Some good news!

Hello everyone!  So, the good news is not a referral, but it is actually great news that helps not just us and other families who are adopting, but also helps orphans in China!  We got this message from Bethany a couple days ago:

On December 7, 2017, the CCCWA announced to adoption agencies that the orphanage donation paid at the time of adoption registration (as listed on your China fee agreement) will no longer be required. This announcement is effective immediately. According to the announcement, 

“Foreign adopters may donate out of free will to the child welfare institution AFTER the adoption registration is finalized. The donation shall be made on a VOLUNTARY basis, the donors shall have the right to decide on the quantity, purpose of use and form of donation, and the two parties shall make a donation agreement.” 

So you will see the final amount we need to raise on www.adoptalovestory.com/family/dlugosz go down soon because of this announcement.  This is so exciting on a few levels!  First of all, it is a huge help for us and other families who are raising funds.  It is also a stress relief to not have to walk around China with several thousand in cash that would just be handed over to the orphanage.  Then, I mentioned it will help the children.  The cash that used to be handed over was never really accounted for.  Families had no say about it, they would just hand it over.  Now, if we end up raising more than we absolutely need, we can make a donation and specify that we want that money to go towards food and/or medical needs for the kids who are still in that orphanage!

I hope we can soon post an update about our child.  They told us in May it would likely be 6-12 months.  So, hopefully in the next 5 months we’ll have more great news to share!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Ashley Dlugosz

God's Faithfulness

If we started this whole process with the full amount to adopt, it would require a lot less faith in God.  Wise words from my husband!  It would probably feel way more comfortable to start this process with the full amount we needed.  Imagine if we knew we could just reach into the pot and pull out the amount as each bill came up due.    However, relying on God and seeing how He provides is much better than the comfort of trusting in our own abilities.

We have already paid several bills, and as we watch them approach and wonder how we'll pay, God always provides!  I hate that I ever doubt or worry.  It's amazing to think about how the Israelites turned against God so quickly after all the miracles, and then realize I am doing the same thing each time I worry about our future and these bills.

We wanted to share a couple of amazing things that we have seen to inspire others, and to hopefully encourage anyone who may want to pursue adoption, but is afraid of the huge cost.  Here is the first story I will share.  We planned a garage sale in Bluffton, IN which is the area where I (Ashley) grew up.  As the weekend approached I got a call from my mom.  She told me that the weather was going to be awful, pouring rain, cold, nasty and wondered if we should put off the sale for another weekend.  I discussed it with Evan and we decided it was too late to rearrange plans, so we decided to move forward and trust God whether we raised $20 or $1,000.  We didn't know what good He had planned for the sale, whether that would be for someone to come to Christ, or another family to decide to adopt, for other funds to come in, all of the above, etc.  We just trusted that He would bring good from the weekend.  We were so amazed by the love and support from the family who opened their garage, others who stood out in the cold rain with us, and a constant flow of people who did not let the rain stop them from coming to our sale!  Our sale was donation based and we walked away with over $2000!  God is amazing!

We then had a second sale in Columbus and that time the weather was hot and humid and draining people of energy, yet again, the crowds came and we raised another $1000!

Just when it seems like things are settling down, God provides more avenues of His faithfulness.  What do we do now that the sales are over?  How else do we raise funds?  People at our church amaze us with suggestions, donations, love and support.  Again, why did I start to doubt?

I will share one more story from earlier this year.  I have been selling stuff on eBay, which has actually brought in more than $1500 over the last 4 months!  I had a mug that I LOVED, but was willing to sell it.  The mug was actually in high demand.  I started the bid high and also informed everyone that we were selling it to raise funds for our adoption.  I had a lady win it for about $175, then she told me to keep it and sell it again!  I don't know that lady, but God used her to encourage me and help us through this process.

So yes, as easy as it would be to start off with the full amount, I am very thankful to have these stories, and to be able to grow and share with others.

Special Needs is Uncomfortable

She was heading this way and I was starting to feel nervous and uncomfortable.  I knew there was a language barrier there and we would be on two different wavelengths.  There was no way I could relate at all to this person.  She had down-syndrome.

