Hello Friends and Family!
Justin and I have some very exciting news to share with all of you! We have been approved to travel to go get our sweet little boys from Liberia Africa, which means it is now go time!
For those of you who have not been along with us on this journey let me catch you up a bit. Justin and I have always had it on our hearts to adopt and a couple of years ago we started that process and we where approved to adopt domestically. When we completed our home study update in January of this last year we learned a little more about the international program in Liberia and something clicked in both Justin and my hearts and we both knew that this was what we wanted to do.
Everything moved really quickly from there. We shifted gears from just doing a simple home study update to instead doing a full blown international dossier and on Mothers day weekend in faith we accepted a match for twin boys in Monrovia Liberia who had just been taken into the children’s home. Shadrach and Meshach were malnurished, and not much was known about them, but we knew that these little boys were meant to become members of the Kasmiske family!
Over the last several months we’ve seen these sweet boys grow and get healthier each month, even growing hair! Which is such a blessing to see from a far. The families that have been traveling before us share that our boys are shy, they love cars and balls and they are desperately wanting to interact and be loved, they just don’t know how to yet!
A few weeks ago we received the best news, its our turn now to travel. The Liberian government has approved us and all we are waiting for is our court date to be set and then we will be booking our flights and headed to Africa to meet our sweet boys and start the hard work of building connections with them. We anticipate traveling sometime in November and coming home with our boys in December…just in time for their 2nd birthday on December 23rd and for Christmas!
But, we need a little help to get us there! The costs of the international adoption overall have been extensive and we have been abundantly blessed…but we have a little bit yet to get us to the finish line. We have a need of approximately $21,000 to complete our adoption.
This is broken down as follows.
$5000 in remaining adoption fees.
$2100 in Liberia specific in country expenses for the boys (medicals, yellow fever vaccines, passports fees, embassy fees, etc.)
$6000 in lodging in Liberia
$7000 in flights and luggage fees to and from Liberia
We have been gifted with a matching grant of $7000 from the Tim Tebow foundation which means that if we raise $7000 towards this goal they will match it dollar for dollar bringing us that much closer to that total that we need. What a blessing!
Many of you have asked over the last several months how you can help. First of all, we covet your prayers. Logistically we are traveling to a third world country and adopting infant/toddler twins. There is a lot to navigate through that process and we want to do that well. Please pray, we have seen God’s hand on this every step of the way, it hasn’t necessarily been easy, but it has definitely been obvious that this was His plan all along! Second, if you are able we would be honored and deeply grateful if you could give.
We can’t wait for all of you to meet our soon to be family of five!
With Love,
Justin – Crystal - Selah - Shadrach – Meshach Kasmiskie
STRIPE charges an online processing fee (2.2% +.30 USD per transaction)*. Your donations will be decreased by this amount. You may also send a check payable to “Lifesong for Orphans”. In the memo line please write “Kasmiskie 11849”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 9, Gridley, IL 61744.
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