Here is our Adoption Journey so far…
We are adopting River (age 8 and her little sister, Sadie (age 6) from Liberia, Africa.
These 2 precious kids will complete our family of 7.
We chose Liberia because we are impressed by Liberia’s resilience and progress as a war torn country that is healing from so much. Liberia works hard to allow adoptions when necessary and to reunite families whenever possible. We are grateful Liberia is allowing us to adopt our daughters, and hopeful as we watch Liberia grow as a country.
We started this journey in April of 2022.
In May of 2023, with the help of our friends and family, church, community, and organizations like Noonday Collection, Phill the Box, Funds2Orgs, and Adopt Together, we reached our fundraising goals to make our adoption possible. At that time, we anticipated our Liberian daughters would be joining our family in 3-6 months time.
We did not get any solid updates for months, until November of 2023, when adoptions for multiple agencies, including our agency, were suspended in Liberia.
There are multiple political conflicts that brought adoptions to a halt in November of 2023. Although these political conflicts put Liberian children at risk, the layers of the conflicts are multifaceted and complicated beyond the adoption process itself.
At this time, there are no adoptions (domestic or international) progressing in Liberian until these political conflicts are resolved. This was a decision made by Liberian governmental leadership.
In February of 2024, we decided to travel to Liberia as a family and do some real-time fact finding on what barriers prevent our family from being together.
We have met with multiple Liberian government officials and multiple individuals who play a role in working in adoptions here. We have spoken with multiple US congressional offices, and have reached out to anyone in the adoption realm that can give insight and advice in a way forward for our children. We continue to hope the US embassy in Liberia will assist us, but have not been able to get a meeting with them to discuss our concerns.
We have visited our children’s orphanage multiple times a week. We have done multiple fundraisers to keep the doors of our daughters’ orphanage open, keep the children’s needs met, and support the staff that cares for them. We have physically done all we can to assist the orphanage in maintaining quality, safety and health for the children. We have discussed our case with experts near and far.
We have been in Liberia for over 3 months, and are sadly running out of funds to remain here.
We fear if we leave, our encouragement and our persistence to represent American families will be lost with our departure. We fear if we leave, the support we have recruited for the kids here will fade. We fear if we leave, the Liberian government will be less motivated to remember our children’s case.
Thanks to each of you and the words of encouragement, financial donations, textile donations and actions of noonday purchasing power to move mountains this past year. We hope you will help us push one more mountain of money out of our way to complete our family.
We continue to humbly ask for any assistance that can be found to support our family in this quest for safety for more than just our 2 Liberian daughters, but a quest to provide a safe way home for them and their peers that wait in orphanages in Liberia.
I have learned this week that many people who have given to our site here, do not know what “Adopttogether” actually is. Here it goes!
This week, we got great news! AdoptTogether is our crowdfunding site, and they hosted a golf tournament on April 28th. They spotlighted 4 families and asked their participants at the gold tournament to try to finish out the fundraising needs for all 4 families.
They did it.
The $15,024.10 we still needed to finish out this adoption fundraising is being paid by AdoptTogether, in the form of a grant, to complete our adoption funds.
We are fully funded.
As of today, there are 5,816 families with active Adopttogether accounts. I am so encouraged by the number of families choosing adoption and asking for help.
People are good, with good intentions. And I am convinced that there will always be enough good intentions for just one more kid to complete their adoption. No matter what the cost.
We are still collecting clothes and textiles with PhilltheBox. We are still selling Noonday Collection. We are still sharing our AdoptTogether Profile as much as possible. We are still accepting donations for adoptions.
Because there are other kids waiting with families coming after them. Kids that have a need that cannot be answered by anything else, but adoption. As you might feel overwhelmed by the 5,816 number, focus back with me to Rejoice and Mallory’s kids.
Rejoice is 4. She lives in Liberia. She is matched for adoption with Sam and Selah Godfrey. They live in Tennessee. They need about $30k to finish Rejoice’s adoption.
Mallory’s kids names and faces are unknown. We know they reside in Small World Adoption’s children’s home. We are not sure which 2 kids will be Mallory’s kids yet. When Mallory and Jake Adkison complete their paperwork and fundraising, the team at Small World, including the staff in Liberia, will counsel Mallory and Jake on which children would be the best situation for their family. Mallory and Jake will get the chance to choose.
I would also add that kids that enter an orphanage together and live there for months to years together are often as much like siblings as any other biological sibling connection. The fosters that lived here and have moved on are still referred to as “siblings” by the rest of the kids that live here today, and vice versa. So it is possible Mallory and Jake will have the chance to be matched with 2 little kids that may not have biology in common with each other.
