Jeremy and Rachel Smith

Updates

• Update 23

  

  Day 216. Adopt from Liberia. Happy Halloween!

  November 1, 2022

  Halloween is such a kid holiday at our house. I love it. We have collections of costumes and we have costume movie night (dress up in our favorite Halloween costumes from years past and watch a movie). Last year, we had 5 kids on Halloween. The fosters were here and we had a blast. We miss them. We hope they are doing well. We pray for an update. We wish the child welfare system was better.

  Last year at this time, River and Sadie were still with their birth family. We have paperwork that tells their story and has a timeline of events that sums up their short lives so far.

  They entered the children’s home owned by Small World Adoption Agency on 11/1/2021.

  So, on 10/31/2021, they spent their last night with their bio family. They were not in good health and the additional children in their family of origin were there, too. The choice to place River and Sadie in the children’s home and pray for an adoptive family to choose them was not an easy one. It was one made to save the lives of their cousins as well. Just not enough food to go around and not enough adults to care for them, and never enough jobs to go around.

  We have 30 days left until Sadie turns 5. I don’t think she knows her birthday. Most kids in Liberia don’t know, from what we have heard. My newest Liberian friend just celebrated his 8th birthday. He was so apprehensive the day before he kept trying to give his “birthday” away to his new adoptive siblings. But, when he finally experienced his first birthday party, he had a great time.

  Not sure how to explain the loss I feel for him to get his first birthday acknowledgment at age 8.

  I guess I should be glad he made it 7 years in Liberia. Statistically, that’s an unlikely accomplishment all by itself.

  So as we prepare to trick or treat and laugh and eat candy, it does make me miss River and Sadie today, and I miss the fosters every day, but more on big days I had such great memories with them. Kid milestone memories are important.

  As we all think back to age 8, and all that went down in our lives as kids that year, I am thankful that the kids under my roof tonight are already having a blast. I am hopeful that River and Sadie will be here soon, to start their milestone memories the American way, while never forgetting and cherishing those that helped with their survival up to this point of adoption.

  Birthday parties are secondary when kids are dying from starvation and illness and violence. I am proud of Liberia’s progress and hopeful for their future.

  We have become noonday ambassadors to sell handmade items from artisans all over the world and support ethical free trade and fund our adoption costs simultaneously.

  https://bit.ly/Smith-adoption Click to shop now!
  We are collecting all textiles to fundraise for our adoption. We get $0.20/pound. Materials go both here and overseas to give a hand up to those in need asking for jobs and materials.

  Call, text, email, pm us and we will schedule pickups
  We are collecting name brand empty ink cartridges and toner cartridges to recycle and are paid by the empty cartridges.

  Call, text, email, pm us and we will schedule pickups.
  We have bonfire merchandise for sale designed by our kids:

  https://www.bonfire.com/store/merchandise-to-adopt-2-liberian-daughters/
  Thank you for helping. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being good.

  I want my kids on the same continent. We are getting close. The end is the hardest part. It becomes overwhelming and scary and exciting and exhausting. And as everything seems to be going “right”, everything feels so out of control. Reminds me of labor with Little. I chose natural childbirth with Little. She is now 6. Natural childbirth is a personal choice. Not right or wrong at all, just an option some choose. I guess for others it can happen so fast, it’s not really a “choice”. For me, it was a choice. And as those last few moments occurred, I remember them clearer than I remember anything else.

  My doctor said I was at “4” and she was going to go home and take a shower and come back and be with me all night if that’s what we needed. We had been at this for several hours already. It was 4:30pm. My 2 dear friends were with me, and one also went home to check on her kids and get ready for a long night of labor. The other told Jeremy to try to take a nap and she sat with me and held my hand and continued to reassure me I was doing good, and that everything is going beautifully.

  Then there was that moment of panic. That moment of me feeling like I was staring down this long dark corridor of apprehensive unknowns. I did childbirth before, but not naturally. I’m not a panicky person. But I had a moment of panic. I pushed it back, prayed for God to just be present and protect “Little” through this next part. The part in me that needed to heal. The part in me that needed to learn I could trust and depend on Jeremy, too. The part in my heart that needed to know that although I may feel alone in that dark corridor of apprehensive unknown, alone is a choice. I asked for everyone to wake up and everyone to come back. I told my dear friend, Devon, to wake Jeremy up because I can’t do this next part without him. So Devon listened and left Jeremy and I alone in our delivery room as he reassured me he knew what to do if this baby showed up before everyone else made it back. We are good, he said. You are doing great. It’s fine. Everything is fine. We get to meet our next daughter soon.

