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.
19 days left!
Here are the dates still available in May to “purchase” as a donation to our kids adopt together fund.
Thanks so much!!!
Keep…. ….going!
Tomorrow is River’s birthday! She will be 7, on May 7th. We have 20 days left for you to “buy a day” to honor something important to you in the month of May! We are so grateful to our community of support that it has been 6 days so far for this fundraiser, and 11 days are already gone!
Happy Birthday to our Liberian daughter. Hopefully some day soon she will get to meet those that continue to fight with us for her homecoming!!
Keep…. ….going.
UPDATE ON CALENDAR FUNDRAISER!
***only 22 days left to “purchase” for the month of May and it’s only May 3rd! Thanks to our amazing support!***
Keep…. …..Going!
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….
I have gotten this question a lot this week. Here is the easy answer.
We only need
$17,249.18
to complete this adoption.
There are so many moving parts with adoption and timing is difficult to product. “Time is money” is true here as well. But, this is the exact number based on current market analysis and predictions with everything we know today.
Yesterday was my grandmother’s birthday. “Gran” and I were very close.
Gran took 5 grandkids ages 9 and under camping or “glamping” back in the 1980s. She also took us to Gaylord Opryland Hotel every year to stay a night and enjoy the Christmas decorations.
She showed up for everything we did. She was always nice, and always consistent and always available. She was obsessed with our birthdays, as if they were a holiday all their own.
Gran would have loved the #Phillthebox recycling idea because she could not stand wasting things or unnecessary items laying around that no one needs or wants. Learn more about Phill the Box and how it can help your adoption efforts by emailing Jennifer Tilton @ jtilton@ucds.co. We have collected 40,000 pounds of clothes and received $8000.00 for our adoption expenses. We are still collecting! Next deadline is May 12th, 2023.
Gran would have been so excited about our adoption and done everything she could to get our 2 new kids home quickly.
Gran was a “kid person” and the moment we announced adding to our family, she would have pursued with us. She would have mailed them birthday presents and care packages and maybe even made some phone calls to legislators and government officials on what we need to do for just these 2 little girls. She would have rolled her eyes about how long it takes and been frustrated with me at the logistics privately, but publicly, she would have appealed on my behalf to everyone she knew to help get them home faster. Just like many of you are, Gran would have been “all in”.
Yesterday, on Gran’s birthday, our adoption made great strides in so many areas.
Yesterday, we received a total of $1462.00 for our adoption expenses from several different avenues. Yesterday, I barely left my house and we did some Facebook sharing and texting on behalf of our Liberian daughters, but for the most part, I rested. So many others did so much on our behalf through giving, sharing, donating textiles, and even doing their own textile drives in other states! It is so nice to have so many people in our corner for this endeavor.
Days like yesterday involved closer to 100 people. All in different ways in their own lives doing one thing or another they can do as a nod of approval and a boost to our efforts. Whether it be Facebook posting, clothes donating, playing golf for adoption at #AdoptTogether, or buying Noonday purchases, or anonymously giving to our crowdfunding, or just texting me for “proof of life and sanity”, all of it helps. All of it makes parenting across an intercontinental avenue possible for just one more day, to keep waiting and keep…. …. going.
International adoption is about as predictable as hurricane season. You know it is going to happen, you know it is going to end, you have a range for time and severity and cost, and you can avoid it altogether by NOT living in Florida, and other coastal states, but at the end of the day, the wind and the water control the rest. We could choose NOT to adopt. But we love to adopt and we love living in the tropics. So Hurricanes and adoptions it is!
I could pick any day in the last 396 days and name at least 10 people each day that helped us specifically with the adoption of our 2 youngest daughters in Liberia. Each day the names of those 10 people change a little bit, but it always feels like and looks like a minimum team of 10, with lots of subs and a huge cheering section.
Jeremy and I and our young family might have been able to pull of an $80k adoption by working like crazy for 3-4 years or sinking into debt with home equity loans or other credit based offers that would take us years to recover from, or both.
