Hope, Faith, and...an iPad!

Wow, I feel like God has really spoken to us this week! My 36th birthday was a few days ago. People kept asking me for gift ideas and I really didn't know what to say. All I really want is to have this huge invoice paid to my adoption agency and have the money I need for two more trips to Russia to bring my children home for good! The problem is I don't think people were looking to spend quite that much on my birthday...

I'll admit, I've been feeling a bit down and at times desperate about this. We have come so far in this adoption process and we're nearing the end, at least in terms of paperwork. Still, the money isn't there to finish this. I've literally been waiting on God, trusting that his timing is perfect, even if it's not what I had in mind.



For some reason this week has been particularly hard and I've been losing hope that we'll have the money in time to get the children home by Christmas. One evening I was praying and asking God for a sign of hope. Then I started reading MaryBeth Chapman's book, Choosing to See (which is amazing!). Beth Moore wrote the prologue and at the end she included a Bible verse. Isa. 43:5 says, "Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west." My eyes widened and I instantly felt peace.

Also, this week I noticed some of the blogs I follow were trying to raise money for a sweet orphan named Yulia. :-) I was able to watch something amazing unfold. They were able to raise over $20,000 in just 5 days! They raffled off a new iPad as an incentive. I was inspired and thought that would be a great way to raise the rest of the money we need for our adoptions. The problem was that I didn't have an iPad or the money to get one. I debated using my birthday money and my husband's overtime money (which I had planned to put towards the adoption) to buy an iPad and try to raffle it off, bit it seemed a bit risky. I decided to wait and just pray about it.


So you can imagine just how thrilled I was when I found out yesterday that I won the iPad they were giving away!! Now, some may wonder why I donated to the adoption fund for another child when we’re short the money we need to complete our adoptions. The truth is I believe we are ALL responsible for ALL of the orphans in the world. Making a donation to Yulia’s fund was a no-brainer and had nothing to do with thinking we’d actually win.

If you're not familiar with our story, here it is: We met I and Y through an orphan hosting program in July of 2009. We were looking into adoption at the time but decided to try to adopt from our local foster care system because we felt there was no way we could ever afford an international adoption. When we heard about the orphan hosting program through a wonderful charity (FORO-Friends of Russian Orphans) affiliated with our church, we thought this would be a good way to help out an international orphan by giving him or her a sort of vacation experience. What we didn’t know was that God had His own plans.


Not only did He plan for us to adopt Y, the 5-year-old little girl we hosted, but He wanted us to adopt I, a 4-year-old little boy being hosted by another family at our church. We spent nearly three weeks with the children and then had to put them on a plane headed back to Russia. We had no idea how to overcome all of the obstacles to adopt them, but we knew we had to try. Of course everyone thought we were crazy! We already have four young children. With I and Y added, we’ll have 6 kids in a 5-year span (currently between the ages of 4-9). Crazy? Maybe, but we knew they were meant to be in our family and we needed to get them back as soon as possible.

The other neat thing is that 9 of the children who participated in the hosting program are being adopted by families in our community! Seven of the children will attend the same church and school system. FORO brought over 10 more children this past summer for a hosting experience. All of those children are being adopted too! To these children their friends from the orphanage are their family and now they’ll be raised here together. :-) I also think the long-term impact on our communities’ awareness of the needs of orphans will be huge. :-)

God has been so good! He has opened doors that seemed impossible to open. One of the biggest hurdles has been coming up with the nearly $70k it’s costing to adopt these two children. When we started the process we did not have a single cent to put towards it. Through very generous donations by others and extra work opportunities for my husband and I we’ve gotten this far. We still have around $40k yet to pay out (an invoice here for over $23k from our agency and two more expensive trips to Russia). We are still short about $28k of that to have these adoptions paid for. To us this is a HUGE amount, but we know our God is BIGGER! We need the money very quickly too. Everything has been completed and we’re just waiting for the last of the paperwork. Once that comes in a few weeks (and if we have the money ready to go) we will receive our court date and can bring our children home shortly after.


The children desperately want to come home! They’ve been here so they know what they’re missing. We made the first trip to Russia this past July. It was great to see them and we were told that they constantly ask when we’re coming for them. The sad part is that they thought they were coming home with us then. Every 5 minutes one of them would say, “Okay, let’s go home to America!” We asked the translator to explain it was just a visit but she wanted to wait until the end. It was heartbreaking to leave them again.

So since we've been blessed with this new iPad we are hoping repeat the same miracle that's already occured...raise all of the money we need to bring our children home! The details are easy: From now until 11:59 PM (Eastern) on October 15th any donation you make to our adoption fund will enter your name to win the iPad. You can make a donation by clicking on this ChipIn widget.



If you'd like to make a donation by check please contact me at jennifer@jenniferapplin.com.

We're praying that all of you wonderful supporters of adoption out there who understand the need and struggle will help us bring our children home!! I used to think that it would be so much easier if we were just wealthy and already had the money. Then I realized that this testimony for these children, who have only known rejection and abandonment, will be so much greater knowing that it was a loving God and the care and concern of many, many people who understood their worth that brought them home.

God has already used this iPad to ransom one child. We're praying it can be used to ransom two more!


James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Blessings,