Siblings may find themselves connected by biology at some point, but the sibling bond has nothing to do with biology. It has to do with time and the commonality of a starting point before a kid knows who they want to be. Siblings help each other with that.
Back to AdoptTogether and my new friend, Hank.
Hank has a non-profit. It’s called AdoptTogether. It’s a crowdfunding site that is a 501c3, so that families adopting can have a stage to stand on to ask for help on their adoption dreams in a transparent environment or accountability and integrity. It can function like a blog and is shareable across several social media platforms, and is capable of facilitating matching grants.
I wish I would have found AdoptTogether sooner. It’s fantastic!
I found AdoptTogether on a Google search for adoption grants on July 26th, 2022. Just 14 days after officially accepting the privilege of parenting River and Sadie (ages 6 and 4 years old) waiting in Liberia for a family.
I researched this guy Hank, on the World Wide Web, to see what he was trying to do. As I read about the reasons he had to found a crowdfunding company just for Adoption, I could hear my daughters voices in the perspective of Hank’s story.
Specifically, I could hear the voice of “Middle”. Hank is a generation ahead of his time in terms of making adoption free to families with the resources and expertise to parent kids while they are still kids. Hank grew up in a large sibling group heavily entrenched in the foster and adoption world. He saw past the problem and created a choice for the solution of the biggest fixable problem. Money.
People with young kids typically have a shortage of extra cash. It’s just the stage in life they are in. Most people with young kids could add one more kid to the mix, but they need the capital to do so safely, without trading their ability to feed and care for the kids they have.
Hank reminds me of a grown-up “Middle”. “Middle” can see past the tragedy long enough to have a new idea to make it work. If the main problem of adoption is that we don’t have enough families because it is so expensive, let’s just remove the expense part and see what happens.
It was an honor and privilege to meet Hank this past week. I’m so glad I got to look him in the eye as a mother of so many kids, and say “Hank, I just want to say I am proud of you. In your story, I hear my daughters’ perspective of this problem. Thank you for solving this problem for their generation ahead of schedule.”
The sibling perspective of how to find families who want the kids, and are equipped to add more kids to their family, but don’t have the extra capital laying around to add the kids, because young families don’t have extra capital on average.”
My job is to find the families.
Calling all families considering adoption. We just took money off the table.
Any willing family can crowdfund with AdoptTogether, Recycle Textiles with Phill the Box and partner up with any member of my Adoption Trunk Show Experts Team of Noonday Ambassadors to reach a fully funded adoption in less than 9 months.
Any Family. Any Adoption.
Who is willing?
Just want to take a minute and tell you about Mallory’s kids.
They are on my pending list. My bucket list of helping 100 kids home.
Sometimes I think about the day I will be dead, and someone will be talking about “my list”.
How I played this game in my 4th and 5th (yikes) decade of life and took big things and turned them into a daily check list and turned that into a path for kids… kids I can see…kids you will see…kids that are just kids, today. I coached myself to get up.
I will think back on today. How I coached myself to get up.
How it was hard to breathe when daughter number 4 and daughter number 5 left and how their faces and names spark this primal instinct in me to “mama bear” my way to them. But, I have to choose the elephant path, because that path will actually work. How daughter #6 and daughter #7 wait for me. So I have to keep…. ….going.
Mallory’s kids are residents of Liberia today. They reside with my kids, they are probably younger, and they are learning to breathe again. They are learning goodbye and hello and safety and peace.
Like me, the have to get up. They can’t stay in the grief and the loss and the confusion of orphanism. They have to eat. They have to sleep. They need to learn to play. They need to learn to share. They need to grow. Mallory is almost ready.
They have to keep…. …..going.
Because Mallory is coming. And she is good. Mallory is already their mother, and she is learning their story and calculating the days and the costs and the people and the things it will cost her assembly of adoption supporters to push her and her husband, Jake, to be waiting for the call, and immediately be able to go.
Mallory’s kids are grieving something today. Something that is not to be shared here. Mallory’s kids are fighting today. Fighting to find out how to be a kid. Mallory’s kids are breathing today. They’ve done so much without Mallory, yet. They will do so much more that she will be present for.
Mallory is our youngest “elephant” on our pending list of adoptive mothers traveling this road. The moment Mallory gets her arms around those kids, that space on my list goes from “baby Adkison 1 and baby Adkison 2” to the names of kids and that join my 100. 100 kids adoptions complete… we can get there faster.
Today. River is 7 and Sadie is 5. They are my Liberian daughters, they will be here soon.
