Sumpter Family Adoption

Happy Thanksgiving!! After spending three days of non-stop fun with both our sides of the family, here's a quick run down of our thankfulness... *good food *tasty dessert *good jobs to buy the food *song books and voices to sing *many little people around the table *cousin gift exchange *friends and relatives asking about our adoption *a good Father from whom comes all our good gifts

A friend from church contacted us when he heard that we were hoping to adopt again and he offered to raffle one of his pigs that he had raised. Wow! What fun! He generously offered a whole hog, worth around $1,000. We were so thankful! We sold each ticket for $25 or 5 tickets for $100. Lots of the folks in our community were interested (we're in a super great farming community that loves good bacon!) so we kept the raffle open for two weeks to give lots of folks a chance to enter. We had the drawing in October and our friend hosted the live feed of our drawing. We entered all the tickets in a bowl, stirred them up, and drew two names. Both of the winners are families who have adopted and we're glad they won! The money raised from the pig raffle was $2500! The money went directly to our adoption fund to cover future fees like entering the infant program and getting matched.  Click the link below to watch our video of the drawing! Sumpter Adoption Fundraiser Pig ...

For he chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. Ephesians 1:4-6

The adoption process is a series of checks and balances to provide a safety net for adoptive families, birth families and adoptees. It can be long, but it's necessary.  Application - we applied to the agency in the Summer and filled out a short questionnaire. Infant Training - the training course that the agency provides is fantastic and worth every penny. The caseworkers who run it are the main caseworkers in the program. We'll be working with them later on in the process. They covered all the basics and answered any questions. Home study - this is a massive compiling of paperwork regarding personal history, family history, medical health and financial status, residence safety and other necessary information to assess the adoptive family's preparedness. As of November, we're finishing this stage of the process. Profile - this book is a short, 20 page collection of pictures and information about us and our life. It can contain info about how we met and o...

"But when the set time had fully come,  God sent his Son,  born of a woman,  born under the law,   to redeem  those under the law, that we might receive adoption  to sonship.   Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son  into our hearts,  the Spirit who calls out,  “Abba ,   Father.” Galatians 4:4-6

As we got started into the paperwork on the adoption process, we told family and some friends what we were doing. So many were excited and thrilled for us and a few immediately offered to help raise funds for our adoption! We were so thankful for these offers and as we moved forward and learned about what fees were coming up, we decided to ask them for help. We hosted a movie night fundraiser and showed Toy Story 2, which is a favorite at our house. We sold admission and also pop and popcorn. Lots of young families with little kids came and we were so glad! We had such a fun time talking with everyone. We were encouraged by people asking us about how things were going and we were very thankful for the support.

Open adoptions have been a new part of domestic adoptions. Previously, adoptions were almost all closed with little to no contact between the birth family and the adoptive family. *Closed adoption is defined as an adoption where there is no interaction of any kind between biological families and adoptive families. This includes no exchanging of identifying information such as names, addresses, family history and culture as well as medical history. *Open adoption is defined as an adoption in which both the biological and adoptive families have exchanged, in varying degrees, personal information and have the option of contact. There are many benefits to open adoption, but a big benefit is having access to medical history. This is very generous on the part of the biological family because it's personal, but when you go to the doctor's office and they ask for medical history for your parents or your grandparents, it matters. Genetics affect your health and it's so...

This past Summer we decided to begin the adoption process. We got in touch with A New Beginning Adoption Agency and applied and were accepted! We are so glad to be working with this agency again. We worked with A New Beginning with our first adoption and at that time we choose them because they were locally based and had a caseworker in our area. We also had friends from church who adopted through them; one was a domestic infant adoption and another was through the foster program. Both friends had great things to say about the support of the agency and the guidance they gave throughout the whole process.  After our application was approved, we went to the infant adoption training in early September. We drove 6 hours to get there and enjoyed the time in the car to talk. The training was fabulous! We attended sessions all day on Friday and then a half day on Saturday. We were fed meals and snacks and had plenty of time to get to know some of the other adoptive families a...

Jesse and Kate (and Epiphany!) are thankful that you are here. We are starting the adoption process in our home state of Idaho and we wanted to keep our friends updated on our process. We are still working on our home study. We are also trying to raise some more funds. The average cost of a domestic adoption in Idaho is about $24,000. We have about half of that. If you are interested in donating, more information will be coming soon. Please be praying that the whole process will go smoothly. Thanks!