Making Adoption Affordable

GREAT NEWS!!!  On April 17, Iowa Representative Braley introduced a bill to renew and expand the adoption tax credit.  Now the bill needs more representatives to sponsor the bill and vote yes.  This is where we need your help.  It only takes a few minutes to send your US House Representative an email.  This could help give more orphans chances to become part of a forever family. 

Click here https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml to find your rep by entering your zip code and then type a quick email to him or her.  I have provided a short sample email here.

Good afternoon Representative __________,

I am contacting you today to request your support of the "Making Adoption Affordable Act of 2012" bill.  Please join me in advocating on behalf of orphaned and vulnerable children by co-sponsoring and supporting this bill. 

Sincerely,

For the full text of the proposed bill, see here http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr4373/text.

Here is a short summary:

The Making Adoption Affordable Act expands and maintains the tax credits for families who choose to adopt children.  These credits help defray the high administrative costs sometimes associated with adoptions and ensure that families who choose to open their homes to children and are otherwise able to raise a child as their own are not turned away because of the high cost of the process.  Preserving and expanding these tax credits has been a bipartisan policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The Making Adoption Affordable Act:

1.     Permanently expands the Adoption Tax Credit

a.     Provides up to $13,360 for covered adoption expenses, adjusted for inflation

b.     Without extension, credit will fall to $6,000 for special-needs adoptions only

2.     Maintains the higher income tax exclusion of employer provided adoption assistance

3.     Preserves the policy of excluding up to $13,360 in employer provided adoption assistance from tax considerations. Annually adjusts the threshold for inflation

4.     Income Tax exclusion of adoption benefits have been expanded and supported by the Bush and Obama administrations.

5.     Makes permanent the higher-income phase-out of the credit, adjusted for inflation

a.     Families with income in excess of $185,210 receive a reduced credit

b.     Credit reduced by the ratio of income in excess of $185,210 to $40,000

c.     Income phase out thresholds set by the 2001 Bush tax cuts, and extended by the Obama tax cuts

d.     Without extension, the credit will begin phasing out for families with incomes over $75,000, and will not provide any benefit to families making over $115,000.

6.     Permanently makes the credit refundable

a.     Allows families to receive a tax refund on the credit in excess of their tax liability

b.     Without extension, credit can reduce a family’s tax liability to nothing but any excess credit cannot be taken as a tax refund.

Reading While Waiting

So it has now been over a month since we last posted anything on this blog.  Not much has changed since then as far as timing is concerned.  Our dossier is in Lesotho…

waiting…for the next matching meeting...

waiting…to be on top of the dossier pile at said matching meeting….

waiting…to “match us” with our forever son.

What we know: 

·       Our dossier is in Lesotho. 

·       At this next matching meeting there will be 8 allowed matches with families from the USA.

What we don’t know:

·       When will the next matching meeting be?

·       Where is our dossier in the pile of dossiers from USA families?

So for now, we continue to wait and continue on praying for our unknown son and all the other 360,000 orphans in this oh-so-small country.  We pray for the mother who gave up her son. 

We also Praise God for the wonderful people who have reached out to support us in our adoption process.  Last week, Grace Lutheran Church in Coopersville hosted a Lenten Mid-week meal where all the donations went directly to our adoption fund.  From the bottom of our hearts – THANK YOU!!  Thank you, Aunt Marilyn, for organizing such a blessing.  Thank you to the people of this church who don’t know us at all, but we willing to bless us financially and in prayer.  We pray that God will bless you in return.

I have recently been reading Jen Hatmaker’s book “7” (highly recommend reading this one).  I have been feeling very convicted by something.  The birth-mother of our future son most like had no other choice but to abandon him and therefore give him up for adoption.  She was most likely struggling so much that she couldn’t support either the other children or her husband or both.  Maybe this mother had HIV and chose not to nurse her baby for fear of transmitting it to him and then couldn’t afford the formula to feed him.   For whatever reason, she made an extremely difficult choice.  I will never be able to fully relate to this woman.

In my home, we each have a bed with an adequate amount of blankets.  We have a pantry that is mostly filled with food.  We drive two cars and have 2 cell phones.  Over the last 8 years, we have also taken three very healthy babies home from the hospital and laid them to sleep in their own cribs, never wondering if and when I would be able to feed my child.  We also have wonderful health insurance where I would never question whether or not we could afford to take our child in to be checked out by one of the numerous doctors available within a 10 mile radius.  As I said early, I will never fully know her reasons or what her life what like the day she made her difficult choice. 