  This calm surrender and confidence washed over me. “Little” was born just 18 minutes later. My doctor barely had on gloves as she ran to deliver my daughter.

  Since then, I’ve been different. I’ve been healed from things I may never fully understand. One thing, I am not alone unless I choose to be. God is there. He sends extra people, too. He just waits for us to choose.

  Thanks for helping. Thanks for not making me do this last part of “delivery” of these 2 sweet girls alone.

  People are good, with good intentions. Keep…. …..going

• Update 22

  

  Day 209. Adopt 2 Liberian Daughters

  October 24, 2022

  We just got our approval letter for our I 600A fo in the mail! This means the US embassy approves of us adopting River (age 6) and Sadie (age 4) from Liberia. We thought this would take 3-5 weeks from fingerprinting, but it only took 1 week!

  Next step is to send our Dossier (fancy French word for info) to Liberia and let their government officially approve us to adopt these 2 specific kiddos.

  This could take 1 week or 4 months. We have no way of knowing.

  After that process completes, we get a court date in Liberia to appear and complete their adoption.

• Update 21

  

  Day 202. Adopt from Liberia. FBI fingerprinting done! The rock that floats.

  October 18, 2022

  The Adoption Process is like moving the biggest Rock I’ve ever seen. Our adoption process is becoming the Rock that Floats.

  Our adoption of these 2 little girls used to be the immovable Big Rock. It grew to a big rolling Rock with tons of momentum. Now it is about to float.

  Click here to see our “Adoption Rock” start to float.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  FBI fingerprinting is a big milestone in our timeline to get our feet on Liberian soil. On average, we will wait 30-45 days from today to get a letter (I-600A approval) from the USCIS (immigration for the United States) that gives us permission to adopt internationally from Liberia. After that approval, we send our documentation to Liberia (it’s ready to go except the I600A approval letter.)

  Then we wait again. During the next wait, Liberian government officials investigate the history of our Liberian daughters’ lives. They will talk to their mother, their aunt, the staff at Small World Children’s Home and any other adult or professional entity they deem appropriate for verifying that adoption to the United States is the last resort for their survival. Their mother is alive and is reportedly supportive of their adoption and relieved they have a family waiting.

  Click here to see our “Adoption Rock” start to float.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  We will get the chance to meet their birth family in Liberia, as their mother will be required to be present in court to sign for their adoption. We hope to establish a relationship with her, so she can check in on the girls and so we can check in on her.

  We have decided to become Noonday ambassadors. We are inspired by Noonday and the fair trade marketplace created by Noonday. We plan to use our profits to fund our own adoption, then use it to fund adoptions for other families. Noonday creates a fair trade world market for artisans all over the world to have dignified jobs. Human and child sex trafficking is a problem worldwide. We want a chance to combat slavery of this nature by providing jobs to those being rescued from traffickers all over the world. Noonday does that. Noonday supports adoption with every purchase. We love that, too! Our generation has found a way to make the global market an equal playing field for those wanting an honest day’s work that results in ways families can thrive, no matter where they were born, or what has happened to them.

  I am not a jewelry person. I wear my wedding rings and my Keep…. ….going bracelet and my watch.

  Now, I wear my bullet necklace.

  Click here to see our “Adoption Rock” start to float.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  My bullet necklace was made from used bullets and artillery found in fields of Africa from violent conflicts of the past. They are melted down and made into jewelry like my bullet necklace. It cost me $42. The journey of the bullets I wear around my neck are ones that I wear in memory of the loss of life. That loss of life created an instability in the foundation of the fields they fell in. Those same bullets now build a bridge between my throat and the hands that assembled the necklace. May we learn to stop using our bare hands to attack the throat of our rivals, and learn more about how bullet necklaces forge peace.

  https://ivonneliebenberg.noondaycollection.com/shop/moonlight-necklace/
  I hope to sell a lot of bullet necklaces. I hope to save a lot of lives with bullets around my neck.

  I did 2 separate blogs that I thought of a lot today, and want to reference them again, here.

  One is about weather, and after hurricane Ian made his mess, weather forecasts takes on new gravity for me.

  https://adopt100morehappykids.wordpress.com/2022/08/24/day-148-adopt-from-liberia-weather/

  Statistics are helpful for me to quantify a need for resources. Statistics also help tell stories without violating the privacy of those children, especially before they are ready to tell their story on their terms.

