Somewhere over the rainbow

It's here! It's here! Our first fundraiser for our China Adoption is live on our facebook page.  If you'd like to join us in the fun, just follow this link to "Let Love Grow - Our Adoption Journey" and ask to join.  Once there, you will go to our photo album titled, Silent Auction.  There are many wonderful products that have been donated to us and we are very grateful to all those who donated.  Here's a little sampling for you:

There's truly something for everyone - local friends and those who live a little too far away - everyone can participate!  I hope you'll join us and in turn find something just for you - or just for your Mom.  Mother's Day is not too far away now, so don't forget your Mom.

I'll be showcasing the products over the next week on the facebook page so everyone can get a little insight into the products we have lined up and the people behind them.  The silent online auction will end promptly next Sunday, May 5th at 9pm central time.  So there's lots of time to shop and find something you like.  I'm so excited and I'll see you over there!

~Lisa

What's been going on

What's been going on in our life these days? Paperwork.  And more paperwork. There are days when I wonder if we will ever see our sweet child's face.  Still I push forward and I fill out more paperwork.  Oh, the humanity of it all - this is about a person who need a family and a family who needs them.  It's easy to forget all that in the pile of paperwork.  I think I read someone once that the adoption paperwork stack will weigh about 10 pounds.  Sounds about right!  But I do have good news on the adoption front too! Our home study was finalized and approved on the 23rd so we are officially over that step now! I am so glad.  We submitted our application for the home study the end of January so it took us 3 months to complete - the norm is somewhere between 2-4 months so we are pretty normal people I guess.

What's next? Well there's a little form (haha) called the I800 which we will use to apply to immigration, get an appointment to be fingerprinted and then approved by our government to adopt a child internationally.  That should go out this week.  I've been working on some grant applications while we waited for the home study so as soon as it was ready, we could apply.  One grant has a deadline of April 30th....just making that one! There's another one with a deadline of May 15th.  Most of the foundations that offer grants to adoptive families only take applications a few times a year.  Then it takes a good 90 days to hear if you've even been awarded a grant.  I'm trying to be hopeful and trust that God's got this!

I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Phlippians 4:13

Then there's fundraising! We knew going into this that we wouldn't be able to cash flow it all by ourselves.  Sure we could go into debt, but that is our absolute last choice.  Dave Ramsey is our friend (ok, not really - but figuratively he is!).  And I don't think that's what God really wants us to do.  He's asking us to trust Him.  Yet it's humbling.  Asking for support is tough for someone like me who likes to do it all herself without help.  I'm just not good at it.  Ah, another lesson I need to learn....  I've learned so much through this process already in God's timing, his will for us and his need for us to follow him.

So this is my thought about fundraising - it's tough yes, to ask for help.  But, to not ask for help, is like us saying to God, we can do this all by ourselves - and that goes against our self dying and Him living within us.  He didn't ask us to do this adoption thing alone. But we also know that not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all asked to help care for the orphans. For some of us, it's a call to adopt and make the world one less orphan, for others its supporting those adopting, sponsoring a child or giving monetarily where your heart leads you to give.

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God our Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.  James 1:27

So we've started some fundraising by planning a Trash to Treasures yard sale and we've been so surprised by the donations we've received thus far.  We offered to pick things up as folks cleaned out for Spring and we've gotten lots of great stuff! So it's a win-win for all of us.  We help unload other's clutter (that might be someone else's treasure) and we get a boost toward our adoption fund goal.  Our goal in fundraising is to make helping others a focus of our efforts.

The next week we have planned a fun surprise on our facebook page which we created for folks to follow our adoption journey.  The best thing about this fundraiser is the businesses that we know and love, the ones we support as well - I get to tell you all about them! I'll post information about it here too very soon!  I promise I'll be back to tell you all about it within a day or two.

~Lisa

So blessed

Wow...  I am so blessed. So blessed by the response to our adoption announcement.  So very grateful for everyone who took a moment to send well wishes, encouragement, support and love.  I want to print out all the facebook messages, blog comments and other notes I've received then tuck them away in our Sweet Child's lifebook.

The lifebook will be their story - the story of us waiting, the story of their waiting, and ultimately the joining of family. Our homestudy social worker encouraged us to start the lifebook now and I think it's a great idea! We have been blessed by an amazing social worker in our homestudy process. She actually goes to our church - I am amazed at how God puts people together. We go to a fairly large church and so there are many people whom we have never met. We had never met M.B. before our first homestudy visit, but now we have run into her every Sunday since at church. She has made the process so easy for us so far. The homestudy visits are exhausting though....so many questions and of course I want the house to be clean and tidy each time she comes over. Not an easy task for a family of eight, but we can pull it together when we need to!

We are finished now with our homestudy visits.  China requires four.... Some countries only require one! So now we wait for our social worker to type it all up - it's supposed to be about 25 pages all together. wow.  Then she sends it to us to review before it gets all finalized and approved.  In the meantime, we work on our Hague education requirement.  There's an all day training we will need to attend.  I feel like if I can just do a little something everyday to move forward, whether it's sending an email to our agency, filling out a forms....oh, so many forms to fill out, or say a prayer on our Sweet Child's behalf, then we are making progress.

I'm reading The Connected Child right now.  Anything we can do to prepare ourselves and our child for the road ahead - it may be bumpy, but it will always be full of love and compassion.  Someone once said that adoption is not for the faint of heart. There are hard times.  So far, the waiting hasn't been too hard, but I think it's because I've had so much peace over our decision to move forward. God doesn't give us a task without equipping us for the challenge and I think knowing His hand is in this completely provides us with the peace and understanding we need.  I bet it will be harder to wait though once we see our child's face and know we can't bring them home right away!  We may be months off before that happens. Can't wait for it to happen though!