over the upcoming months, and we will apply for grants as well. I am passionate about the Both Hands projects, and hope that we will be approved to do one to help fund our adoption. However, at the end of the day, we have to trust that God will provide for what He has called us to do. For God nothing is impossible.

The Lance family

Each Friday I’ll feature a different fundraising adoptive family. My hope is that we can support each other and also learn from each other. For submission guidelines, go here.