The moment we get the call for approval and travel dates, we will be in a mad dash, like when my water broke and we had to stop the car and drive back to the hospital. False alarm turned into the real thing in one stop light.
I am convinced that people are good. I am convinced that our last $15,024.10 is going to get her soon. Our fundraising is will over 80% done.
When I put my feet on Liberian soil and find myself meeting my daughters for the first time, it will be great. I can’t wait. As I ask them to show me their friends and their home for the last 2 years and I help them say goodbye to an orphanage, I am not asking them to say goodbye to all of their friends.
We will not leave them there without a plan. I want them to show me Mallory’s kids. I want to look those kids in the eye and know for sure that they are matched. Because, they are Mallory’s kids.
For Mallory to be in Liberia, meeting her kids soon, she has a lot of money to find and homework to do.
While she is busy doing that, I will be in Liberia. How fast she gets there and back and how many birthdays those kids have left to celebrate without Mallory as their physical birthday planner, depends on you.
As we conclude this chapter of our 100 kids, Mallory’s story is in the middle. You can find that story.
If you have enjoyed the race of the Smith Family Adoption Adventure, you will love Mallory’s kids even more.
For my kids and their friends, we need a list of families willing to make their adoption one that means their friends that need families, come home too!
Taking signups for questions today.
Adopt100more@gmail.com
PS. Thanks to AdoptTogether, and the efforts of their whole team, Hank, Sueann, Artie and their organization, notified us today that we have all we need. They found a way to complete our adoption funds.
Any fundraising donations now will be over and above what we need. We will divide our extra between the Adkison and Godfrey adoption funds. Keep…. ….going. And thanks adopttogether, we look forward to years of helping family find success in adoption costs with the path provided here.
This past week has been hard. Mother’s Day is so weird for me. There is a quote by Jody Landers that resonates with me on a daily basis. The privilege of parenting is not lost on me. Not even one day.
“Children born to another mother call me “mommy”. The magnitude of that tragedy and the depth of that privilege are not lost on me.” Jody Landers
I was a “dog mom” before God or anyone else would let me parent a child. We said goodbye to Rocky this week, on my terms and his. This old blog post about Rocky makes me laugh.
August 2011…
My husband and I had been married for a little over 2 years and had never really “prevented” pregnancy. We started talking about kids around July of 2010….the normal time to talk about it after a year or so of marriage and realizing we were both 30. So I guess we were “trying” which is such a personal thing to share with people…..so we tried not to.
I switched jobs in 2011 (I’m an ER physician assistant and credentialing is always lengthy) and I ended up with an 30 days (paid) off consecutively, while waiting for my new job to start.
Great….this sounds good on the surface, but not to the girl trying to get pregnant for over a year now, a husband who she seems to be failing biologically
….with debts looming, especially my student loan debts, and the “clock” ticking on my maternal instincts, what in the world was I going to do at home with no structure, very little money, fears of all of my inadequacies, and the creeping suspicion we could not have biological kids at all and would never be able to afford adoption just looming…..
….As I looked around my quiet house on a day off with my husband at work and this 30 days of waiting pending…I saw Lucy, my boxer. When I glanced over at Lucy, lying by my feet as I sat on the couch considering all of my options…I suddenly realized that Lucy looked old….(9 year old boxers are old)…Jeremy is not a dog person…Lucy might be my last dog…and the clock was ticking slowly with no promising leads on any children…….My husband…not raised surrounded always by people and pets…what would it take to convince him I “need” another dog. I need to train a dog now for my kids.
After 2 weeks of no, we don’t need another boxer. Boxers are crazy and don’t usually hunt…we don’t need another boxer… I found a picture of a dog named “Blackie” on petfinder,…..I showed my husband Rocky’s picture and held my breath….he said “Huh….I kind of like him…..he looks like he could hunt…”and “well we can’t call him ‘Blackie’,….”, so I immediately renamed him “Rocky” and I knew I had 30 days off to acquire and train this dog.
The first 6-9 months of Rocky’s life is unknown. On a windy, country road in Hazard, Kentucky, Rocky and another dog named “Boxer” was pushed out of a truck and the driver sped away. Luckily, 2 little boys, saw the whole thing unfold and were angry and exasperated at this event. They, of course told their mother and convinced her, as children can do, that these dogs must be brought home with them. The options to take them to the “pound” would result in them being definitely separated and likely euthanized. Rocky is a black dog, and black dogs statistically get adopted last and euthanized first. Something about the pictures online was the reason. Rocky’s foster family advertised both dogs on facebook and petfinder, and did not find the “right family”. For a few months, it almost looked like they could just keep the dogs…then the crisis happened….. the older dog had gotten loose chased a car. She ultimately arrived to find “Boxer” lying in the middle of the road, obviously hit by a car and left to die, and Rocky standing over him, howling…She took “Boxer” to the vet and did everything they could to save him, but he died.