So getting back to my conviction….I have too much.  If 100% of what we earn is actually God’s, why am I spending it on things that aren’t needed?  Why am I not using more of this income to further His kingdom?  I also waste too much.  Yeah for recycling, but come on…I could be so much better at this in the first place.  Why are we not buying more things in bulk with less packaging and why do I think I am entitled to “serving sized” portions for lunch boxes?  Just a few of the many convictions I have been feeling from reading Jen’s book.  Watch out – it is a good one.  

Jaclyn

t-shirts & coffee

Check out our latest fundraisers.

Please click here http://www.adoptionbug.com/cooperadoptionfundraiser/ to go to our personalized webpage where you can buy a t-shirt to support our adoption.  Approximately 35-45% of the retail cost of the t-shirts go directly into an account to help support our adoption and bring our son home.  And when you wear one of the t-shirts, it helps increase the awareness of adoption to those around you.

For those who love to try new coffee, check out Just Love Coffee.  Click on the logo on the right hand side of the webpage and it will take you to Just Love's site.

Please share these links with friends, co-workers, and relatives.  The t-shirts and coffee make for great gifts.  Thanks for sharing our story with people you know.

unexpected blessing

We love good news.  I mean who doesn't like getting good news?  Today, we received word that a donation of $1,000 was made to His Kids, Too! on our behalf to fund an adoption grant.  That's good news!

Unfortunately, we are not given donor names until we have received word that we can fly to Lesotho (which we estimate to be about a year from now - give or take).  From the depths of our hearts, we want to say thank you Anonymous Donor.  Days like this are such an encouragement as we wait… 

and wait… 

and wait. 

It's incredibly humbling to know that others are thinking about us and are getting involved in this adventure as we wait expectantly for our son.  

We know many of you pray for us on a consistent basis as well.  Just as a family expecting a baby biologically, we have many things to do to prepare our hearts for another child.  And our son-to-be needs your prayers too.  Please pray with us that he will be safe and healthy and feel loved by his caregiver and his heavenly Father.  I (Jaclyn) think back to the first day I left Naomi at Preschool and the tears I had leaving her with a “stranger” for the first time.  Even though we have not met our little boy, we are starting to feel this same connection and it makes it hard entrusting him to another. 

As an update, our dossier is complete and will be sent to the Lesotho agency representative by the end of this month.  Then we wait for the next matching meeting and pray that we are matched with a child God has planned for us.

Thanks so much for joining with us on this journey.    God bless!

holiday reflection

As we come closer and closer to Christmas day, I seem to be increasingly pensive and reflective.  Nine years ago tomorrow, my cousin Dan moved from his earthly home to his heavenly home.  He now lives with his eternal Father in heaven, but his earthly Mom and Dad miss his more than any of us can ever know.  I am sure there is a void with him not being here. 

On a much lesser scale, I feel a void too.  Our soon to be son is alone this Christmas, without a family to celebrate with.  He doesn’t have a Mom and Dad to give him hugs and kisses, show him love and wish him Merry Christmas.  He doesn’t get to celebrate Christmas with us this year.  We are separated. 

Earlier this week, I dropped some items off to be delivered to our dear friends living in Lesotho working at Beautiful Gate (an orphanage).  I included a small gift for our son to be given to him the day we are “matched” with him.  Josh and I picked out a sweatshirt for him.  We washed it and then slept with it so that it would smell like us and like our home.  Then, I sealed it up in 2 ziplock bags to be sent to Lesotho.  As odd as this sounds, it was extremely difficult for me to seal those bags and leave the sweatshirt with the other items to be brought to our friends.  I felt like I was giving away the only piece of our son that we had and entrusting it to other people. 

As I was thinking about this last night in bed, I realized that this might have also been somewhat of what God had going through his mind when he gave his only son as a baby to us.  As a mother, I cannot imagine how difficult that decision must have been for God…to willingly give up your son to be raised by Mary and Joseph, knowing full well what was to happen to him in the future.   What an amazing gift God has given us!

I pray for all of our friends and family at this time and pray that we remember those less fortunate than ourselves.  Please pray with me for all the children who are mother and fatherless this Christmas that they might feel God’s presence in their lives.  Also, please pray with me for all parents without their children, that they may be comforted.

Merry Christmas friends! 

Jaclyn