Jeremy and Rachel Smith

Updates

• Update 289

  

  Travel Dates!

  October 12, 2025

  We received news from our agency that we are next in line for the U.S. embassy in Liberia to offer an appointment for visa applications for our children. We are hoping to travel in November, but have not received confirmation yet on exact dates. We also have heard that our son’s paperwork is miraculously moving along faster than expected, and we may be able to proceed with his adoption while we are in Liberia adopting the girls. This is amazing news, since we had originally thought this would be something that we could not complete until next year. This development does give us a more urgent fundraising need for his expenses, which still lack $9000 to be fully funded. If we do get his paperwork completed this month, we will have to come up with those funds while we are in Liberia in November. I am not sure where that money will come from, but, I know that if God decides to do miracles in the hearts of the Liberian government to get that paperwork done, hopefully He has a plan for that $9000 we still need. We appreciate your prayers for that as well. We might be able to bring the kids home in 1 trip, or might have to make 2 short trips fairly close together, depending on what the USCIS determines regarding our case. We do plan on doing YouTube videos while we are traveling so we can keep our friends and family up to date on this last chapter of our adoption adventure.💙
  Thanks to those of you who have donated clothes and textiles this past week and those that have shopped noonday! Every little bit continues to help with the costs of our expenses to bring our kids safely home. We appreciate each of you more than you will ever understand. Keep…. …going.

• Update 288

  Great news!

  September 29, 2025

  We have signed case history reports for the girls!!! We are so excited to have these 2 sheets of paper signed. We are now awaiting appointment dates from the US embassy in Liberia, so we can then set court dates to finalize their adoptions and travel to make plans to bring them home. The girls adoptions are fully funded! Thanks to many of you and several generous grants and donations over the last 3 years. Our son’s adoption is still in process, as is some of his fundraising. If you want to shop noonday, bring us textiles, or donate here for his fees, we are so grateful for your help! We should be able to travel to complete the girls’ adoptions within the next 60 days. Thanks you so much for your encouragement!

• Update 287

  Update

  September 11, 2025

  Adoption Update

  For the girls…
  We received news that their file is complete and awaiting final review and signature of Ms. Garmai Tokpah, Deputy Minister at the Liberia MOG. She is Liberia’s governmental supervisor over all Liberia adoptions, domestic and international. Jeremy did meet with Minister Tokpah on several occasions at her office while we lived in Liberia, to plead with the her on behalf of our children. He has continued to communicate with her via email and text since our departure from Liberia. Minister Tokpah did spend 12 years in the United States receiving her education and does respond with encouragement and compassion in her correspondence. We are grateful to learn that our daughters’ wait is held only in the hands of Minister Garmai Tokpah, as we believe her to be a woman of integrity that has genuine compassion for the orphan crisis in Liberia. Once Minister Tokpah signs her approval, nothing stands between us and scheduling a court date to meet with a judge in Liberia to finalize their adoption.

  For our son…
  This week, we accepted his official referral and signed our Letter of Intent to pursue his adoption. This letter, accompanied by a $2500.00, was sent to the Liberian MOG adoption unit to cover expenses they need in order to investigate his case and produce his official case history report. We also paid $900.00 to the U.S. State Department as a Monitoring Fee that is required to be paid by all families adopting internationally, per child they are adopting. Additionally, we paid our adoption agency $3500.00 for our Domestic Agency Fee for our son. All of these are one time fees we have been preparing for and saving for. The social workers at the MOG for the adoption unit in Liberia have met us, and they will work as fast as they can. But, the reality is that our son’s adoption from this point will take about 7-10 months for them to complete his case history report, and get him a court date. This is just Liberia’s processing time when they are not under any delays.

  In the meantime, we continue to get positive updates about all 3 kids! They are healthy and happy and enjoying school. There have been a couple of families complete adoptions and get their kids home to the U.S. over the last 2 months that are doing fantastic.

  Thank you for those that continue to donate clothing and textiles, as well as cash donations, noonday purchases, and words of encouragement. We know that your actions and your prayers continue to explode all around us. We also know that God has creative ways of working things out, so we have stopped most of our calculation games. We are ready to travel at any time to go get the girls and hope to have more news soon.
  As I stop to think about today’s date, 9/11, and all we lost as a country, I am so grateful. Grateful to live in a country where my rights and freedoms to travel can still be used to free others and extend protection and choices where that protection and choice did not in earnest exist before we crossed the ocean to guarantee it. For these 3 kids, had we known how complicated this adoption would be, guaranteeing their freedoms, protection and choices is something we could never have dreamt of doing without all of the good people with good intentions that just kept digging deeper to help us more. Thanks for all the digging. I hope we are almost there.
  Keep…. …going.💙#orphanismpanacea

• Update 286

  Over 2,300 days…so we will stop counting …(since we moved to FL)