  Statistics I know well are those involving child sex trafficking in southwest Florida. I will not revisit those statistics at this moment, but just know that any hurricane increases the number of victims within the child sex trafficking industry. Fosters are trafficked. They are trafficked a lot. Some of us thought we had abolished slavery, but we remain wrong. I know, I’m sad too. Sad or not, if we don’t start talking about it more, exposing it more, punishing it more and allowing it less, we will regret it. Knowledge is power. When you are ready to be a part of the solution for child sex trafficking, just do a quick google search involving human trafficking and the Polaris project. At minimum, consider buying a bullet necklace from me to give jobs to those exiting trafficking on the other side of the earth.

  Click the next link to buy a necklace that helps our adoption and gives a job to former sex trafficking slaves.

  https://ivonneliebenberg.noondaycollection.com/onlinetrunkshow/?cl=151221D6-CB1E-44CB-A4ED-3B5042599288

  The 2nd blog is the one about our passports and can be found here:

  https://adopt100morehappykids.wordpress.com/2022/09/09/passports-im-not-a-saint-day-162-adopt-from-liberia/

  I have started comparing our adoption process to a big rock that is rolling down a dirt road, pushed by 100 different hands, all helping move us closer to our Liberian daughters. If you would like to help float the big rock across the ocean, a $5 donation makes a huge difference to the relentless heart of mine that could care less about the exhaustion of my soul on days like today.

  Click the next link to give $5.

  Click here to see our “Adoption Rock” start to float.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  The freedom to adopt a child from Liberia is one I was born with. Because I’m an American, some things are open for me, as granted by my birth on American soil. That freedom is sacred to me. The ability to complete an adoption is one we work for. Daily we work. We work to protect it, work to pay for it, work to maintain our status as “stable” and work to maintain the network of support that is mostly the readers of this blog to keep our big “rock of adoption dreams” rolling down a dirt road to reach our kids. Pretty soon our “rock of adoption dreams” will float across the Atlantic Ocean and back.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s

  The thing we have power over for this adoption is asking for help, and moving the mountain of money it takes to adopt 2 littles from Africa. We asked everyone. We brought every effort we had and borrowed effort from everyone willing to share and used every skill set we possess and then borrowed or developed more skill sets. We prayed every day, and honestly, after 3 years in the foster care world as a parent, my prayers are often angry. Possibly consistently angry, but consistently persistent as well.

  Then the support showed up, and still shows up every day. Every day, you are here in some form. Every day, someone helps. Every day someone does something unexpected. Whether it is clothes and textile donations, or noonday purchases or ink cartridges or cash or just a question to see how we are doing, help shows up every day.

  We still need around $16,000 to float across the Atlantic Ocean and back. Seems like such a small number, knowing we needed $71,100.00 just 202 days ago.

  Thanks for helping. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting the rock of adoption dreams that should sink, but instead floats.

  Click here to see our “Adoption Rock” start to float.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  Keep…. …..going.

• Update 20

  

  Day 196. Adopt from Liberia. Keep….. …..going.

  October 13, 2022

  https://adopt100morehappykids.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/day-196-adopt-our-liberian-daughters-keep-going/

  Please click link for full update!!
  I’m not sure how to start this one, just know it will end with :

  Keep…. ….going.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  as it always does. Because I will keep going.

  My Keep…. …..going bracelet has spread a lot of joy this week. For some reason it softens the blow when the worst imaginable things happen. Days when we unexpectedly lost the most. Days like September 28th. And days like September 11th, where we all lost a lot. And more personal days for me like April 1st and August 1st and May 21st and April 26th. Days my heart pauses and I accidentally hold my breath trying to figure out how to close some gaping hole in my soul the fosters left. Their birthdays. The days we said goodbye. The days in between. My runaway train imagination of where they are and what they could need, and if they remember when I sat for hours in a rocking chair just teaching them to breathe and think and learn how valuable and important they are. How their fight for survival was one they could lay down when under my roof, and what to do when they find themselves at risk for danger. Not “if”. When.

  Keep…. ….going.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  The bracelet helps me. I’m glad my friends are wearing it too. Something about the solidarity of standing together with that matriarch support of who we are together on the outside and what we know is the truth on our worst days on the inside. We still get up, and keep…. ….going. Because it’s a fight. Life is a battle of all kinds of things. Most days I have a lot of fight left in me at the end of the day. And on the days that cause the colossal collapse of that fight, I always have a little hope left. And the confidence of the bracelet.

