Our Story
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. ” -Mr. Rogers
We are Ashley and Mike. We have been married for 14 years and together for 17 years. We have always felt called to adopt. When we were early married we conducted copious amounts of research on international adoption and how we could make that a reality for our first child. At the time, we had no insurance and were living on ramen. We were hoping to pay off debt so that we could just have more options in life. God had a plan for us and about a year after we got out of debt, our first child was born-a daughter. Two years later we were blessed with our second daughter. Two years later our son. As we grew and finances became less challenging, we began feeling more certain that we could not only raise a family, but help one thrive. We are blessed to have our three children.
For the next chapter of our adoption story, it wasn’t until our oldest daughter expressed a profound interest in our family growing this way that we began to really consider that perhaps the Lord was calling us back to adoption. While Mike was working a full-time job and had a career as a realtor, Ashley was working two part time jobs and homeschooling the kids. It was a busy time, but one we felt would be ready when we were blessed with the child the Lord chose to place in our home. We began the process with a local agency, and after paying thousands of dollars and being in the process for two years we realized the door with that agency was closing. Finally, after much prayer and conferring with those around us in our church family who had also been through the adoption process, we stumbled upon an agency that held the same values we had as believers and also had a need for families. We felt instinctively called to it and began pursuing the opportunity to work with this agency.
When Mike lost his full-time job that same year, we began to depend primarily on his income from the sale of houses, which decreased as the market did. We knew that if we still felt called to grow our family through adoption, it was going to be through a lot of prayer and the support of the church body. We believe the adoption will cost us about $52,500. We have already spent $14,242.90 in training, application and agency fees.
We were so blessed and thrilled to have received a matching grant of $10,000 through Lifesong partner “Fueling Hope”. We have actively applied to many others. Between family donations, a heloc loan, extra jobs, and savings our hope is that we will be able to bring home a child in the next 6-12 months instead of 3-4 years.
Adventures are scary and so is walking by faith. As we lean into this adventure with prayer and praise we thank the Lord for our circumstances and also know that he will faithfully meet all our needs as we move forward to bringing our baby home.
To quote Fred Rogers once again, “There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” We hope that this letter has allowed us to leave a bit of ourselves with you and specifically the heart we have for adoption.
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Lifesong has been blessed with partners who underwrite all U.S. administrative and fundraising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the adoption.
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