Please welcome Mary Leigh Brown to the Show Hope blog. As we spend this month focusing on Adoption Aid, Mary Leigh joins us to talk about the financial costs of international adoption. Give to Show Hope’s Adoption Aid program to be a part of these life-changing transformations!
Nick and I had been married maybe a few months when I went online and requested an adoption information packet from an agency. The day it came I ran in from the mailbox, hopped onto the couch, and tore it open. I pored over each and every word of it, reading it from cover to cover many times. I knew one day we would be filling out that enclosed application. One day.
About a year into our marriage, I somehow convinced my husband to go to an informational meeting at our local adoption agency, you know “just to see what it was all about.” He agreed and off we went. I was so excited to finally be moving, or as he thought “just gathering information.” We tend to differ quite a bit in that area, I’m a go-er and he’s an information gatherer.
We were handed a packet of information as we walked in and sat down and while waiting for it to start I thumbed through the packet. I remember vividly turning to the spreadsheet of all the countries they work with, the ages of the children available for adoption, length of process, and the cost of that program. I scanned that document, dreaming of the faces this sheet represented. Nick was looking over my shoulder, reading too. He wasn’t daydreaming of the baby that would one day be our son or daughter–I could feel his eyes burning a hole in that paper right across the line that said “Cost of Program.” Thankfully, the meeting started before he could kindly tell me to get up and go.
As soon as the doors shut on our car, I said, “So, what do you think?” In a very matter of fact way, Nick responded, “Well, we can’t do that. We don’t have $30,000.” And with that one statement, and the weight of which it was said, my dreams came crashing down. I don’t think much more was said the rest of the drive home. Yes, he was right. We didn’t have $30,000. It was more than I made in a year. There is no way we could do this. Just no way. I added that packet of information to my drawer in my nightstand and we simply carried on with life…for a while, at least.
A couple of years later, that $30,000 mountain loomed very large. I knew God had called us to this, for such a time as this, and prayed that He would provide…and He did! Today, our home is full of love, laughter, sticky finger prints in the hall, and blocks and cars from one end of the house to the other. Two boys, more joy than we could ever had imagined. What a blessed life we are living!
This is why Show Hope needs you! Those mountains seem impassable. They are an obstacle that, unfortunately, keeps many families from taking that step. As a family who knows what it’s like to have what seems like an immoveable mountain between you and your child, and a family who was honored to have Show Hope partner with us, we know firsthand how your donations to Adoption Aid make a tangible difference. You have the opportunity to be a light to a family. Consider making an eternal impact by giving to Show Hope’s Adoption Aid fund today!
Mary Leigh is a Show Hope grant recipient mom to Bates and Brodie, both of whom were adopted from South Korea. She and her husband, Nick, just began the adoption process again to bring home their little girl from South Korea. You can read more about her growing family and orphan advocacy efforts at someshadesofbrown.com.