As I began to interact with her family, I could see how much joy she gave to her family.  A few hours later we were all gathered around the dinner table laughing and I could see that this person was no different than I.  She even had the most hilarious jokes.  She was certainly more aware of her surroundings than I had initially given her credit for.  This person was made in the image of God just like the rest of us.

Isn't this true of special needs?  We would never admit this but we are uncomfortable with people who not only look different than what we would classify as "normal," but also people who behave differently.  The grunting or gibberish formed into incoherent sentences is an unfamiliar language we are scared or unwilling to learn.

Internally we cringe when there is some physical deformity that doesn't measure up to the perfect Hollywood body.   We shrink back when someone's mental state of mind does not engage with us who deem ourselves to be more intelligent or socially hip.

As Christians we say we are totally against the "Survival of the Fittest" mentality yet our attitude reflects those of the staunchest nature of it.  The truth is that we're all disabled and have special needs.  Aren't we glad that Jesus loved us for who we are not on the basis of how great or small the special needs are?

Evan Dlugosz

Goodbye Dossier!!

After four months of hard work, stress, tears and exciting adventures we finally finished our dossier!  I honestly can't express how exciting and freeing it was to send the packages out!  I had to double, triple, and quadruple check to make sure everything was in the packages.  The moment I put the dossier in the outgoing bin it was finally over!  As you can see, we enjoyed a little celebration time at Sweet Frog after we left FedEx!

I just had to share this exciting news.  Stay tuned, Evan is working on another blog post; we should have it up shortly!

What is a Dossier?

We get many questions as we go through this adoption process, and right now the most commonly asked question is, “What is a dossier?”

In simple terms, the dossier is a collection of documents that we need to gather and send to China so that we can finally be in line to get a referral for a child. That doesn't sound too terrible, right? Wrong! I am a little funny in the fact that I really enjoyed the home study paperwork. However, the dossier is a completely different beast. We have paperwork that needs to be notarized, and then state sealed, other items that just need to be notarized, and yet other items to be collected and thrown in the pile. It would be far less daunting if we weren't born in Indiana & South Korea, married in Colorado, living in Ohio, and then Evan's letter of employment coming from Tennessee. We have so many different states that we need to get items from, send them back to get them authenticated, and then get them back home again! So far nothing has been lost by the post office, which is awesome!

We are learning many lessons in this process, the biggest (for me) being patience. Another lesson is that planning ahead for the dossier is a bad idea. Everything has to be dated and certified within 6 months of reaching China. I'm not sure why.  If my birth certificate is certified in 1980 and I was born in 1980, it seems like it's just as official and trustworthy as that same document certified in 2017!  So, back in September, I grabbed new birth certificates for each of us only to read the dossier packet and find out they are too old! Oops.

I also learned that you can actually find traveling notaries! Who knew!? We need papers notarized as our doctors sign them.  Evan's doctor has a notary on site, but mine does not. So, I “googled” it and found a person who was actually willing to come meet me at my doctor’s office for just $25. I should look into becoming a notary so I can help people when they have things pop up like this!

Something you would think would be easy is getting Evan's letter of employment, but in a big company it is much more difficult than you could ever imagine. Evan and his boss started the process in February, and by mid-march I tried to jump in and take over because it was taking longer than I would like. I learned yet another lesson. I really just need to sit back, be patient, and trust my amazing husband to take care of it. I can get too emotional and easily hurt and frustrated when I feel like someone is being unreasonable and ridiculous and Evan is such a great balance to that. What would I do without him?

When I first started reading the packet and realized all the crazy stuff we had to do, and everything that had to be done within a certain time frame or we'd have to start over, I got very stressed and might have even shed a few tears. After taking a deep breath, jumping in, and just taking it a step at a time, I realized it's not as bad as it seems. Yes, there is a LOT of red tape, so many hoops to jump through, but it is all worth it. I just keep thinking about why we are doing this. In order for us to be adopted into God's family, Christ died on the cross, shed his blood, and defeated death! I think we can handle a little stress in order to show a picture of the gospel and complete this journey of adoption.