  July 30, 2025

  Day 13 of something else
  Almost Gotcha Day

  Surrender and reset is something that I said out loud for the first time last night, but I have been aware of it for so long. It is a skill I learned in a simulation lab. It’s letting go of one body part, or breaking it, because we can fix it later. Like doing CPR and breaking ribs to compress the heart. Surrender and reset can be done quickly in the setting of pulseless electrical activity (where a heart is beating, but the blood is not really moving to all the organs well) when it seems a body is already dead. If you can wrap your mind around the fact that the body is dead and the mind is lingering and wants your help, it’s easier to have permission to help. It is easy to let go of the emotion we all have to protect the body of the child and chase what could be their mind. In their last moments, what do you want them to remember? As emergency medicine providers, we get permission to fight and fight hard, because there becomes only one shot. It is messy, and it is done without discussion in the moment, because we practiced it. It is the best and most efficient cohesive team assembled in humanity that I have seen. In the large space between death and life, the body matters a lot because it is connected to the mind. But, when that space between life and death becomes narrow, and a young mind cannot be asked what they want, the body becomes a tool to fight to protect their mind. No matter what the body needs to surrender so that the mind can make a sound choice whether or not to live to fight another day, it is more than acceptable, in my opinion, to throw everything in and keep throwing it, until someone can ask that beautiful young mind what they want to do with their body and mind that survived an emergency, especially if they cannot speak for themselves and no one else can speak for them. I hope that makes sense.

  When our daughters’ adoption was taking longer than expected, we decided to get on a plane and go let them know in person that we were still coming. It was just time in their bonding process with us that they meet us. Before we left, we did find out that their infrastructure (their adoption throughput) and the support of their peers (through other families like ours) was under an attack. So, we knew we were not coming home with our children, but we knew they needed to see our faces and our efforts and to be a part of our family to the best of our legal abilities. And as American citizens, and approved adoptive parents, and the support of a lot of amazing people that only God himself could have sent our way, we stayed for 5 months, to make sure that the boat they were floating on had zero holes, and that the leadership around them was actually good, and not corrupt, first of all. We did not have any reason to believe their leadership was corrupt. On that note, to their credit, it is extremely difficult to have parents with the experience Jeremy and I have watching and analyzing you and the children in your care at every move you make and be corrupt and still have our support. Even if an adult could get past both of us for 5 whole months conducting criminal activity, they could not do so and still abuse 33 children without their being signs of needs not being met. My children I have had the privilege of parenting since birth are excellent at knowing when kids needs are not being met. However, I could see that this situation was one that was what I would compare to a stable pediatric tachycardia. They are holding in a survival state, but it won’t last, and we better start doing something. Jeremy was in charge of how long we stayed. Although I do get to weigh in on all things we do, and Jeremy values my opinion the most, I have way too many creative ideas that I am way too passionate about to ever know how to be my own executive decision maker on where to start, or where to end, for that matter. And when Jeremy and I both are out of our depth, we stay on the simple trajectory of finishing what we started in just trying to get all of our children on one continent.

  Today, I woke up with a passport that has a sticker on it that says I can go to Liberia and visit my kids when I want to. This is my visa on my passport with the name assigned to me at birth. This gives me such nausea and such pain and such anguish. Because we have been battling for over 2,300 days to find the missing children we know that God called us to Florida to find. Although I am grateful for the birth certificate that gives me rights and responsibilities to have permission to move mountains in the name of than hands and feet of Jesus, why do my children in Liberia not have the same freedoms I do to move about the world? I understand they should need guardian permission, but why don’t they have a secured identity before I adopt them? As I look at my passport, I realize they don’t have one. And the only way they can get one is if I adopt them. So International Law states something different on identity. As a woman, in the United States of America, I do believe that a patriarchal system is the most organized one logistically. But, when a patriarch is not consistently present, for whatever reason, a first name and a number and a date of entrance to the world is enough for orphans that need freedom to move to a place of safety.

  There is nothing more personal than a name.

  Luckily for me, even though rarely is my name ever spelled correctly, for better or worse, I am told my actions make me memorable. Especially when I start stomping around Liberia looking for shoes for a child whose feet are getting too big for the kid sizes or hand me downs, because he is the oldest one.

  I cannot wait for you all to meet my son. He is so different from me. His personality gives me this sense of peace. It just evens me out and makes the weight of this wait worth the wait. All of my girls’ personalities fascinate me and intrigue me as well, and all of them are so fun and so easy to parent. But, the added layer of waiting longer because my son is part of the triplet package just makes me smile. I could have never planned a paper pregnancy of triplets at age 45 and ever gotten Jeremy Smith on board. Jeremy got there all on his own, and parenting children on different continents ages 12, 11, 10, 9, 9, and 7 is actually easier than it sounds. We don’t know how much longer this will take. We do know that we have a mess of paperwork that will require very specific skill sets in Liberia as well as the U.S., and we are praying for God to bring to our doorstep all of those answers and all of our children in His timing. We are grateful for your prayers, your clothing donations, your words of encouragement, your excitement and your questions on how it all works. We are most grateful for those that have gone before us, and without words or permission, have just moved in the trajectory the hands and feet of Jesus moved. #orphanismpanacea

  Gotcha:)

  Today, I really miss my Uncle Ted. I wish I would have told him out loud that the rhythm of his life and the beat of his drums inspired me the most. Here’s to marching across the earth, Uncle Ted, I hope you can see me from heaven. This blog is for you. You would like this remix of an old song now that the drums are added back. Keep…. …going.

  https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jbj9e9dGrY&si=iQrAKYuF0p_KHAGX

• Update 285

  Solidarity

  July 11, 2025

  We received great news today! Our friends who are in Liberia right now are getting great progress on their adoption! This means the relationships between Liberia and the US Embassy in Monrovia are remaining positive. This is miraculous news for those of us waiting to travel next!

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