Our Family and Friends Letter

Dear Family and Friends,
Fred and I have decided to start the next chapter of our lives together… PARENTHOOD!! For those of you that don’t know Fred and I were married five years ago, September 25th 2004! After being married a year we became HOME OWNERS, which was a FUN and STRESSFUL adventure! Not long after that we rescued our pup Suki from the Wisconsin Humane Society! Fred and I have always wanted a large family and about 2 and a half years ago we started trying to conceive. After a year of trying I went to the doctor and went through some NOT so fun tests. Thankfully all the results came back OK, but we were still having NO luck getting pregnant. When you’re trying so hard and nothing is happening it becomes very frustrating, as I’m sure you can imagine, so one day I got down on my knees and prayed to God that if having children was not in my future that he would take the desire away from me so that it didn’t hurt anymore. After a few days I was feeling better and I was on the internet and thought “Hey, why don’t you Google “adoptions”, just to see what pops up. Fred and I always talked about adoption but we planned to look into it after our birth family was complete. As I looked into it more and more I believe God answered my prayer, He didn’t take my desire to be a Mom away he just the changed my desire to fit His plan for our life. I found an adoption ministry that is run by a Christian woman and she helped guide us to the point we are at today! Fred and I are now committed to two beautiful children, a little girl her birth name is Anna and she will be 2yrs old June 26th (My Mom and Dad’s anniversary), and a handsome little chunk named Everett he will be 1yr old Aug. 22nd. Both of our children live with Down Syndrome. People may wonder why we chose to open our hearts and home to children with a special need and the answer is this plain and simple… No one wants them. We are adopting from the Ukraine and over Seas children with disabilities are not treated at all, they are taken from their parents and placed in an orphanage where they only stay until they are four, then they are moved into the institutions where they receive even less care than the orphanage. I have heard it said that most children do not make it past a year in the institutions. This broke my heart and that is when I knew what God’s plan for our life was. As our Friends and Family we wanted to include you on this HUGE decision in our life, we are at the beginning stages and already it has been a roller coaster of emotions. Fred and I are asking for your love, support, encouragement and prayers. These are things we need or I don’t think we will make it through! We set up a blog that we encourage you to follow along with us as we are on this adoption journey. www.whatchwhatfaithcando.blogspot.com There is a small link to our sponsorship page where you can help financially as well, all donations through this link are tax deductable, an international adoption will cost about $18,000 to $20,000. We have some fundraiser ideas in the works but if you think of anything that would help to raise money please let us know. Thank you for taking time to read this and thank you in advance for any kind of help you can offer Fred and I, we truly believe this is the path God has for us!

Sincerely,
Amanda & Fred Karol
akarol25@yahoo.com (414)550-0342
calvarysoftball09@gmail.com (414)550-6986