Bringing Willow Home
Stacey and Michael
Laketon, IN
Nĭn hăo! (Hello)! Our names are Michael, Stacey, and Finnley Meredith. We are so blessed to finally be in the final stages of our adoption! We got our referral for our 8 year old daughter, "Willow Mei-Xin", last May from Taiwan. And now we are beyond excited to be traveling within the next 3-4 months to bring her home! Willow is so beautiful, funny, and loving. We have had 2 Skype sessions with her since Christmas and will have another one soon. She loves hippos, noodles, strawberries, and the colors pink and blue. She even wrote us a letter telling us how appreciative she is that we chose to adopt her, she is excited to come to America (although a little scared as well), and that she loves us very much! We can't wait to wrap our arms around her. Willow recently went to court on her own (the judge did not require us to be there) and we are so proud of her strength and courage. Right now, we are just waiting on the ruling and other formalities before we get our official travel date.
When my husband and I went through the hardships of trying to conceive both naturally and through IVF, God had other plans and grew our family through the beautiful gift of adoption. We adopted our son Finnley from Bulgaria 9 years ago when he was 2 years old. And God clearly spoke to our hearts once again, because here we are now waiting to bring our sweet Willow home to us! This journey is long and quite expensive, but like with the blessing of Finnley, we trust fully in God’s plan. ”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." We also are so grateful for the generosity of our family/our Church family/friends/even complete strangers that have helped us in so many ways on this journey (we have fundraised, used our own savings, and are now in the final stretch). We are asking for our prayer warriors to pray earnestly and if your heart is led to help us financially to bring our sweet Willow home, then we are so beyond thankful to you! We have experienced the connection adoption brings, deeply weaving people together like a beautiful tapestry, helping each other, forever becoming part of each other's journey. Won't you please be part of ours by helping us bring Willow home? ... “For this child we have prayed.”
Xiè Xiè (Thank you) & Many Blessings,
The Meredith Family
2 Family Updates
Donors
Roger Votaw
We couldn't have biological children and we adopted a boy at birth. He was from this community, but it still cost over $5,000 in legal fees. Also, when the opportunity arose, we had about 2 weeks to plan, which meant some serious remodeling, finishing and furnishing of a baby room. In addition, I was taking classes for my education degree and wasn't employed. Now, my son is 25 and has kids of his own, our grandchildren. All of our lives, including the biological families have been changed and enriched by this decision we made 25 years ago.
Heide Martin
Mike Keaffaber
Excited for Willow and the entire family! Make it Happen!
Doug Wells
Pamele Roberts
Love & prayers as you continue this amazing joutof bringing Willow home.
Angie Driscoll
So excited for your family to grow and be complete with Willow.
Allison King
Raelyn Bever
David Fincher
God bless you!
Michael Werling
Congratulations Michael, Stacey and Finnley!! Can't wait to meet Willow!
3/21/24
We had our monthly call with Willow and it was such a fun and amazing interaction with her!
We played a game last night where we would take turns picking an item to make with playdoh and then we had to try and guess what each of us made. They have been practicing Willow's "American Words" bc she rocked her English last night! We had so much fun laughing and learning more about each other. After we read our story to her, she sang us a beautiful Taiwanese song. Then she gave us the most beautiful surprise... she wanted to know if we picked out an American name for her. We finally got to tell her about the name Willow Mei-Xin and that it means -Resilient & free with a beautiful heart and she LOVED it! She told us she wants to use her new name at school! And wanted to know how to spell it. She then drew us a picture of all of us (even the dogs) and called herself-- Willow💗 we are so thankful to God and for the foundation for preparing Willow for her new life with us! WE LOVE HER SO VERY MUCH and can't wait to bring her home! We are just waiting for the court rulings at this point and then we get our travel itinerary to pick our sweet Willow up and bring home!
Thursday Feb 15- We had our 3rd Skype call with Willow. We are so in love with her! We were able to make Chinese Lanterns together for Lunar New Year. She taught us the colors in Mandarin and we taught them to her in English. She is so smart and did much better than we did! She is so excited to come home and told us some things she can't wait to do with us. Her personality and smile just lights up the room. To hear her her tell us she loves us just melts our hearts. We can't wait for her to be home!!