Blog
2024
2023 Adoption Tax Credit
It’s hard to believe that it is already tax season, but here we are! Hope’s Promise is dedicated to sharing great resources on all things foster care, adoption, and orphan care. So, when we came across this blog from Creating a Family, we knew we had to share it with our adoptive families.
Doing your taxes can be tricky, but if you think you might be eligible for the adoption tax credit, this guide is a great resource.
Enjoy!
2023
National Adoption Month
Creating Awareness and a Reason to Celebrate.
According to Adoption and Beyond, in 1984 President Reagan proclaimed the first National Adoption Week, but as states and cities began to celebrate and recognize the adoption, a week just wasn’t enough, which led to President Clinton establishing November as National Adoption Month.
National Adoption Month is an opportunity to raise awareness about adoption. Below is a list of ideas compiled from various sources on how we can not only raise awareness but also celebrate National Adoption Month.
- Share Your Story- If adoption has had an impact on your life in any way or you are a part of the adoption triad, sharing your story is vital and gives voice to the beautiful complexity of adoption.
- Read an Adoption Book- some of the Hope’s Promise staff favorites are:
- Adoption is Both – Elena Hall
- The Open Hearted Way to Open Adoption – Lori Holden
- The Connected Child and The Connected Parent – Dr. Karyn Purvis
- Raise Awareness on How to Adopt- If you know anyone interested in adoption, you can send them to the Hope’s Promise website to learn more.
- Support Foster Families- Some adoption stories begin with Foster Care. You can reach out to a foster family you know and provide a meal for them or offer your babysitting services.
- Hold a Drive- hold a gift card drive during the holiday season to give to Hope’s Promise Foster Families or donate new or slightly used items to the Foster Care Lending Closet at Hope’s Promise.
- Donate to an Adoption Charity: You can make a donation to Hope’s Promise to support our adoption program. At Hope’s Promise we do more than just provide adoption services to hopeful adoptive parents. We support birth parents through counseling services and provide monthly birth mom support groups as well as annual events to promote community. We also provide education and resources for adoptive parents. You can make a year-end gift to support Hope’s Promise by visiting HERE.
- Attend an Event: Every year Hope’s Promise holds exciting events to support its three life-changing programs: foster care, adoption, and orphan care. Learn more about our events HERE.
- Have a Get-together with Other Adoptive Parents: If you are an adoptive parent, one of the best things you can do is to surround yourself with other families that have shared experiences. We should never walk through life, or the experiences in it, alone.
- Share on social media- Sharing your heart for adoption makes a huge difference. If you don’t want to share your own adoptive story, or you don’t have one, follow Hope’s Promise on Facebook and Instagram and share our stories and posts.
- Share your adoption story at your church. Hope’s Promise has countless church partnerships, and they all begin with YOU sharing your heart for adoption and foster care with your pastor.
There are so many ways to celebrate the beauty of adoption. Together we can raise awareness!
2023
It’s time to make the Adoption Tax Credit refundable
We have good news from our friends at the National Council for Adoption! A bipartisan group of Senators and House Representatives have come together to re-introduce the Adoption Tax Credit Refundability Act, which would provide critical financial resources to families who are willing to open their hearts and their homes to a child in need.
This bill would ensure many more families are eligible for the tax credit, including lower-income families; and, allow all families to receive all the credit that they are eligible for, in full, so they have the resources they need to meet their child’s needs, and help their family thrive.
How to support this bill in five minutes or less:
Use our quick and easy advocacy tool to directly contact your members of Congress and ask them to sponsor the bill, and support its inclusion in any year-end tax legislation. We’ve already created the messages for you and the system will automatically match you to your Senators and House Rep.
That’s it, you’re done! Thank you for speaking up on behalf of children and adoptive families. Your voice matters.
2023
To Africa with Love
Column by Peggy Dover from the Rogue Valley Times
Lynn Leissler was the subject of a former column a few years back. She’s the wonder woman and close friend who has gladly accepted the challenges with the joys of raising her teenage granddaughter, Renee. Yes, Lynn possesses an impressive list of grandmotherly requisites; she knits, she sews, she quilts, she bakes—and all skillfully. She also reads voraciously.
Let’s just say at nearly 78 years old, Lynn might be considered beyond the stage of dealing with teen angst, prom dress shopping, and boyfriend troubles. The affection return Renee gives is well worth the investment.
Because she neither looks nor acts her age (however that’s supposed to look these days) this grandmother recently surpassed expectation by taking Renee on a mission trip to Kenya, Africa. I’m a witness as to just how many and prolonged were the challenges in preparation to leaving—everything seemed to work against them. Obtaining visas online was an exercise in humility; forget about patience. Taking the required shots and typhoid medicine made them ill, especially Renee. Despite navigating the potholes to get there and the ridiculous flight schedule with long layovers, they’re eager to return. I spoke with them about their incredible experience.