  Keep…. ….going.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  Because God asked me to. Because it’s the right thing to do. Because the weaponization of our children is real. They will fight for something. Let it not be their life, as my fosters did. Let it be an easier cause. Like cancer or how to build a microwave that doesn’t need power!

  Devon Crews, thanks for the bracelet. It still helps.

  So as I am searching for what to say or how to start and what to say, on my treadmill, lost a bit today, Jeremy bursts in my sacred dark workout room and I immediately think there is a broken bone in a child somewhere….nope! We got a $7000 grant from Gift of Adoption.

  $7000 grant.

  Gift of Adoption
  Speechless, tearful, happy, and humbled.

  Combining Noonday final numbers from Ivonne and all those who helped with our noonday show, total donation came to $1200.

  $1200 donation

  Noonday Show with Ivonne Liebenberg
  https://ivonneliebenberg.noondaycollection.com

  So in the last 30 days, our daughters in Liberia have had $9300 cash show up to support their adoption. $1100 in anonymous donations, plus $7000 from gift of adoption, plus $1200 from noonday.

  It’s incredible. If you are reading this blog and considering adoption, please know that you can do this and I will help you.

  We have a very narrow window to make it to Sadie’s 5th birthday on 12/1. It was always a lofty goal, a possible miracle, and as I continue to ask God to keep moving mountains out of my way to get my arms around our 2 youngest daughters, I know it is because of the goodness of people around us that we are even close to the realm of making it.

  Keep…. ….going.

  https://adopttogether.herokuapp.com/families/the-smith-s
  Your generosity and solidarity and encouragement and hope, even amidst an actual hurricane, put us in position to be there, and you continue to hold us in position to make it to a birthday party of a kid we haven’t met. It seems like our family’s journey to adopt these kids is like one big rock. And your help looks like 100 hands rolling one big rock down one long dirt road.

  Our “rock” is now in the hands of government officials. Both here in the US and in Liberia. This part is about to get hard. After we get fingerprinted on Monday for the US immigration office, there is nothing left to do but wait. (And fundraise for travel) and wait.

  The wait is hard. Your prayers will still move our rock. But our physical ability to push is about to end. The wait is going to be hard. The unknown will be even harder. “When” is better than “if”. Thanks for deleting the “if”. Now we wait.

  Hoping our big rock and willingness to roll is paving a highway to make adoption easier, faster, better and make families stronger. Hoping the wait does not stall our adoption unnecessarily.

  Each day our daughters live with us is one less day 2 more orphans don’t starve to death.

  It is no longer hard for me to ask for help.

  God is still God. Kids still need families. People are good, with good intentions.

  One thing I know for sure is that these 2 little sets feet we keep chasing down to bring under the protection of our family are worth the chase. These little girls have done and will do great things. They already know how to keep…. ….going. What else will they do? Click the link below to help if you want to. We appreciate the solidarity.

• Update 19

  Day 191. Adopt 2 from Liberia

  October 6, 2022

  Day 191. Adopt 2 from Liberia.

  October 6, 2022Adopt100more
  As we recover from Hurricane Ian, we are grateful we did not have any major damage, and have been in a position to help others.

  It is so devastating to see a natural disaster first hand. It’s encouraging to see people come together for good. People are good, with good intentions.

  We got the rest of our passports in the mail today! We are waiting on the US embassy to acknowledge our intent to adopt from Liberia, and stamp a piece of paper that gives the blessing of the US government for us to proceed to the next step.

  We still have a lot more money to find to afford our travel. We got news from Gift of Adoption Grants that we received approval to some type of grant assistance. We are unsure of the amount, or if there are funds available for our family to receive a grant. We should find out by October 18th.

  We received 2 separate anonymous donations totaling $1,100.00 this past week. Very encouraging! Especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.

  Our noonday fundraiser went really well! We will announce the final numbers next week. The support there was so encouraging.

  We are hoping for an e-mail update this month on how our kids are doing and maybe some new pictures!

  It is difficult to sleep and eat and function normally with so much loss all around us. It seems to take such deliberate effort to do simple things, like get out of bed.

  We are thankful we kept our lives and our home during hurricane Ian.

  Keep…. ….going.

• …
• 50
• 51
• 52
• 53
• 54
• 55
• 56
• 57
• 58