Shout Out: Meet the Kautzi Family!
Meet the Kautzi Family! Eric and Kelsey are adopting a baby (either gender) from Ethiopia!
"Eric and I have been married a little over 6 years and have one biological daughter named Lila who is 2.5. We live in Overland Park, KS - a suburb of Kansas City. I am a part-time teacher and my husband fixes Apple computers. The long version of why we are adopting is here. The short story is my husband and I were both blessed with experiences growing up (mission trips, study abroad, hosting exchange students, etc) that opened our eyes to the world at large and also gave us a picture of the reality that many people around the world live in poverty. Adoption was planted in my heart when I visited several orphanages in Guatemala while I studied abroad there. When we were dating, we both said that adoption was something we were open to and wanted to be a part of our story, but we weren't sure in what capacity. When we got married, we started sponsoring some children in Ethiopia through Food for the Hungry and in 2008, we were able to visit two of the children we sponsored. We of course, fell in love with Ethiopia and its people. We mark the trip home as the moment when those two paths - adoption and Ethiopia - began to converge into one. We began to talk about adoption being a reality in our family. We got pregnant with our daughter that next year which sort of put the adoption conversation on hold. But when Lila was a little over a year old, some friends of ours experienced the tragic loss of their adopted daughter (whom they had parented from birth) back to her birth father after a 2.5 year court battle when the Kansas Supreme Court overturned two previous rulings in their favor. Their convictions about adoption and their humility and faith captured our hearts and brought adoption back into our conversations. We began to feel the Lord saying to start researching our options. Ethiopia seemed like the obvious choice, but we wanted to investigate all of our options to be sure it was the best fit for us. 6 months later in June 2011, after much prayer and research and discussion, we felt a true sense of peace and direction and began the process to adopt from Ethiopia with Children's Hope International. In early 2012 we finished our dossier and were put on the waiting list at number 99! We are now at 91 (to the best of our knowledge - you know how it goes!).
We have several fundraisers going on right now. One is the sale of T-shirts that were donated to us. Unfortunately all of our Africa designs are almost completely sold out, but we have MANY of the other designs. They are printed on American Apparel tees (which run $25+ if you buy from AA) and we are selling them for $15 each or 2 for $20. Because the tees were donated to us pre-printed (a friend of ours used to own a t-shirt business and wanted to give his excess stock away to a good cause) 100% of the proceeds go toward our adoption. Here is a link to our t-shirt page.
"Eric and I have been married a little over 6 years and have one biological daughter named Lila who is 2.5. We live in Overland Park, KS - a suburb of Kansas City. I am a part-time teacher and my husband fixes Apple computers. The long version of why we are adopting is here. The short story is my husband and I were both blessed with experiences growing up (mission trips, study abroad, hosting exchange students, etc) that opened our eyes to the world at large and also gave us a picture of the reality that many people around the world live in poverty. Adoption was planted in my heart when I visited several orphanages in Guatemala while I studied abroad there. When we were dating, we both said that adoption was something we were open to and wanted to be a part of our story, but we weren't sure in what capacity. When we got married, we started sponsoring some children in Ethiopia through Food for the Hungry and in 2008, we were able to visit two of the children we sponsored. We of course, fell in love with Ethiopia and its people. We mark the trip home as the moment when those two paths - adoption and Ethiopia - began to converge into one. We began to talk about adoption being a reality in our family. We got pregnant with our daughter that next year which sort of put the adoption conversation on hold. But when Lila was a little over a year old, some friends of ours experienced the tragic loss of their adopted daughter (whom they had parented from birth) back to her birth father after a 2.5 year court battle when the Kansas Supreme Court overturned two previous rulings in their favor. Their convictions about adoption and their humility and faith captured our hearts and brought adoption back into our conversations. We began to feel the Lord saying to start researching our options. Ethiopia seemed like the obvious choice, but we wanted to investigate all of our options to be sure it was the best fit for us. 6 months later in June 2011, after much prayer and research and discussion, we felt a true sense of peace and direction and began the process to adopt from Ethiopia with Children's Hope International. In early 2012 we finished our dossier and were put on the waiting list at number 99! We are now at 91 (to the best of our knowledge - you know how it goes!).
We have several fundraisers going on right now. One is the sale of T-shirts that were donated to us. Unfortunately all of our Africa designs are almost completely sold out, but we have MANY of the other designs. They are printed on American Apparel tees (which run $25+ if you buy from AA) and we are selling them for $15 each or 2 for $20. Because the tees were donated to us pre-printed (a friend of ours used to own a t-shirt business and wanted to give his excess stock away to a good cause) 100% of the proceeds go toward our adoption. Here is a link to our t-shirt page.
The other fundraiser is a puzzle fundraiser. Donors
can sponsor a puzzle piece for $10 each and we'll write their name on
the back of the piece and eventually frame the completed puzzle in
double-sided glass in our child's room so they can see who helped bring
them home. The puzzle is a print of a photo we took when we went to
Ethiopia in 2008 so it has a special significance to us. Here is a link to that page."
Please visit Eric and Kelsey's blog and consider buying one of their awesome shirts or participating in their puzzle fundraiser!
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