The Cost…

The most asked question we getJ

2^nd is why so much?

So here is a run down of how it works, where we are, and how God has provided.

Nathaniel was part of a program for hard to place children within our agency….so from the start the agency waived their fees of $5800.

The home study was roughly $2000.00 plus the cost of postage, copies, birth certificates, doctor visits, lab work, authentication, certification, and misc. cost put us at another $1000+. I have to chuckle at the way we came up with this money. It was actually a terrible week with a silver lining. I was backing out of the drive way when I ran into my husband’s car. If he had parked where I told him it would not have got hit but we would not have received a large check from the insurance either. I got a friend to fix my car at a very discounted price. I now have a black mirror on one side and silver on the other but nobody has noticed (until now). Then I was rear ended when taking the kids to school. I got a little crack in my car bumper and a generous check from the insurance company. We chose to live with the small crack and use the money to complete our home study. Driving a minivan with two colored mirrors and a little dent is a small sacrifice we are very willing to makeJ

$900 to CIS for our finger printing and biometrics and it was all covered by our yard sale! We hope to have another one before we leave. If you are local and would like to donate we would greatly appreciate it!

Once we had all of our documents complete we had to send them to Houston, TX to the Chinese Consulate. The cost was around $600 but we had a very unexpected surprise. Chad’s cousin not only delivered them for us saving us $200 but she also covered the fee. We paid nothing!

Thanks to Chad’s cousin we were able to pay the $900 fee to China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption. I assume this covers translation and processing. Just my guess.

So that brings us to dateJ

What is left?

Visa for Nate:  $230

Visa for me: $140

Travel (airfare, hotel, food): $4850

Airfare for Nate home: $900

Legal Fees in China: $1385

Orphanage Donation (mandatory): $6100

Post Home Study Updates: $1500

Re-adoption Cost:??

Did I miss anything?

I am really scared about going by myself but as of right now I don’t see any other way. We simply don’t have the money. To add an extra person it would be around: $3500-$4000. If God provides I will be bringing Colin as my sidekick. Chad will not be able to get off work at the start of the school year.

So as a re-cap:

We have 4-5 months until we bring our little guy home and in need of $13,600!

God is our plan A so there is no need for plan B’s.

No worries, God will provide.

PS… I hear our dossier is in the Review Room! That could mean our LOA is right around the cornerJ

ONE STEP CLOSER