3 months and counting!

We heard from our adoption agency and we are so excited! We have 3 months left of waiting before we get our referral, but we have some paperwork that needs to be updated. Although, we have more paperwork to do, it's exciting to think of how close we are to the adoption being finalized!

Here's what we have to update (the first five have to be notarized):

• Financial update
• Employment Letter
• Physical & Doctor Letters
• Police Reports
• Home Study
• I-171H (visa needed to bring Calvin to the US & fingerprints which we have already updated)

Let me explain what this means for us.  A referral is when we receive a phone call from our adoption agency letting us know that they have a baby matched to us. Once we receive the email with his picture and medical history, we can say yes or no to this referral.....UMMM....we can't imagine saying no after waiting this long!! We are asking for 0-2 years, the oldest he could be when we get him would be 1 year and 11 months.  Once we say yes we will then pay $8,000 (raised so far $5,700) in fees which go toward the agency and the orphanage in Ethiopia.  The agency will then give us a date of our first trip to Ethiopia which we are estimating to cost $7,000.

 This first trip is our court date where the judge approves us for this adoption (some families don't get approved the first time because of additional paperwork needed; we are hoping we get approved during this time!).  We will get to meet him on this trip!! We will have a week in Ethiopia to do paperwork, sightseeing, and of course, getting to know Calvin. We will then have a couple of weeks after we get home before we can go and pick him up, I do believe that will be the hardest and trying wait time compared to our wait time now!

We have decided that just Caleb and I will be going on this first trip because of cost.  Our second trip we will also take Charis with us so that she can meet Calvin and experience Ethiopia first hand.  It will be so amazing for all FOUR (wow, just writing that brings tears to my eyes!) of us to come back as a family!

Our fundraising so far...

I am probably the worst blogger ever.  There is so much to blog about especially with all this fundraising we're doing, but I just put off blogging about it.  I'm probably the best procrastinator ever (just got to think positive, right??).  

First fundraiser: Baby bottle drive. We've made $365 so far!

Second fundraiser: Premier Jewelry Show

 The wonderful and gracious hostess, Jessica Weaver. She sells this jewelry to make extra income for her family. It was such a blessing for her to offer help us with fundraising by donating the proceeds she would have made to our adoption fund. We made $575!

 We had an AMAZING turnout! She had outside orders added to the show.  There were a couple more people that showed up after this picture was taken, I was so overwhelmed!

 Jessica showing how the jewelry would look on a person and different ways to wear this particular piece.

 Third fundraiser: Garage Sale. Our wonderful friend Cheryl offered her house for this garage sale. It started off with a BANG!! LOL!  Jessica and Misty trying out a donated pair of boxing gloves.  We really hadn't started sorting through stuff, but I think they were tired and cranky from just thinking about getting started...HAHA!

 This trailer was FULL of donated items.  I can NOT believe how much stuff was donated! We are blessed to be involved in a church with so many generous people! It was such a rainy day and we didn't get it all emptied because we had so much stuff.  The rain and 'the pond' at the end of the driveway didn't help either.

 SO thankful for this yummy potato soup that Jessica made.  It was the perfect comfort food after sorting through stuff, it was also chilly that day and that warm soup HIT. THE. SPOT!!

 My son's friend and neighbor makes these bracelets and keychains.  If you'd like one, we will send one (or several = p) to you.  We recently changed the prices (bracelets are now $6 and the keychains are now $2).  The colors are Ethiopia's national colors (red, green and yellow). 

 After the warm soup, it was time to tackle this thing (we had even more donations that couldn't fit in the trailer!).  It was quite the ordeal to figure out how to get into it with 'the pond' surrounding it!  Thankfully, Cheryl's dad was home and he helped us get some of the stuff out by lending us a ramp.

 Day of garage sale! It was so cold and gloomy, but we had a great turnout! Charis and Ellie had a lemonade and bake sale stand. They enjoyed selling the goodies, but it was a chilly and rainy day!

 Charis and Ellie's first dollar from selling cookies! =D

'The pond'. 

Toward the middle of the day, the rain was pretty constant and people had to step over walk through 'the pond'.

 Garage sale #2! We had so much stuff left over that we were able to do another garage sale!

 Preparing for the second garage sale.

 Our neighbor London (who makes the bracelets and keychains) helping us put together several toy train tracks for the garage sale.

Charis was such a big help! She enjoyed helping with the garage sale.

We had a third garage sale, but I didn't get any pictures of that. I guess if you've seen one garage sale, you've pretty much seen them all, right?? = p and I think I was all garage saled out (I know that's not a word, but it sounds good when you say it in your mind or even out loud...HAHA!).  We made over $1,200 with all three garage sales!

Fundraiser #4: Mary Kay party. We had another generous friend donate her proceeds to our adoption fund. I forgot my camera that evening, so I didn't get any pictures =(. We made $160 from this fundraiser!

We have some more fundraisers that we are hoping to do this summer and fall. Can't wait to see how God will bless!

