Click here to go directly to the story of Julie & Melody Joy SiWei Potter.
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Bringing Baby Home - the Barsch Family Story
We arrived home from Taiwan with our first son Samuel in June 2007. He was 7 months old and our lives forever changed. Who could have known that just 6 months later, on January 2, 2008 we would get a phone call asking if we were open to adopting Sam’s biological brother, born December 2007.
After hanging up the phone and filling my husband Peter in, he said it best- “How can we do this again just 6 months later, and yet how can we not?!” Aside from the mountains of paperwork there was the financial issue. We had saved and planned for Sam’s adoption and that ended up being even more than we expected. How would we possibly afford a second adoption within 12 months?Yet we knew we had to do this. God sent us this opportunity and we had to step out in faith, trusting it would all come together, not having any idea how.
That very night I began searching the internet for adoption grants. I came across the Asian Bridge and soon began a dialogue with them about our situation. With the encouragement that fundraising for an adoption could be fruitful we sent a letter out to 150 family and friends asking each one to consider donating just $25 to help Bring Baby Home. The response was overwhelming! We got generous donations back from family, friends, and even strangers who had heard our story. All in all we raised over $10, 000!! After that the Asian Bridge further assisted us with a grant.
We must say that without the encouragement and financial support of the Asian Bridge , we may not have felt comfortable to take this step in adopting a second child so soon. We thank all of you who support the Asian Bridge and their mission of creating bridges between orphans and adoptive families.
We received a call from Geoff Shaw in June, several days before our family was leaving for China, in regards to our family receiving a grant from theAsianBridge Foundation. We are so appreciative and thank you so much!!
Our family has been home several weeks now with our new daughter, Dani Ke Yi Fraser. We are learning something new about Dani every day and she continues to amaze us on how intelligent, funny and inquisitive she is. She seems to be very comfortable in her new surroundings and has no fear in trying something new.
Dani is five years old, and is from the city of Wuhan, in the Hubei province. We found Wuhan very interesting, with lots going on. There are cranes everywhere, and huge new buildings being built. It seems to be a busy city. The Wuhan orphanage was very big, and had some nice programs in place, such as a baby room with one-on-one nannies for the children there with special needs. We were privilaged to meet and have lunch with a sixteen year old American girl, who was volunteering at the orphanage, who had also been adopted from the same orphanage years ago.
Our daughter, Dani, has congenital iridocoloboma, which is a missing piece or fissure of the iris of the eye. We will know more when we see the eye doctor, but as for now, she "sees" everything, is very observant, does not miss anything and remembers all. She seems to have some near sight visual disturbances, and I see several things to bring to the doctor's notice. If you look into her eyes, what one sees is a completely dark eye, as the pupil is as large as an iris would be. She does have incredibly beautiful eyes.
This is the beginning of the story of our life with Dani. I am in awe at the decision that we made to adopt this child, and how easily the process happened for us. I am aware that we have a new daughter that is a treasure, and a gift, and I look forward to life, learning and growing with this child.
As for the experience of going to China, there is so much to learn and I saw such a little piece. I would say that if the opportunity would arise, I would jump at the chance to adopt another child from China in a heartbeat.
Again, many, many thank you's for supporting our adoption of Dani Ke Yi Fraser,
The story of financial provision for our second adoption is one that needs to be told. It is nothing short of miraculous that we are now a family of four. Let me back up…
When my husband, Larry, and I married in 2003, we knew we would adopt children. It was something to which we both felt called for numerous reasons. When the time came to start adding children to our family, we immediately turned to adoption. At the time, we had some money in savings, which we used to fund about half the cost of the adoption. The other half was covered by Larry's employee adoption benefit (that in itself is a huge blessing!). In December 2005, we traveled to China where our daughter, Julie, was placed in our arms and quickly took up residence in our hearts.
Even before we left China, we knew that we would be back. We started the paperwork for our second adoption in June 2006, the soonest our agency would allow. This time, however, we had no idea from where the money would come. Our savings was gone, we had one income supporting three people, and the cost of living seemed to go up daily. Amazingly, I still felt total peace about the matter. If you could ask people who know me, they would confirm that this is not typical! Yet, it's true. I never once doubted that the funds would be there when the time came. How? I had no idea, except that I believed the adage "where God guides, He provides."
The seeds of that provision were planted at an adoption conference where I attended a workshop led by Jill Savage. She shared the story of her family's adoption experience and then focused on creative financing for adoption. She suggested we think of what makes our family unique and find a way to use it. I immediately thought of the marathons Larry and I have run. That's pretty unique! An idea began to form in my mind. It got clearer and clearer until it seemed to have a life of its own. I left the seminar and told Larry "this is what we need to do!" We proceeded to organize a fundraiser entitled "Run for Mei Mei" (Mei Mei means "little sister" in Chinese), which would take Larry on a 32 mile ultra-marathon adventure. I made support fliers to hand out to friends and we applied for assistance from an organization called Life International. We were thrilled to learn that they approved us for a matching grant! Pledges started rolling in and we stood amazed.
Shortly thereafter, I received a surprise phone call from Geoff Shaw from The Asian Bridge. He explained that his organization desired to help families fund international adoption via matching grants. He had seen one of our fundraising fliers and wanted to help us! In fact, we would be the first family they helped! To say that I was speechless would be an understatement. As I spoke with Geoff, it slowly dawned on me that this assistance would provide the exact remaining amount we needed to complete the adoption. It was amazing! I was overcome with gratitude and awe. The adoption was really going to happen! We couldn't have done it without The Asian Bridge. There is really no way to measure the impact that their help has had on the life of our family. We are truly, eternally thankful.
Melody Joy SiWei Potter joined our family on July 9th, 2007. Now we are doubly blessed!
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