Thank you for visiting our adoption page!
Check out a Digital version of our support letter here:
https://simplebooklet.com/jeffandhannahadopt
Update – December 2022
Thanks to your generous donations, we have raised almost $29,000 toward our adoption! Unbelievable to see how our friends, family, coworkers, church family, and even strangers have blessed us to bring our kiddos home. You’ve blown us away with your kindness. Thank you.
We still have a long way to go, and we are expecting big things for 2023! Our revised estimates for bringing home (at least) 2 kiddos from Taiwan are closer to $45,000.
Next steps for us in the process:
With the completion of our home study in November, we have officially moved on to the matching process. Here, our agency sends us relevant profiles of children that are ready to be adopted and we work together to see if those children will be a good “match” for our family. In order for the adoption to progress, three parties have to agree on the match: Hannah and I, our agency in the US, and the agency in Taiwan. For us, it’s an opportunity to trust that God is working across languages, national borders, and teams of people to connect us with the children He has for us.
Three things you can be praying for:
1) Our preparation as future parents. One awesome thing about working with our agency is the emphasis they put on training and education. We’ve gone through hours of training on all sorts of different scenarios, read the books, met with the mentor families, will soon attend a conference…. there’s been a lot of training. But still we believe the most valuable training is the work God is doing in each of us to prepare us for what He is calling us to. Pray that we would continue to ardently pursue that calling and to embrace the challenges He’s put in our way to prepare us.
2) Staffing challenges in Taiwan. One thing that can delay our adoption is a shortage of workers to facilitate all the paperwork and logistics involved in matching with a set of children. Pray that God would provide the workers to be able to process our paperwork (and all the other adoptive families’) and keep this journey on track.
3) Favor with everyone we interact with. Pray that we would continue to experience God’s favor at each step of the process – whether it’s through someone being willing to expedite a file, someone just seeing something “different” as they look through our files, or some other God-designed connection between us and the people we interact with. God is an orchestrator, and we’re excited to see how He continues to orchestrate on our behalf.
God bless you all, and may you have a healthy, prosperous, and blessed 2023!
_____
It’s been an exciting season in the White family household. No, no one received a promotion. No, we didn’t buy the latest gadget. And no – we did NOT bring home another cat!
It’s been exciting because we have recently embarked on a life-changing journey: starting our family through adoption.
Now, while I can tell you that our formal journey began in January 2022, God has been leading us here for much longer.
Hannah: I could start the timeline of events as early as when my own parents adopted when I was in high school, but for your sake, I’ll start with last Labor Day. A friend was visiting from out of town, and during her stay, we went river tubing. Now, the river levels were low, and if you’ve ever gone river tubing, you know this means there’s lots of time to talk! So, as we’re sitting in tubes in the middle of the Cape Fear River, she asks me about our intent to start a family. I told her how we desired to, but I had recently heard (yet again) how difficult it would be for me to become pregnant. And as I was expounding on our difficulties with infertility, I confessed something to her that I had been feeling in my spirit for quite some time but didn’t want to admit: I knew God was wanting to use my journey to parenthood to address some issues present in my heart. I knew that for Jeff and I to start our family, it would require one thing: intentionality. And you see, despite my desire to have children, intentionally choosing to become parents scared (and if I’m honest, still somewhat scares) me—What if I’m not a good mom? What if I don’t reflect a good marriage to my children? What if parenthood is incredibly harder and requires much more sacrifice than what I can handle? And if these were the terms, how would I live with myself knowing I chose them?
For me, the fear of intentionality started much like it starts for anyone else—I had been hurt by things I’ve chosen. And at various times in my life, the weight of those choices has felt unbearable. And somewhere along the way, I had allowed a lie to reside in my heart as a truth: I secretly believed that life’s difficulties and disappointments would be more easily reconciled if they weren’t associated with a deliberate choice. I wanted a family, but I also wanted it to “just happen to me.” But God had other plans. He was using my issues with infertility as an opportunity to heal my heart, and He was inviting me to trust Him—to trust His ability to shoulder any risk of pain and disappointment—by intentionally stepping into parenthood through adoption.
Jeff: I believe Jesus is LORD—meaning “everything was created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15-17). But what does that mean when it comes to my marriage and God’s plan for my family? In the past several years, God has been teaching me that it means welcoming Him into my hopes, fears, plans, and the day-to-day rhythm of my marriage. And it means discovering how much richer, deeper, and more fulfilling my life is when I seek and heed His counsel. And for me, the more I have welcomed God into the seemingly “routine” and “mundane,” the more He has filled that space with His presence and divine “nudges.”
Last October, I began to feel God’s persistent nudge in a new direction: to intentionally prepare our lives for adoption. I did not know what that meant. I took a couple of months to mentally prepare myself for adoption before realizing that obediently “preparing our lives for adoption” would eventually require pursuing adoption. The Bible says over and over that God directs our steps…but that doesn’t mean He takes the steps for us. So, in January, we began researching, having conversations about adoption, and exploring what the process would look like. And if our journey toward adoption has taught me one thing so far, it’s that obedience requires continuing to take steps, to make decisions, to move forward—and to trust God to lead as we walk.
It was starting to become apparent that God was calling us to stop waiting on circumstances and that He was creating a shared vision for adoption between us. So, we began taking action.
In January 2022, we were introduced to Lifeline Children’s Services (https://lifelinechild.org/) and shortly thereafter chose to partner with them as our adoption agency. We recently applied to their international adoption program, and our intent is to adopt at least one child from Taiwan, though we are strongly considering adopting a sibling pair.
So, what happens next?
> Home Study (3-5 months) – This is the stage where the adoption agency studies our home life and confirms we meet the requirements of the US government, the Taiwanese government, and Lifeline’s agency partner within Taiwan for adoption.
> Matching (1-?? months) – Once our home study is approved, we review profiles of children available for adoption in Taiwan and work with Lifeline to “match” with our child(ren).
> US immigration process (5-7 months) – Here we apply to adopt from another country… and get good at waiting while paperwork is processed.
> Taiwanese court process (3-5 months) – Here our intent to adopt is legally approved within Taiwan.
> SHOWTIME – After all that, we FINALLY go get our kid(s)!
But we have to be forthright—we cannot do this on our own. We need your help.
Adopting our child(ren) is a major investment that will require significant adjustment on the part of our family. We will incur many expenses related to agency fees, legal fees, medical expenses, immigration paperwork, and travel expenses; and because we are willing to adopt a sibling pair, we project our adoption to total $35,000-$50,000.
Hannah and I have already scrounged and dipped into some savings to make the first installment of agency fees, making our total investment to-date over $4,000. Once our home study is approved, we can begin applying for other means of financials assistance, but even then, we still expect to need help. So, we are asking friends and family to give. While no gift is “too small,” we are setting a goal to reach 1,000 gifts of $35.
We know this is an aggressive goal, but we also know that God never asks anyone to do anything without the plan to provide.
When you give, you are partnering with our family to let our child(ren) come home. That’s huge, so thank you in advance!
Instructions for Giving
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 “White 10098”, to ensure it is credited to our account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 9, Gridley, IL 61744.
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.
- In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to Lifesong for Orphans. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use.
- Lifesong is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Individual donations of $50 or more and yearly donations totaling $250 or more will receive a tax-deductible receipt. Receipts for donations under $50 will gladly be sent upon request.
- *3.5% fee for donations given with an American Express card