The program coordinating the effort is called Hope’s Promise. Various churches work with Hope’s Promise on behalf of bringing hope to children in the Kuza Project of Kenya—Kuza means light. They’re a faith-based organization who send teams of individuals to some of the most impoverished areas to work with neglected children and help them understand they matter. I asked Renee what she loved most about her experience.
“Meeting the kids,” was her quick reply. One thirteen-year-old boy in particular touched her soul. “He doesn’t have a lot. I asked him what his favorite thing to ever do was, and he said ‘praise the Lord.’ I said ‘what’s your second favorite thing to do?’ He answered, ‘help people who need things that I have.’”
Lynn explained the purpose. “It was a school break program, so, like a vacation Bible school type deal. The church there is facilitating a program that helps kids stay with their bio families, if possible. And if not, to be with non-relative caregivers to help them attend school—to care for them physically, emotionally, and spiritually and help these kids develop a sense of worth on their own, because they’ve had a lot of trauma in their lives.
They are westernized there and also proudly aware of being Kenyan. The children of Mathare watch movies that they believe represent the typical American family. It was quite an eye-opener for them to learn that our country shares the same issues, with dysfunctional homes, and less than ideal living conditions not uncommon. “We were careful to not go there as “White saviors,” Lynn said, ‘just to go there and walk alongside what they are doing.”
The small group visited the Mathare Valley Slum of Nairobi, where half a million people dwell within six square miles. They weren’t there to gawk and shake their heads. Renee explained. “We hung out with the kids. We sang, danced, and did art classes. There were singing and ukulele classes. Then we walked through the slum. We went into a couple peoples’ houses, which were small.”
“It’s a slum and it’s harsh, but there’s resiliency, determination, and joy,” Lynn said.
Those who escape the slum, though glad to be out, miss the community they shared. They no longer know and relate to their neighbors, but stay to themselves behind gated communities. Eight-foot cornflower blue iron gates surround neighborhoods.
The life-changing trip had a powerful impact on both of them and altered their perspectives. Renee’s least favorite part was saying goodbye. “I was a whole wreck.” She’s considering missions as a worthwhile investment for her future and that of the kids.
It was autumn there. The weather was cool and pleasant for the Oregonians, while Kenyans wore puff coats. Lynn added, “Kenyans are warm, friendly, welcoming people, and they smile a lot.”
Nana (sho-sho in Kenyan) and granddaughter made friendships and memories that will stand the test of time.
2023
Seeing Beauty Despite the Bad
A REFLECTION ON THE LESSONS LEARNED DURING A CONNECTION TEAM TRIP TO KENYA.
By Keenan Morgan
While walking through the Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi, we would navigate these never-ending narrow walkways. Sounds of music, motorcycles, children playing, food cooking, and many others could be heard all around. The mod podge of wood and sheet metal surrounds you, almost making you feel claustrophobic. Ducking your head to avoid live wires and watching your step to avoid slipping on the mud and into the ditch is a daunting task.
One at a time we were waiting to enter the small home of an incredible woman who is trying to do everything to support her children. Waiting near the back I tried to use my senses to take it all in when I heard a small voice behind me say, “Hello.” I turned around only to be confronted with more wood and sheet metal. Until I realized there was a crack looking through to the next walkway.
Through the crack, I saw a beautiful little Kenyan girl standing in a doorway waving at me. I smiled and waved back before it was my turn to walk into the home.
Whenever God gives me the chance to travel internationally, I always wonder what He is going to teach me. This lesson might have been one of the greatest I have ever learned. In places of extreme poverty, we sometimes only see what is wrong. This causes us to go into “fix-it” mode trying to figure out what we can do to fix the situation. We have good intentions, but oftentimes we leave feeling like we haven’t even made a dent in the problem. But I don’t believe that God is always calling us to FIX what is wrong. I think God wants to use these experiences, like a Connection Team Trip with Hope’s Promise, to make a difference in our own lives so that we can return home with a passion and fervor to continue working to impact the lives of others. Could it be that our mission field is wherever we are in the moment? What may feel like a drop in the bucket can turn into a bucket overflowing over the course of a lifetime.
God always teaches me a valuable lesson when I am willing to listen to that still small voice saying, “Hello.” The lesson this time is this; when all we can see is the trash, the hurt, the brokenness, and the ugly dirty mess, God sees the beautiful potential. He sees the seed being planted in the empty desolate field that will one day be a beautiful forest flourishing with life. He sees the bad and despite it, redeems and restores it. We can see this beauty too and be vessels of the work if we are willing to peel back the layers of bad and look through the cracks. If we can put aside our motives, ideas, and wants, then we can look at the world through God’s eyes to see His plan and purpose at work. We can begin to see the beauty that exists despite the bad.
“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7b NIV