If you have read Travis & Jennifer's story already and want to help, click here to go straight to the products you can buy to send to H.I.S. Home for Children.

We are pleased to announce that we have teamed up with Tiny Tush to help an orphanage in Haiti!  This orphanage needs diapers and diaper accessories and Tiny Tush will be supplying those products at an exceptionally low price.  You can then add any product to your shopping cart, pay for it and we will then take that product and package it for the trip to Haiti.  Keep in mind, we will be handling the product so it will not be shipped to you.

We were approached to do this for the orphanage, by a couple who is traveling to Haiti to bring home their adopted children.  They will be the ones to bring the diapers to Haiti and make sure they get to the orphanage.  This is an exciting opportunity to help others and we hope everyone will get on board.  See their story below!

We are hoping that this will not be a one time deal, we hope to find other needy orphanages around the world and people traveling to them, so they can bring diapers with them.  Let us know if you know of an orphanage needing diapers!

If you would like to be kept updated on the progress of the Haiti's project, please contact us and give us your email address, or preferably join our newsletter as we will be updating you every month.

Click here to start helping!  We have diapers, diaper accessories and toys to send! 

We would like you to meet Jennifer & Travis

A Family In The Making - Our Journey So Far

Travis and I decided to adopt before we got married and so we knew that this was the way we would like to start our family.  We recognized that when parents have biological kids they don’t have a choice on who comes – just as the child doesn’t have a choice as to who their parents are.  And so parenthood, in itself, is the ‘adoption’ of complete strangers into ones home and taking on the unconditional love and acceptance of the differences and learning to share and creating a small community – the family.  So for us adoption is about parenting and unconditionally sharing what we have and investing our time into the growth and nurture of some pretty special kids! Canadian Law requires that a couple be married for 2 years – to show some family stability – prior to proceeding with adoption.  At the completion of those two years we were ready to embark on the journey that we are still on today.  So in June of 2005 we started. Travis and I had had our heart on Haiti for quite some time and so we started to investigate adoption in Haiti.  Haiti is a very volatile environment for processing adoptions and over the history of international adoptions has had the process be very fast and easy to extremely long and arduous.  We learned early on in the process that having our heart set on Haiti would mean a long wait and a lot of patience, but we both felt that that was where we were to adopt from.  In International Adoption, one adds some hurdles that are not present in local adoption.  For example, the adoptive parents must meet all the adoption requirements set out by the province and country of residence (in our case, BC, Canada); and also, must meet all the adoption requirements set out by the birth country of the prospective adoptive children.  Some parents decide to adopt when they know of a particular child, others, like ourselves, proceed through the adoption process waiting to find out who the child or children will be – very much like expectant parents to a biological child. The only difference is that the adoptive parents don’t know the due date! We knew that we would have an uphill road ahead, and that patience was to be a big part of this process. It took us over 6 months of searching very carefully and sending emails to every possible orphanage listed to decide what orphanage to adopt from.  In that road, we also came up against some very shady dealings – that made us feel like they were selling the children but not really concerned about their well being.  Yet, hidden away, after months of prayer and research, we came across a website – which to this day we don’t know where or how it was linked. It was for HIS Home for Children. It was ‘love-at-first-sight’ with HIS Home for Children.  Their replies were quick, their communication was open and honest, they answered all our questions and invited us to ask more! Quickly after that, we decided to proceed to adopt through them. HIS Home for Children processes all the legal side of the adoptions through the help of a couple of lawyers who do a fabulous job. During our long wait, we learned there was a birth mother who was waiting for an opening/beds in the orphanage and that looking for a match prior to relinquishing her two boys to the orphanage.  Imagine her love for her children that until she knew where her kids could be placed she was unable to relinquish them!  This mother had to walk over 2 hours to and from the orphanage with her children, once a month, in order to go through this process – she attended the orphanage from around May 2006 until the end of October.  Once our adoption application was accepted by the orphanage to process, they presented us as potential adoptive parents.  It is our understanding that the birth mother was told this on October 31st and returned on November 1st to relinquish them in order for the adoption proceeding to begin.  She has since been to the orphanage to visit the boys – which shows her love and commitment to her children. It was on the same day of their relinquishment, November 1st, 2006, that we got to see pictures and find out more about them.  The eldest is Steevenson, and he was born in April 2003 – so he was about three and a half years old.  The youngest is Sterlin and he was born April 2006.  Now that the children were identified, the orphanage had to start putting together all the documents for the proposal and eventual Dossier (legal documentation for adoption). We received the proposal in February 2007 and were glad to accept it – a more official way of telling the local authorities our intentions to proceed with the process of adopting these two boys.   Meet Sterlin & Steevenson

We have since also started processing the Immigration paperwork required for our children to be able to enter Canada legally.  There is still quite a process ahead – primarily of silence and lots of patience.  Our documents are preparing to enter what has been nick-named “The Black Hole”, which is the Ministry of Families in Haiti – they need to give their approval of the proposed match of Travis and I to Steevenson and Sterlin, at which time it then moves through the courts to be finalized. When that is complete the children will be legally ours, but we will still have to wait to bring them to Canada.  They will require their Haitian passports listing us as their parents. They will require to complete their application side for immigration and complete the immigration medical examination.  Although the list of things that need to happen may sound overwhelming and time consuming – we see more of a light in the tunnel than we did when we started.  We have now been in the process for 25 months, and don’t really know how much longer it will be.  We have been praying that by the end of this year we will be united to our children. 

As a result of this long process and wait, Travis and I have decided to travel to Haiti for 2 weeks to work in the orphanage.  We will be joined on this trip by family and friends – as we are 11 people going down.  Our intention is to help out in the orphanage in any way we can. There are also 6 men going and so we have committed to a construction project in the orphanage during that time.  We will also take this opportunity to meet our boys and bond with them both on our own and in the orphanage.  We will be leaving for Haiti for the first two weeks in December 2007.  We anticipate that of the 2 suitcases we are each allowed to take, we will each use one for donations to take down to the orphanage.  Some of the needs listed by the orphanage, both on their website and through communication with the directors, have included the following items:  various sizes of pre-folded cloth diapers (as these tend to last longer), plastic pants for the diapers, baby formula in powder form, multi-vitamins for all ages (baby-teens). 

We will be collecting these items and then distributing them amongst the team to take down – this will be at least 11 suitcases @ 50lbs each taken to the orphanage for direct use there.  Because these are donated to the orphanage directly there is no shipping costs, no import taxes – it goes to meet the basic needs of the orphanage. 

The orphanage is run by an American couple from Ohio, Hal & Chris Nungester.  They do have some local help running both the orphanage and the school for the 110 kids in their care.  Apart from that they are currently processing over 65 adoptions! They do a tremendous job taking care and running the orphanage and that many kids, under conditions that none of us can dream.  There are days where there is no electricity (except from midnight to 2am), water is not sanitary and so has to be shipped in to the orphanage for cooking and drinking.

As a waiting parent, I cherish every donation that is given to the orphanage, as it makes a direct difference in the quality of care my children receive while waiting to come home.  I know that the birth mothers, who face a choice many of us couldn’t fathom, greatly appreciate all gifts given to the orphanage in order to give hope and a future to their children.  The directors also are grateful as any donation sent their way helps make their work a little lighter, their worries a little less, and allows them to focus their energy in other areas of child welfare that arise within the orphanage.  And most of all, I know that the children love to receive new items that help make their lives a little more comfortable and more hopeful in a country where most are hopeless.