After that, the search for a permanent family for Rocky was urgent.
Initially, on petfinder, Rocky appeared to be in Franklin, TN. After a couple of days and emails, I found out he was in Hazard, KY. Franklin was only a 40 minute drive for me round trip. Hazard was 5 hours one-way. I was not swayed. The initial plan was for them to meet me halfway, but when our schedules did not coincide, I said I would drive the whole way. Then I convinced my husband to let me take his F150 “the Red Rocket” to Hazard, KY to to get a dog who was said to be 40-50 pounds, a year old, and a lab/boxer mix, leave at 8am, and hopefully make it back that night.
I told Jeremy that he would always make fun of me for my unswerving passion about getting Rocky, but one day Rocky would probably save someone’s life, and then he would understand I was right to go get him, instead of any other dog within a 4 hour driving distance one way…
…..Rocky left Hazard, KY riding shotgun with me in my husband’s perfectly clean truck…and he vomited everywhere 30 minutes into our trip…car sickness is a thing for dogs, apparently.
I laughed…hopefully Jeremy would not be too mad…..Nothing like vomit to bond you to a new family member.
I emailed Rocky’s foster mom to let her and her kids know how he was doing and that the vet guessed him at 6-8 months old. Then she told me the bear story….
From Rocky’s foster mom August 2011:
So the vet thinks he is only about 6-8 months old. WOW! He is going to be huge..
I forgot to tell you I have only seen him in aggressive mode one time and its hard to believe he would be this brave so young. My house sits in front of a small mountain. On any given day up behind my house You can see deer, foxes, rabbits, coyotes, and turkeys. I was in my house and I heard my other dogs barking. So I ran and looked out my kitchen to see a large black object run out of the mountain. I didn’t have my eyeglasses on so I at first I thought it was Rocky then I noticed it was running different so I ran out the back door thinking something was wrong with Rocky he was hurt! When I got to the door it was running across the field it was a black bear! Rocky at that time ran by me in full pursuit, his hair on his back raised ears up and him barking and showing his teeth. He was after the bear. I kept yelling for him finally he came back. So if you go camping, Rocky isn’t afraid of Bears. I just wish I would have captured it on video !
5/14/2023 (older Rachel, waiting for travel dates to Africa)
Rocky = Bear chaser, elephant heart.
Rocky did save lives, as I predicted he would. In a complicated way that only Rocky could do, and he did it more than once, in different ways. He stood between things and sat beside things and ran towards things, and walked beside things that moved us all to better places.
As I move through another Mother’s Day with grief for the days lost for my daughters’ first 5 and 7 years of life, and apprehension and excitement for what comes next, I hope this day passes quickly.
I don’t like Mother’s Day that much. But, I love the privilege of parenting more than anything else I’ve ever had a shot at doing.
Ready to be done with this fundraising. Grateful to take all the help you can give.
Update!!! https://youtu.be/eWd0ntTkYzw
Update on calendar and progress!
We have 18 days left available!
As of today, in this moment, we also only need 16,731.98.
To quantify my excitement better, on 4/29/23, I posted that we need $17,249.18.
4/29/23 was 8 days ago. $517.20 is what we have received in 8 days.
That’s not counting Noonday purchases in the last 4 days or the mountain of clothing and textiles in my garage we will turn in this week!
Many of you might not know the total cost… it’s in the summary… and it’s over $80k.
I try to only do these email updates when something big is happening or has happened, and $517.20 in 8 days is $64.65/day.
Keep… Going!
Thanks for those for joining us today. Thanks for those who threw in all you had in the beginning and helped us find the rest.
People are good.
Happy Birthday to River, who as of today is our 7 year old Liberian Daughter! (We have 2 7 year olds total). :)
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We are inviting everyone to “purchase” a day in the Calendar of May to help with these efforts. Your donation can be anonymous or with your name mentioned in the comments on which day you are purchasing. You can purchase the day for a minimum of what the date is. You are welcome to donate more than the date that you choose. The minimum value of May is $496, once all days are purchased. You can always give more and still claim a day. As we cross off until we can travel to Liberia. You can help by donating between $1-$31 until all days are gone. You can give to us personally as well!:)
Thanks for getting us to the “home stretch”. We are excited to hear when we get to pack to go! Stay tuned….
