COUNTDOWN to Doubling up on Kids

In just days, we will no longer have just two children, but we will have FOUR! Everyone in the States was so polite and controlled in their responses when we would tell them our adoption story. This morning we met a man from Portugal and shared a bit of our story and he exclaimed, "THAT'S CRAZY! Honorable of you, but WOW! That's going to be HARD!" He's right! It IS going to be hard. I, Amy, can figure out a lot of things linguistically and culturally when traveling, but I am able to go home and be ME, the English-speaking American who likes to joke and then have some quiet time. I am not going to be able to close the door on it any longer. Reality is, it will be hard, but we are ready to face that challenge. And we are ready to ask for help when we need it!

On this journey to China, we have discovered at least three things:
1) We said that every dollar matters in these adoptions and we were not joking. After our first fundraiser --a huge yard sale where so many people donated things and time and baked goods-- where we raised about $3,000, we received a card in the mail simply addressed to our house. The card stated that while they wanted to purchase something at the yard sale, they didn't have any money, but they were touched by what we were doing and wanted to give what they could until November. In the card was a $10 bill. We both looked at the card with no return address and realized we were holding what was equivalent to the widow's mite in the Bible. We praised God, held the card and cash and just wept. This small gift mattered! We prayed that God would work mightily through that extremely generous and heartfelt gift. 

2) Curve balls come, but God is often waiting for us to fully trust Him so He can hit a home run! Curve ball #1: our remodel we had been planning for the last three years kept getting delayed, changed, stalled and then it finally gets off the ground when we decide to adopt. The curve ball is: Of course it was postponed due to us actually needing an extra bedroom, but WILL IT FINISH IN TIME? Curve ball #2: the paperwork glitch with USCIS (see below). Curve ball #3: the $7,000 bill we weren't expecting from our agency right before leaving. So many people gave far more than we anticipated or thought possible and we were blown away. While $7,000 did not come in, we decided to trust it would and leave for China. Curve ball #4: while in China, we received another invoice from our agency stating we owed yet $6,000 more as their initial estimates for travel and hotel were off. While we were saddened and frustrated to hear this, we prayed and asked God to make a way. With difficulty getting through on the internet, we prayed that somehow the right emails would get through. Kimmer had received an email from someone saying they had heard of our adoption story and wanted to make a donation. Kimmer replied and shared more. The individual replied saying they wanted to donate $12,000 to us. Are you kidding me??? We had JUST received the $6,000 invoice and now it is covered in full? HOME RUN, GOD! Now, all of our adoption expenses will be covered leaving us able to go home debt-free and get the medical help for our kids without any lingering debt! What an incredibly huge blessing!!!

3) Let God handle the details and trust the officials working your case! We can only do what we can do when we can do it. But our infinite Provider is overseeing all the details and we truly believe He wants NO child to be without a family. Time was passing and our son ages out on November 8. We needed a paper to arrive from USCIS (US immigration) and we needed to get it back to them in a SHORT time frame. So short that it seemed impossible with the time it takes for things to get processed. We graciously contacted our officer who ended up being a miracle worker. He got us the necessary paper in record time. He followed up on the payment to make sure it was processed and he then processed our paperwork to get it moved to the next step THAT DAY before he left for vacation! That officer was amazing and we were SO thankful he was assigned to our case! We believe that was God working out the details all along!!!

I said we have learned at least three things. Those are the big things. The small things have to do with being flexible and allowing ourselves to experience the people and the culture of China. We will share more about that another time. It is now 1am here and everyone is asleep but me (Amy). It's time to sleep for we awake early to head to Hepu, Guangxi, Kathleen's home town!

Because we can...  

that is why have chosen to go all in as a family and bring two more children into our family. By fall of 2016, we will be a family of six! We are adopting two older children (actually, young people) from China. This journey to older children began years ago, but it was only recently that our entire family came to the same conclusion at the same time:

We can adopt older kids; they need a family, too.

It will be hard. Change is hard. Adoption is hard. It will be challenging. It will not be easy. But this world is not our home and life is short. With millions of kids living all over the world without a family, we have no excuse not to adopt. We have the resources to provide for two more children. We have great resources to help us along the way. We have friendships and families walking this journey with us and we know God will bring us more of that along this journey. And we will continually be turning toward our God and our people for help along the way.

We are scared and nervous and rightly so. What new parent isn't scared? We are just jumping into the teen years. No big deal, right? YIKES! Middle school, people! Middle school! Enough said, right? We have some experience with the wonder years, but middle school? Not so much. So we definitely need prayer!

Introducing the New Additions

Let me formally (or not so formally, as blogs may be) introduce you to our new children. Pictures (due to the sensitivity of international adoption) will have to wait until we are in China or returned to the US. So, like a good book, this is where you use your imagination.