Just as an update, we are hoping to hear from our adoption agency within the next 3 months about our baby boy Calvin. It has been four years since we began this journey. Our paperwork has been in Ethiopia for over 2 years now. It has been such a long wait, but we know that God's timing is perfect and that whatever child he has picked out for us will be the perfect fit for our family.  Growing our family the way God has planned for us has not been the easiest for us, but we know that even though God's plan may not always be the easiest (or most cost effective! LOL!), it will reap the greatest rewards and blessings. Struggling with infertility is not easy and I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where there will be a time in my life where I won't feel sad or sometimes still question why. I am looking forward to that day though. I can't wait til we are united with Calvin as God continues to unfold His plan for our lives.  It's hard to imagine what our lives will be like once we adopt just as we didn't know how our lives would unfold when we had Charis. I am thankful that God is in control even though sometimes I KNOW THINK is best because I KNOW I'll screw things up if my life were left to my control (I have experienced this and it is NOT pretty!). 

I have felt like this plenty of times!!

  Ps. 55:6

And I say, "Oh that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

But thankfully...
  Is. 55:6-12

6. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;  

7. let the wicked forsake his way; and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, 

11. so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

12. For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Baby Bottle Drive

Our fundraiser #2 is a Baby Bottle Drive. This morning we took 40 baby bottles to church for people to take home and fill with change.  We were able to give out 30 bottles this morning! I will be mailing off two bottles to family that want to participate as well!! Looking forward to seeing how much money we're going to raise through this fundraiser. This fundraiser will probably last about two months, I will keep you updated on how much money we raise through this one.

40 bottles ready to be filled with change!

Charis stood by the table to answer questions people may have had about the bottles

The tag speaks for itself =)

We first put a half sheet of paper in the bottle which tells a little bit about ourselves and our adoption story. Charis is putting the tag on the bottle with the ribbon.

A close up of the finished product

Our wonderful friends who are neighbors as well started a fund jar for us too!

The bottle in the middle is the one we are putting our change into! LOL! 

The next fundraiser we have coming up is a Premier Jewelry Show on Tuesday, March 19 from 7-9 pm.  Excited to see how God is going to provide through this one as well!

FUNdraising

Our idea of fundraising was asking people to give us money and that felt so selfish to us.  We know that what we are doing is a great thing, but we also needed money and hated the thought of asking for it.  We put it off for a long time and just thought that we could just "do it on our own" or wait for the adoption credit from the government (HA!) which we don't know if it will still be available.  After talking with godly friends and our wonderful community group, we realized that God has placed a GREAT group of people in our lives that love us and wanted to get behind us to help us raise the money we need.  When we told them about our hesitation of asking people for money, they said, "We'll be doing the asking!".  Why yes, yes, they would and that brought rounds of laughter and a burden lifted from our shoulders.  Soooo.....

...we have decided to start doing some fundraising and God has already started blessing us before we've even begun! We received $500 one Sunday from someone anonymous and then we received $3,000 from a friend that is going to be used to match funds through our fundraising!  GOD IS SO AMAZING!!

Our first fundraiser is a Premier Jewelry Show.  My friend is a consultant for Premier and makes 50% from her shows and is graciously giving us 100% of those proceeds for our adoption fund.  It will be held on Tuesday, March 19 from 7-9 pm in her home.  We, of course, are hoping for a great turnout.  There's also a special deal going on until March 28 with Premier.  If you spend $75 then you will be able to choose any item in the catalog that is $50 or less and get it for $10!  Catalog sales also count in this deal!  I am excited to see what God is going to do with this fundraiser and at the same time help my friend with her new business.  Thankful for my mother-in-law Joy Kelley who will be showing the catalogs to her friends in Guam! We mailed it off today and can't wait to see how many sales we get from that! We have an event set up on FB here if you are interested. My friend came up with a pretty sensational tag line for this fundraiser, "BLing Calvin Home". Haha!

Our second and ongoing fundraiser: Baby Bottle Drive.  We are going to be purchasing baby bottles which we will give to friends and family and have them take them home to fill with change. They will then bring back the filled bottle and get another one to fill if they would like.  They are welcome to take home several if they so choose.  We will put a half sheet in each bottle telling a little bit about ourselves and our adoption story.  We've come up with a pretty catchy tag line (we think so anyway!) "Fill a Bottle, Change a Life".  I will post a more specific blog with details about this fundraiser in the near future.

The third fundraiser is a garage sale.  Bolivar, MO will be having their city-wide garage sale on Sat., April 27th.  We are asking people to donate their junk unwanted items for this garage sale.  We'd like bigger items like furniture and/or TV's since we can make more $$ with them.  But we will take all donations.  Whatever we don't sell at this one, Willard (where we live) has their city-wide garage sale in June.  We will again ask for more donations and use what we didn't sell in the last one for the Willard garage sale.

We have some more fundraising ideas, but so as not to overwhelm you or make this post longer that it needs to be, I will blog about them as we get them set and have more details.  We are excited about where God is leading with our fundraising and can't wait to see how much more he will be blessing us through this. If you have any ideas, feel free to post here or send me a message on FB.  Thank you for walking with us through this journey.

Avoidance

Sometimes it seems that avoidance is better than facing problems head on.  Not that blogging is a problem, but time just slipped away so fast it seemed that whenever I would think about blogging about our life or how we are doing in the adoption process, I would think, no one really pays attention anyway or I'm just going to give up on this blogging thing and not worry about it.  I know, it was the wrong way of thinking, but hey, you have to start somewhere.  So, I am starting again.  I am going to do my bestest (I  know it's not a word, but I  like the way it sounds when you say it :D) to blog on a regular basis...again.  So much time has passed and so many things have gone on since I last blogged, that I will not do a catch post right now.  I will do catch up blogs over the next few weeks.  For right now, this will have to do.  Thanks for reading! =D