Dear Friends and Family Letter

Dear Friends and Family,


“A father of the fatherless…God sets the solitary in families…” - Psalms 68:5,6

Some of you know we have felt called and directed by God to adopt a child from Ethiopia into our family. We are adopting a little girl, and will be matched with a specific child in the next several months, then travel toEthiopia to bring her home!  Ethiopia is a country with 5 million orphans in the land 1/2 the size of Texas.  That's 1 in 9 children, and of those children- 1 out of 6 don't ever make it to their 1st Birthday.

Some of you are probably wondering what has prompted us to adopt again. Well, primarily, we’ve felt so clearly directed by God to adopt, and we also desire to give an orphan child a family that she probably won’t otherwise have. Our daughter Sova, came home from India at age 4 and she still talks about the orphanage, the other children, and some really heartbreaking questions. "Why did you take so long to come get me...I was waiting and waiting for you." Watching her flourish is amazing but is a constant reminder to us of all the other children left behind. We know we alone can't put a dent in the orphan crisis but we can make a difference to one. Adoption is a strong passion placed upon our hearts and amazingly even our children's heats. We have heard, "mom, we have more room, we need more kids, I will share my bed!" "we should knock down this house and build a bigger one for more orphans."

The biggest challenge for us is not opening our hearts and home to another child, but it is in finding the finances to make this happen. We know that God is leading us once again to adopt and believe He is bigger than finances, so we are truly relying on faith that God will provide. We estimate our total cost for adoption fees, document preparation, home study, airfare, travel, attorney fees, etc. to be $20,000 - that’s certainly money we don’t have, but we know God is faithful and is leading us to trust Him. By God’s grace we’ve been able to pay the initial $6,500. We held a large scale tagsale this fall that brought in $3,500! We also set up 2 fundraisers on our family blog - we are selling adoption t-shirts and fair-trade coffee. Our children initiated collecting spare change and after 4 months they were able to donate $40 towards bringing home their sister! They are decorating cans for anyone who would like a 'brining home baby' coin jar...they are very excited about this. As you can see nothing is to small (like saving cans!)...little by little we will get there!

If you are interested in taking part in this journey with us there are two ways you can help:


1. Prayer – Please pray God would tenderly care for this child until we are able to bring her home, that God would prepare our children for the upcoming changes to our family, and that God will give us wisdom, discernment, and insight as we raise this child.

2. Financial support - Will you please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us pay the remaining $13,000 in adoption expenses to bring our daughter home?


Lifesong (www.lifesongfororphans.org) has graciously set up a fundraising account for us to raise adoption funds. If you would like to help bring our daughter home, you can send your tax-deductible gift to the address below. Lifesong is a trusted and will pay our adoption expenses out of funds received.

1. Please make checks payable to: 'Lifesong' You should preference how the donation might be used by writing “preference Turner #1618 Adoption” in the memo section of your check.

2. Mail checks to:

Lifesong for Orphans
Att: Turner # 1618 Adoption
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744


Thank you for considering us in your giving this year.

Sincerely Grateful,

Michael, Jill,
Jacob, Sova-Grace & Caleb Turner

Please Contact us w/ any questions....Thanks!