Our son will turn 14 in November. This is why we are in a bit of a hurry to speed the process along and bring them home. China and the US have an adoption agreement and somewhere in that multi-page document it says that once kids turn 14 in China they are no longer adoptable. We are rushing every paper, every document, every signature to get everything approved and filed in time so we can be there in time for him to become a Callahan! He has been without a family for far too long! His American name will be William.

Our daughter turns nine soon and has spent all nine of her years in an orphanage. Her American name will be Grace. From what we know, she has remained in the same orphanage since hours after her birth. Our gracious girl was born with a cleft lip and palate, which has remained unrepaired. We are heartbroken for her and look forward to helping her receive the much needed surgeries. She smiles beautifully for the camera now, but we can't wait to give her the gift of a new smile! It is a miracle she has survived and not been malnourished with her unrepaired cleft. Every three minutes a child is born somewhere in the world with a cleft lip and/or palate. If they are born in a developed country like the United States, they receive immediate care that helps form their lip and gums to minimize surgery later on. In the developing world and third world countries, children born with clefts are considered social outcasts, cursed or worse. We are thankful our waiting daughter has a fighting spirit and is a survivor! When Amy was in the Philippines as a missionary, she was able to volunteer with Operation Smile, which provides free cleft surgeries to children around the world. If you would like to learn more about cleft lip and/or palate, you may visit: Operation Smile.

Ways You Can Partner With Us!

Pray:

We truly believe in the power of prayer and we do not approach the throne room lightly. We started this adoption process on our knees and will continually pray throughout the days and weeks ahead and more and we ask you to join with us in prayer.

• First and foremost, we need the paperwork to go more quickly than is humanly possible. We are breaking all the normal timelines for international adoption and we know that is not a big deal for our God! Let's join hands together and pray that God would work mightily through every hand which touches our paperwork.
• Secondly, we need prayer for funds. We certainly feel we could have tightened the belt buckle and saved for this last year, but we did not even plan on expanding our family in this way nor at this time. But we love how God guides us to move at HIS time, not ours. And now we can't wait to see Him move in the financial end of our adoption. We don't have it, but we know He does and He has already started to move through people to make it happen. When we say we need to raise close to $60,000 in less than five months, it sounds impossible. But we serve a mighty God and we hold true to the words of our Savior: With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. -Matthew 19:26
• We need prayer! While our entire family desires for the adoptions to happen, it is still going to be hard. We will double the number of kids in a matter of days! We definitely need prayer! Our kids at home need prayer as they learn what it is like to have new siblings and how to communicate with siblings who don't know English (even though that is down the road, it's something they are starting to talk about). So many changes and so many emotions, especially with our existing kids visiting their birth country of China.
• Finally, we will be doing a little remodeling to make way for the new ones. We definitely need prayer that goes quickly, smoothly and stays within the budget!

Give

As we shared above, adoption is expensive and we hope you will consider walking with us on this journey to bringing our kids home through giving financially. We believe that everyone plays a part in adoption and your financial gift can make a significant impact in bringing two children into a family. 
Ways to Give:

• You can give securely online through our Pure Charity fundraiser: Pure Charity (Note: They charge 5% to cover credit card fees and website costs; all funds go directly to our agency to cover adoption costs; donations are tax deductible as they are given directly to our agency).
• You can give directly to our Adoption Agency with a tax deductible gift and write "Callahan Adoption" in memo:
  Small World Adoption
  PO Box 1109
  Mount Juliet, TN 37121
• You can write a check directly to us (Note: not tax deductible). We have set up a separate account for all funds coming in for our adoption:
  Kimmer and Amy Callahan
  1240 E Hanley Ave
  Dalton Gardens, ID 83815
• Or you can donate through PayPal at: kwc@idahoestatelaw.com. Note it as a "Gift" in the options. 
• Save items (particularly large furniture or unique items) for us to sell at a fundraising yard sale we are having July 15.
• Volunteer and do a fundraiser for us! (We have LOADS of ideas!)
• Own a business? Give a percentage of sales for one day towards our adoption!
• Skip a coffee run once a week for a month and send us the money! 
• Get the whole family involved...Have your kids do a lemonade stand for our new kids! Lemonade for Orphans!
• Join us in a Run for Adoption (details will come later).
• Help us with a potential project for a widow (details will come later).
• Home improvement...we may really need some help getting our house ready for two more kids. It takes a village, people! 
• Stuff...we will likely need some stuff  (Right now, we know we need a new twin box spring, a small-ish paintable or wood desk; tall paintable, sturdy dresser for our girls and maybe some clothes - depending on their sizes.)
• Do you have an idea? We'd love to hear it!

Share

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter...we are on it! But honestly, face to face conversations and sharing our heart and our need is what moves people. We will soon have cards you can use to share. So, if you need some, let us know!

And if you made it to the end of this incredibly long blog post...come to my house and we will serve YOU coffee (or tea)!!! Thank you now for taking the steps you can to help us bring our kids home.