James & Kara are Adopting!

We are James and Kara Weatherbie. We’ve been married for 8 years, we currently do not have children, and are planning to adopt from Thailand! The first time we discussed adoption was at our college recreation center (shoutout to Pittsburg State!) while playing ping-pong when we were still “getting to know one another” before dating. Since then, adoption has been something we are very open to and encouraged by. As our years together as a married couple have come and gone, the Lord has blessed us in so many ways, including serving him as English teachers in Thailand. While there, we fell in love with the people and the culture. Since returning, the desire to grow our family has strengthened, and we believe adoption is the way the Lord would have us do just that. The idea of bringing a Thai child into our home brings us so much joy and excitement, and we can’t wait to be able to speak to them in their native language and get to teach them about their beautiful home culture. We are blessed to be in a community of families who have also adopted, and we are so thankful for their insight and encouragement.

We expect that our adoption process, because it is international, will take approximately 2-3 years before we can bring a child home. As well as lots of paperwork and hoops to jump through (oh, are we all too familiar with those), we need to support raise to be able to afford this calling in our lives. It feels like yesterday when we were support raising to move to Thailand and serve as teachers, and here we are again! We believe the Lord not only provided the funds to move to Thailand quickly through the generosity of friends and even strangers, but that he was using that experience to prepare us for this moment. To prepare us in knowledge of the culture, in experience in support raising and in the encouragement that nothing and no number is too big for God. So, that’s our story and our Big News! We would love for your prayer support, encouraging words, and financial contributions if you are able.

Our immediate needs are about $3,000 to cover the cost of our Home Study. We can begin that process as soon as we raise those funds.

If you would like to mail a check directly to us, please write it out to James Weatherbie and use the contact button below for our home address. (GoFundMe does take a 3% service fee, but compared to other support raising websites, it is very comparable.)

Due to the cost of International adoption, we are applying for as many grants as we qualify for. Our goal of $16,000 is with the expectation that we will receive some of the grants we are applying for, although we have been informed that there are many families applying for the same grants and they cannot give to every family. So, if we do not receive grant funds, we will have another fundraiser down the road, toward the end of our adoption process.