Counting the Cost with Adoption

March 10^th, 2017 | Evan Dlugosz


Fear crept through my body the instant we signed the contract with the adoption agency.  The reluctance, caution, trepidation, and excitement swirled together and hit me like a tidal wave.  The risk of the unknown was way too much for my conservative nature.

Back in our dating days, Ashley and I knew that we were both passionate about adoption and wanted to care for a child who was abandoned.  When we signed the contract that passion became a reality.  The long and intimidating journey of adoption had come, and the more we dove into the process the more we realized how overwhelming everything was.  

The system has changed drastically compared to when my sister and I were adopted from South Korea over 30 years ago.  There is twice as much red tape, the waiting time is longer, the children are older, the finances have been tripled, and the mountains of paperwork are taller.  I knew most of this going into the process, but obviously didn’t know the full extent of it.

God has been teaching us so much through the adoption process, and we know that He will teach us even more when we bring our child home.  For those of you who want to adopt and feel that it's either too intimidating or there are too many barriers, there are.  Eating the elephant one bite at a time is the systematic approach to take, and ultimately leaning on God's timing, direction, and divine providence will get you through.  It feels like an eternity until we get to see our child.  We have already spent 8 months completing our application, referrals, the home study, immigration, and we're half-way through the dossier.  Once the dossier is finished we will finally get a referral for our child, and that could take another 6 months to a year.

In Luke 22, Jesus was in agony knowing how much it would cost to go to the cross.  His sweat was like great drops of blood falling to the ground, and knowing how difficult it would be, he still submitted to the Father's will, ultimately knowing the glorious outcome.  Galatians 4:4-5 says, "God sent forth His son...to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."  He pursued us knowing how great the challenge was before Him, how immense the cost was through the shedding of His blood, but ultimately knowing the glorious outcome.  He bought us with a price, and for those of us that have accepted Him as Savior for the forgiveness of sins are then adopted into the family of God.

Adoption is expensive and it's by no means convenient.  You're not going to hit a grand slam and easily slide into home plate.  Now I'm not saying throw caution to the wind financially or emotionally and go save a baby in a foreign land, but what I am saying is that adoption is an incredible picture of the Gospel, and that we should strive to foster a culture of adoption in our church, community, friends, and family.

The adoption process will be stressful, inconvenient, and financially challenging.  Christ certainly knew that our adoption was worth it, and His example should encourage us to pursue Gospel driven adoption for the Kingdom of Christ!

Cleveland Adventures

So, I am not really one to write a blog, but I thought I would give it a shot as we go through our adventure of adopting a child from China!  We are now about 7 months in and have finished our application, signed a contract, finished our home study and are working on our dossier!  We have also finished about 23 hours of our required 30 hours of training for this process.  We have met some amazing people through this journey and really learned a lot about our adoption as children of God.  We are so excited to show a picture of the gospel through our adoption!

Today we had to travel to Cleveland (an hour away) to get fingerprinted for Homeland Security.  We actually had been in CO for two weeks, got home on Tuesday and found a letter in the mail saying that our appointment to get fingerprinted was scheduled for Thursday at 11am.  So thankful we didn't get home two days later!  We're also thankful Evan's coworkers and boss were flexible and understanding and let him take the morning off so we could make the appointment.  The letter said if we did not get there at the appointed time, they would consider our request abandoned!

We are not really city people and forgot coins for meters, so we found a parking garage close by.  We parked, headed in for our appointments, then two hours later made it back to our car.  Evan found a note on the driver side window: DO NOT EVER PARK IN THIS SPOT AGAIN!  I PAY TO PARK HERE MONTHLY.  Oops.  If the person who left that note ever sees this blog, please forgive us!  We did not realize it was a reserved spot and we sincerely apologize!!  I know it would not be fun to pay for a specific spot and then have a random person take it from me. :(

If anyone would like to see a video about our journey, you can see that here: www.adoptalovestory.com/family/dlugosz