EEEk Fundraisers!!!

FUNDRAISERS!!!  And now comes that blood curling scream from horror movies!!  Oh the very word makes your skin crawl and makes you want to hide under your bed!

I confess, I copied the above from another families blog (with permission;).  She made some great points I completely agreed with.  As I read it I chuckled, but by the end of the post I felt I should share my heart with my readers as well.

You have seen fundraisers from Christmas Wreaths, to our Adoption Yard Sale, to our Pampered Chef Benefit...and most recently a way to give a tax deductible donation through Village to Village.  This is in NO way meant to be any kind of pressure from us on to you.  We cherish our friends and family and would NEVER want to stress anyone.  We have not sat and counted our friends, ticking off dollar signs in our heads, and won't we promise:)

The point of fundraisers is two-fold.  First, with a fundraiser, you can have a lot of people do a little and accomplish much (many hands make light work!).  Example:  You may think it pointless to give $10 on our Village to Village donation goal, when we need $9,890.  It's just a drop in the bucket.  HOWEVER, if you give $10 knowing you are one of 100 people giving $10 than you have helped raise $1000 for your friends.  EVERY penny counts!

Second, our time for receiving a referral is drawing near (hopefully in the  next 6 months) when we will have only 2 weeks to come up with the $9,890.  We have some of this, but as you can see we are not there yet, and we are chiseling away at that number a little at a time!

As I tell my children, when their "I wants" get too many to number,  Guys, as much as I would like it we are not independently wealthy.  And the very real honest fact of the matter is we do not have thousands sitting in the bank. As ridiculous as it seems, it costs over $20,000 to adopt one little girl. There are thousands of orphans around the world because of the very real financial wall that stands between them and their would be families.  These kids deserve homes and how many more families would be willing if they didn't question how on earth they could ever afford it.

God has shown us from the get go that he would provide opportunities for us to climb that wall.  We have prayed for provision and don't believe He waves a magic wand giving us thousands, but rather gives us chances to work in ways he can move.  So, even though we don't have thousands, we are willing to fight, to save, to raise the money, to sell our stuff, to have faith that the money will continue to be there, and to know it will not be because of us.  It will be because of MANY that we are blessed with the life of one little girl.

Please, as you see the fundraisers, or the reminders, do not feel like you should look away, or run and hide or hope that we don't think badly of you for not giving.  We want everyone to do what their heart tells them to do.  If that means giving, we humbly receive it.  If that means sending us a word of encouragement or a prayer our way, by all means PLEASE do!.  We could have not made it this far without what you have already done, and we know we can't make it the rest of the way without you. 

We are so blessed for each and everyone of you.  Thank you for your support as we continue our journey to bring Isabel home.  God Bless.

NUMBER EIGHT!!!!!!!

Confession: I have known for almost a week that we have moved up to number eight on the Thailand Wait List (SINGLE digits baby)!!!!  However, life and all that entails has kept me from announcing it, well blogging it, as everyone within 10 feet of me all week definitely heard about it.  The Program Director and Assistant emailed the update on the matches from the September referrals (yay for all the families finding out about their kiddos!!), and other details about the program.  As always I emailed the assistant (also a Laura:) and said, "Sooooooo, where does that place us?"  I could almost feel her patient smile through the email as she congratulated us on moving to number 8, and then reminded us that matches are not always made in chronological order.  I just know we are closer than ever before...and have the possibility of being matched in March 2013 ( I mean given that matches aren't chronilogical it could be December 2012 but whose thinking that????)  The right child at the right time, says Program Assistant Laura.  Sigh.  And so we continue to play the waiting game.  (We hate you waiting game!)

 

The other big eight in our life is our little man Ian.  Our baby turned eight on the 19th!  He is so big. He loves football and so his birthday bash included: a football shaped brownie, new Vikings jersey, a card collectors folder with football cards, a football figurine, and an MP3 player(because he wants an ipod and really I won't even buy myself one and I would have a heart attack when I found it in his jeans in the dryer after being washed...a few more years buddy, a few more years!)  Love him to pieces!

 

 

In other news we raised over $300 to deposit in our little account from spending an evening with Pampered Chef and all our friends!  So much fun, good food, and stuff everybody wants anyway.  So thank you Friends/Family, Carol Nunnery, and Pampered Chef.  We were accepted onto a website called Village to Village International.  Our family's profile and adoption story will be listed and people can donate and the monies will be tax deductible, and channeled through Village to Village who directly pays for our expenses (we do not recieve money direct.)  They are an awesome, new program that is trying to get 1000 people to donate $10 a month which they can bless families with to help offset these crazy expenses. We will definitely join that 'village' after we bring Isabel home. More to come on that later.  We have also applied with JSC for another grant, so please pray God's will in that.  Our church has lovinginly blessed up with pledges of $2100 by the end of the year.  All in all we are watching in awe as God continues to move mountains. 

 

We are staying busy of course.  The boys are finally settling into the school routine, and after the last two months filled with events on our calender I'm hoping to set back for a while and get some things done.  Ha!  Who am I kidding...the holidays are just around the corner.  Ah well, such is life.