really agree with that but I do know
That it takes a village to adopt a child!
(I'm going to vent here a bit)
When we prepared our dossier we had to have 3 reference letter/forms
filled out by a neighbor, and 2 friends and sent to our home study agency
a few months later- we had to have 3 busy people (teacher, friend, and
son) write AND notarize reference letters for our dossier
Oh and we also had to bother the "guardians" of our children to write a
letter AND reveal personal things about their family JUST IN CASE my
husband and I would not be able to care for our children AND notarize
that....never mind that we already have a legal will to take care of that.
The people were more than gracious and provided our letters.(thanks guys)
I thought I was finished bothering people for this adoption. until...
I decided maybe we should apply for some grants....because it would
help to have some of those plane tickets covered (thankfully just 2 this
time) or a portion of the 35,000 RMB until I looked at the grant forms
They TOO, want at least three reference letters from busy people.....
I don't mind doing the detailed list of how we spend our money or
writing our personal testimonies.....but bugging other people to write
nice letters about us is just hard.
So I guess I'll get back to my quilts and stop complaining..Yes it has all the brand names on it and it is for somebody in that company .
Oh, friend...I totally know how you feel! When we applied for grants for our last two adoptions, we had just changed churches a couple months before. SO, we had not even gotten to know the pastors at all...but had to go to them for a reference letter. AWKWARD! Thankfully, we sat down with the missions pastor & got to know him a bit...and he gladly wrote a letter, explaining our situation.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's SO hard. I scrambled around trying to think of new people to bother to write letters! But in the end, it was worth it. We got $5,000 in grants. Woo!
I would gladly write a letter for you! But I guess they might not understand our "internet relationship"!! LOL
I am not one of your references as I do not know you in real life.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I have been a reference, I do NOT mind at all. And find it a privilege and a honor to be held in that high of a regard that they ask ME to help. And this is to me a relatively simple (and cheap) way that I can offer help. Jesus told us to "help one another". My 2 cents, if what is holding you back from the grants is asking for reference letters, consider eating that humble pie...
I hated asking for references, too. Even when people don't mind it's still an inconvenience.:(
ReplyDeleteI'm really excited to see what you do with that fabric. How fun! I love quilts and do a little but I'm just a beginner. Well, with adding to our family again I might be a temporary quitter! :P
We had a hard time getting replies back for our references as well...the delay held up our dossier as well. but what can you do? you are at their mercy to write the letters on their own good time. we also knew we couldn't send out letters asking for money either..somehow adopting didn't seem to fall into the same category as "missions trips."
ReplyDeleteYeah, we applied for a couple of grants. Turned out we got NOTHING for it and I'll be honest in saying, I'm still a little upset by it all. I will never support one particular org. again after seeing them multiple times award grants (latest I know of for $6,000!!!) that sit in escrow at agencies for YEARS while families wait for the referral of a child who might not even be born yet! I find this practice detestable honestly.
ReplyDeleteSo, we went into MORE debt to bring our baby girl home, but we couldn't wait and she couldn't either. I would LOVE someday to become rich and be able to start a grant org. that allows only applications from families who are working to bring home a specific child ALREADY and one who was already waiting.
Sorry to rant a bit with you, but the whole grant thing has opened my eyes ... and unfortunately, not in a good way. :(((