Our First Post!

Hi friends!  Welcome to SmithTown5000 - a newly created blog for updates on our journey to adoption!

I'll start with some background.  My wife, Sesha, and I have always had adoption on our hearts.  Our Christian faith is very important to us and we believe in living it out loud with our actions much more than our words.  One verse that we decided early in our relationship would be a cornerstone of our family is James 1:27, "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."

So, two months ago we made a decision.  It's time.  It's time to start the process and dive in.  We were both stricken by the statistics that if one family from one out of every three churches in the United States were to adopt one child, every orphan in the United States would have a forever family.

We did some research and found that it is more difficult for siblings and children ages six and up to be adopted, so we decided that's exactly what we wanted to do.  And when I say we're going to adopt siblings, I'm not talking about two kids.  I'm not even talking about three.  I'm talking four.  Four kids!  Are we crazy to be thinking about adopting four kids when neither of us has been a parent before?  Probably.  Almost certainly.  But we keep coming back to one thought: if not us, then who?  It breaks our hearts to think about all the children who grow up without anyone to call family, without anyone to fall back on when times get tough, without anyone to go home to on the holidays when everyone else is with their own families.

Our first step in this journey is we need more space.  We currently live in a two-bedroom apartment and the 2nd bedroom is the office that we use to run our business.  So we've decided to purchase a house, something that wasn't even on the radar for us anytime soon.  Our original plan was to purchase a house in June 2016 and hopefully have the kiddos in it by July.  That's where we transition from background to update.

It looks like we're going to have to wait until around February 2017 to purchase a house.  After meeting with a mortgage specialist at Chase, we learned that it is much more difficult for a self-employed couple to get a loan.  In order to determine how much of a loan you can handle, they look at how much your business has netted in the past two years.

We run a business that specializes in wedding photo & video.  2015 was a breakout year for us.  God made a lot of things click into place and we booked enough weddings that Sesha needed help and I quit my job at the airlines.  We booked 85 weddings in 2015.  When you compare that to the 13 weddings we booked in 2014, you can see how much things have truly exploded.

Unfortunately, that's not enough for the bank.  We need to have two years of good return in order to qualify for the loan we need.  That's how we arrived at a new date of February 2017.  That will give us enough time to file our 2016 taxes right away and get them back in order to show the bank.

In the meantime, we have declared 2016 to be the year of saving for a down payment (buying a house wasn't on the radar for us, remember?).  We've decided that all "extras" are out for 2016, so no going to the movies, baseball games, or other unnecessary expenses.  All of that will be sacrificed until we obtain our goal of a $40,000 down payment.  We're optimistic that God is going to open doors that we're not even expecting, and we've already been blessed by several friends and family members who have generously contributed.

We have a couple of ways that we're working to raise money.  The first is already available.  Sesha has photographed on 5 continents and we're offering prints of her work for sale.  We actually make more money if you go through us rather than through the website, so if you're interested, we'd love for you to e-mail us at contact@conveystudios.com.  The website to view the prints is http://conveystudios.zenfolio.com/p823492092#h6c4b5d01.

The second way we'll be raising money is by Sesha doing mini-family sessions in the Spring and Fall in Dallas, TX and probably Springfield, MO.  We'll have more info about that when it gets closer to time.

So that's where we're at.  Our two greatest needs at this point are prayer and financial support toward our down payment.  We would love if you would pray for us, but especially pray for our future kiddos.  We hate thinking that our future kiddos are probably discouraged right now, thinking that they may never have a forever family.  Please pray for love and protection to surround them during this season of waiting.

Thanks so much for taking the time to follow us and our journey!