We wanted to try another way. We wanted to make the nearly impossible attainable for us, and for others.
Instead of silent debt and 3-4 years, we are holding a record for fastest fundraising in a year’s time for an international adoption that we have ever heard of.
We are also teaching other families behind us in this process to move even faster than that. That is because people are still good, and God is still God.
Our official remaining fundraising balance based on current predictions of timing from our agency at Small World Adoption’s analysis of what we can predict is $17,249.18. That could change, but probably not by too much.
$17,249.18 is nothing compared to where we started just 1 year ago.
I hope we get more than we need and can divide up the extra between 2 families headed to Liberia close on our heels.
The Adkison family @ http://adopttogether.org/families/the-adkisons the Godfrey family @ https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-godfreys have children waiting in Liberia, and they about 1/8 of the way there.
It’s been an honor to accept the blessings of our friends, neighbors and strangers.
It’s been miraculous to see this happen faster than I imagined.
Thank you so much for joining us here. Feel free to invite anyone and everyone to finish this last bit of fundraising.
The last stretch is always the hardest and the most exciting, and we are officially in the last stretch. We should travel in the next 90-120
Much like hurricane season, it’s just hard to tell when we will actually make landfall.
We only need
$17,249.18
to complete this adoption.
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.
Thanks for getting us to the “home stretch”. We are excited to hear when we get to pack to go! Stay tuned….
Day 380. Adopt from Liberia. It’s been a year.
It’s been a year since we started down this road. International adoptions usually take 2-4 years to complete. We are ahead of schedule. We started this journey in April of 2022.
In May of 2022, we did a shoe fundraiser with Funds to Orgs, and our coach, Cody Phipps, helped us find over 4,000 pairs of shoes to exchange for $2,000.00 as we introduced our adoption goals to our community of support.
We started fundraising a year ago, needing close to $60,000 as we pursued 1 child in Liberia, then deciding the sibling group of River and Sadie were where our hearts lied, we committed to both on July 12th, 2022.
We found Adopt Together in July of 2022 and have fundraised nearly $12,000.00 in crowdfunding.
When we chose to adopt 2 children instead of 1, our fundraising goals soared to $80,000.00
In August, Jeremy resigned his position as a Senior Systems Administrator and we cashed out his retirement and immediately wrote huge checks for our adoption expenses, so that we could rescue River and Sadie from their state of orphanism in Liberia as soon as possible.
In September, we met our first Noonday Ambassador, Ivonne Liebenberg, and quickly were welcomed into the world of Noonday. Selling Noonday has been a great source of fundraising and encouragement to keep us moving forward in this process.
On September 28th, 2022, Hurricane Ian crossed over our house, and made a mess and delayed everything.
In October of 2022, we met Jennifer Tilton with Phill the Box and turned in our first clothing collection load. Since that time, we have turned in nearly 40,000 pounds of textiles and received nearly $8000.00 for our airfare and expenses.
In December of 2022, Sadie turned 5, and we missed it.
In January of 2023, we met the Clark family and learned we will have friends of our Liberian daughters just an hour away from us!
In February of 2023, we learned what used to take 1-4 months in Liberia processing now takes 7-10 months. We are currently on month 5 of that process.
In April of 2023, we mailed a box of treats to Liberia. Contents included a soccer ball, candy, pictures of our family and the Clark family, crayon sharpeners, Easter toys, journals and hope.
Hope that we are still coming!
In May of 2023, River will turn 7, and we will miss her birthday.
Let that be the last birthday we ever miss.
To help with our efforts, you can do 5 things.
1. Every time you see us, tell us we can do this and to keep…. … going.
2. Give to our crowdfunding site with Adopt Together here: https://bit.ly/adoptfaster
3. Purchase Noonday Collection Items to help with our fundraising here: https://bit.ly/adoptionwithnoonday
4. Bring us all your unwanted clothing and textiles or do a clothing drive for us in your community as soon as possible to increase our Phill The Box textile drive from 40,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds.
5. Share our story with everyone you know and ask them to give us $5.
Thanks so much!
The Smith Family
