Where Are Your Donations Going?

The Lenths

One of our biggest fears as we started on this adoption journey was the money it would take to bring our little girl home. But when you know God is leading, what else is there to do but follow? So we took a leap of Faith and we continue to pray each day that God will supply the finances to make it happen.

We have had big donations and small donations - each one is such a blessing and vitally important to helping us. Every donation that comes in humbles and amazes us as we watch God provide through His faithful Body. Thank you so much for giving what you can.

If you've never adopted or had someone close to you that has adopted, you might wonder what all the money is needed for. To give you an idea of the financial breakdown of our adoption, it is easiest to break it down into a few different parts:

Part 1 - Agency fees ~~ $3,400

• These are the fees that CCAI , our adoption agency, asks for. We will be making the first big payment very soon with continued help. CCAI will be helping with our dossier, translations, communications, and other paperwork throughout this journey.

Part 2 - Our dossier and Nephtali's dossier ~~ $1200

• This will take 3-4 months for us and the lawyer in Haiti to gather due to waiting on various government agencies. Once both dossiers are complete they will be submitted to the Haitian government and the waiting begins for them to be processed through several different Haitian government departments.

Part 3 - Haitian lawyer and Orphanage fees ~~ $5000

• This fee will cover the work of the lawyer in Haiti, the processing of our paperwork, and provide for our daughter while she is living at the Life Line orphanage waiting to come home.

Part 4 - Nephtali's Visa, physical and other testing ~~ $500 to $1500

Part 5 - Travel ~~ $3300-$5000

• Trip 1 ~~ $1500 to $2500 range
• Trip 2 ~~ $1800 to $2500 range

We will have to travel twice to Haiti for the adoption. The first trip is to file paperwork. The agency usually sets up this first trip and you travel with a CCAI group. This is very helpful when you are entering a country you are not familiar with. For us this is different, since my husband goes down every January to work at the orphanage and has had a lot of experience with the culture, communities, and people. We are hoping to save cut some costs by planning our own travel.

The second trip will be to bring our daughter home!!

The costs of the trips vary because airline prices change so quickly and we are not sure when in the year we will need to plan either trip.

There are also other things that might or might not have to be done. Depending on the speed of the Haitian government, some forms are likely to expire and need to be updated. There is possible medical testing for Nephtali that may be needed. And as always, in life, there is the unexpected!

It is our hearts' desire and prayer that any money raised, beyond what we need to bring Nephtali home, be used to help other families adopting one of the precious 80 children longing for a mom and a dad and to help feed those 80 little tummies that some days growl with hunger.

If you feel moved to, we would love your help in reaching these goals. If you have any questions about the process or our journey please contact us. We will be more then willing to answer them.

We are all called to be good stewards of God's money. And if we can help you do that by answering your questions we would be more than happy to do so.

In His precious name.