put your money where your mouth is

I wrote a check the other day—a big one.

Up until this point, the adoption costs have been relatively small. Twenty bucks here, fifty bucks there, a couple hundred here and there. But when I wrote that big momma check for $3,500, it felt like a big momma step of commitment. (Ha! Momma step. That's funny.)

I think David and I both felt like up until now, we could have backed out of this crazy adoption idea fairly easily. The kids don't know we're trying to adopt them, so no hurt feelings there. We'd have lost some time and money and probably would have had to write an embarrassing blog post. But we had an out. Writing that check was like, well, it was like putting our money where our mouth is.

We've known all along that adoption from Peru is expensive—somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000. At first, that number seemed big enough to stop us from even starting. But then we figured most people who adopt internationally probably don't have tens of thousands of dollars sitting in the bank, so what the heck.

You may remember the mug from an earlier post. It's been fun to watch it fill up from unexpected sources.

 
In June, some tenants moved out of the house we own, and they left behind four window air conditioning units. We kept two for our apartment and sold the other two on Craigslist to people desperate for A/C at the start of a steamy Philadelphia summer. Money in the mug!

A new friend here in Philly was part of a start-up company that closed up shop, and she invited us to take some of their leftover office supplies. Included in our haul was a nice mini-fridge, which we posted and sold on Craigslist to a college-bound student. More money in the mug.

The former chiropractor in the office we purchased here in Philly left behind reams of old x-rays. Many of them were old enough that we weren't required by law to save them anymore. So David sold them to a recycling company that recovers silver from x-ray film. Cha-ching!

Then there was the day we received an envelope with a bank check for $1,000 and a note that said "for the mug." I hope the person who sent that is reading this so we can say an enormous THANK YOU! After we read your note, one of us said, "Well, I guess we can't back out now." So thank you for the generous gift, for your encouraging words, and for keeping us motivated not to back out. Full disclosure: we didn't actually put your money in the mug, but we did prop up your sweet card next to the mug on the window sill.

And then there's our virtual mug, a.k.a. PayPal. Random deposits started showing up in our PayPal account from a family member. When we asked why, we were told it was to help with the adoption.

Within the past month or so, a couple other family members have told us they want to give us some money toward bringing these kids home.

So we've not only put our money where our mouth is, but others have, as well. Looks like there is no turning back now...