Much has happened since our last adoption update, so I wanted to fill everyone in on the latest. First of all, our DOSSIER IS DONE!!! That feels like a huge load off of my shoulders. The dossier requires dozens of documents, some (but not all) of which were used for our home study, which had to be notarized. Then, each piece of paper that was notarized had to receive a county seal, from whichever county it was notarized in. THEN, each of those documents had to be apostilled, which is a certification from the state, and required multiple trips downtown.
After all of that was done, we made five copies, sent several to Washington, D.C., one to Oregon, and kept one copy for ourselves. So, the fact that all of that is behind us is a big, big relief.
So now we are waiting to be approved by CARA (Central Adoption Resource Authority), and then after that, we wait for a referral, and after that, we wait while all the paperwork goes through the appropriate channels, and after THAT, we bring our little girl home.
Adoption is definitely not for the faint of heart. It feels overwhelming a lot of times.
I had a minor heart attack a few days ago, when we received our latest bill. We paid $1800 in the beginning, followed by $2400. After that, it's been a few hundred here, a few hundred there, but nothing too outrageous.
Until we got our bill for almost $9000 the other day. $8970, to be exact. Followed by $7950, when we get our referral.
That's a lot of numbers on a check.
But, after I got that invoice in my e-mail, while I was trying to catch my breath, I sent a text to my friend Beth, who said, "It will be hard to write [the check]. until you close your eyes and see your daughter playing on the rooftop in India."
My little girl playing on the rooftop in India.
Five years ago, when I was in India, the people I stayed with, Amos and Rowena Stoltzfus, took me to the slums of India. I was told that there is poverty, and then there is India poverty, but until you see it for yourself, it's really, really hard to imagine.
But we drove through a section where the poorest of the poor live, residing in these ramshackle ....buildings, if that's what you call them. Really just some pieces of wood stuck together, most of them with the fronts wide open, and people selling and begging out front.
In front of one of the buildings, was a man, selling cookies from a wheelbarrow. Not nicely wrapped cookies. Cookies that had been removed from their package and dumped out, where the flies and mosquitoes and dirt from the street were landing on them. But there he was, looking skinny and dirty and desperate, trying to make enough money to survive another day.
I glanced above where he was selling his meager offerings, and on top of the building were several people that I assume were his family. There was a blue tarp on top, being held up by a few wooden sticks. From my view in the car, looking at them maybe 10 feet higher than I was, I could see that they were all very, very, very dirty. But in front, standing too close to the edge of the building, there was a little girl, maybe three or four, in a filthy blue dress. And, she was dancing.
It was five years ago, but I can see her in my mind as clearly as if I saw her a minute ago. Here was this little girl, who may have never had a full meal, and who most likely didn't know what it was like to live without hunger, dancing and laughing and playing and giggling like any other toddler. Standing too close to the edge of a building, without anyone looking out for her, telling her to step away, reminding her not to fall. And she was dancing, like she was the happiest child in the world.
That image of her has never left my mind. I believe the idea to adopt from India was birthed in that moment. I can barely talk about it, five years later, without my eyes filling with tears.
How can I say $8970 or $7950 or $10 million is too much? I have more in any room in my house than she, and so many others, will ever see in a lifetime.
We had a fund-raiser planned earlier this month, which was postponed due to the crazy, crazy snow that hit Nashville yet again. Our new date is May 14 at the Listening Room in Nashville, at 8:30. We will have live music, and lots of items for a silent auction, including signed lyrics from Vince Gill and Amy Grant, signed CDs and posters, gift cards, art work and various other items.
And if anyone else has any other fund-raising ideas, we are very, very open.
I keep waiting for the true panic to set in. But it hasn't, at least not yet. Because if we don't do this, who will? We're about to cut some SERIOUS corners in our finances until we get everything paid and caught up again. But I have no doubt that we can do it. Like I've said all along, do we really need another nice meal out at a restaurant, or the new floors in our living room, or another thing to add to our house, when it would come at the expense of her life?
"I don't want a flame, I want a fire. I wanna be the one who stands up and says, 'I'm gonna do something.'" ~Matthew West, 'Do Something'
