Our next fundraiser!

139 envelopes

So here's how it works - there are 139 envelopes - why 139? Great question!!! 

Psalm 139

 

O Lord, you have searched me

and you know me. 

You know when I sit and when I rise;

you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

you know it completely, O Lord.

 

You hem me in - behind and before;

you have laid your hand upon me.

Such a knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me."

even the darkness will not be dark to you;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when i was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake,

I am still with you.

 

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent;

you adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord,

and abhor those who rise up again you?

I have nothing but hatred for them;

I count them my enemies

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts,

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

You choose an envelope, and you donate that amount of money. It's that simple.

If you choose envelope #5, you donate $5. If you choose envelope #139, you donate $139. You get the idea, right? Some select envelopes will have bonus items associated with them (Ex: candy bar, coloring page, gift cards, etc.... so choose wisely, you may just end up with a gem from our family!)

We will keep everyone updated on what numbers have already been purchased and which envelopes are still available. If there is a denomination that you really want and someone already took that envelope, choose two envelopes to add up to that number! We also would love to hear why you chose a number if it is special to you!  For example, I had a sweet friend who was going to buy a necklace and she gave us the money instead of purchasing the necklace.  It was a touching gesture that I had never thought of doing, and want to start being more proactive about doing the same thing! 

If we get all 139 envelopes, we will raise almost $10,000 ($9619 to be exact)! AMAZING! This would almost take care of our last LARGE payment that is due. We are continually blessed and astounded at how God has taken care of our finances with this whole journey. He has always provided and we trust in Him to finish this journey with us! Want to join us?  Either message (email, FaceBook message, text or reply somehow!) and tell me what number envelop you would like. 

**As a side note - this fundraiser came from my daughters heart. She is a giver, a compassionate hearted person that loves people. She came to me wanting to sell things like potholders, rainbow loom bands, etc. I wasn't sure how that would come about, seeing as the market isn't necessarily booming for those kinds of items! However, I didn't want to squash her spirit. She then said that she wanted to give some of her personal money towards raising funds for the adoption. Again, I didn't want to take her money, since she and her siblings are raising enough money for a plane ticket home for one of the kiddos. I prayed and prayed about how I could involve her more, since she was obviously interested in being actively involved in raising funds. So I started searching for ways for her to be involved. This is where the idea started and we, as a family, decided this was a fun way for everyone to be involved.**

God at work!

Sending thankful prayers up to my God today! 

One of my friends just got a travel date notice to go and pick up their son!  This other mama and I have been on our adoption journey together for over a year.  I am soooo grateful that they get to meet and give him a forever home very, very soon!  God is good all the time! 

I know it is quiet on our end here recently, but praise God with me today loudly that He knows exactly what He is doing - matching families, clearing government red tape, sending out travel dates, etc!  God is working for those that don't have an earthly family YET! 

Quiet on the Home Front....

Time to update - what information, I'm not sure!  But it's time to update! 

Many referrals are coming in through our adoption agency, it's just not our time yet.  I know we have a longer wait ahead of us....sometimes I get anxious and want to meet our kiddos!!  It's truly good that others are getting their referrals, because that means that other children are getting their forever homes and forever families.  I can't imagine what it would be like to be told that you now have a family that wants you, that loves you, and that is coming to get you to take you to a safe, loving home!  I want my future kids to hear those words oh so badly!!! 

We are hosting a Parents Night Out on February 13th.  Parents will be able to drop off their kids from 5pm-10pm and head out to a nice, quiet Valentines Day date.  We will provide a light snack, movie, games and a craft.  Reservations are limited, so contact me if you wish to sign your kiddo-crew up!  We will be accepting donations that go towards our adoption expenses.  Feel free to share this announcement with anyone local! 

No other news to report on quite yet.  We are brainstorming another fund raiser that I mentioned in the earlier post - so stay tuned for that announcement! 

Brainstorming.....

My husband always cringes when I say - "Oooo, I have an idea!" 
(To be honest, I think my father does too!)

Well, all of your interesting, fun-loving people who get excited when they hear about something new

STAY TUNED!!!

 

I have an idea brewing in my head that I think will be a fun way to raise money!!! 
Ooooo, back to brainstorming!!! 

Overflowing of Love

What blessings we have to report on!!!  God is working financially through our adoption once again! 

First, we need to thank an anonymous person from our church family.  While I don't like not knowing, I will (try to) rest in joy from the gift!  But thank you to that special person/people!  Let me share with the rest of you our story of blessing!  We received a BEAUTIFUL note - one of true encouragement, verses of truth, and inspiring words from friends!   In the gift, this person left us 50 Bruster's (our local ice cream shop) coupon booklets that can be sold for $20 each.  You do the math - yep, that was the same jaw-dropping reaction I had!  A possible $1,000 towards our adoption!  We are going to wait and sell these in the spring-time when its a little warmer out!  We are grateful for you friend(s), whomever you are!! 

Second, I had another friend at church ask if she could do a fundraiser for me!  All she wants me to do is show up and have fun looking at jewelry and other accessories!  She is taking care of the invites, the refreshments, the hosting, everything!!!  This company with whom she is organizing a fundraiser with is Noonday - it is special to my heart because it was originally based off an adoption fundraiser.  The jewelry is beautiful!!  They also have other items such as handbags, headbands, scarves, etc.  The items are made in different countries like Peru, Ethiopia, Haiti (yay!!), Rwanda, Ecuador, and various other countries.  It is a great company that I am excited to learn even more about! 

As you can see, the people from our church are have been so supportive us of along this journey.  We are grateful for each and every prayer that goes up for our family as well.  Thank you brothers and sisters of SAYSF Bible Church for your love and support!  We cannot wait to introduce you to (more of) our children!  wink, wink! 

A third update is our Amazon link that people have been using!  My goal was to get up to one plane ticket to bring a child home (around $300).  We are almost there - we are currently at $245!!!  How exciting!  Thank you for taking the time to shop this way!  A person close to me is hoping to get 2 tickets with this link!  Keep up the shopping and if you have no clue what I am talking about - see earlier posts on this blog. 

As far as news on the adoption front, we are a little over a month into our 6-8 month l.o.n.g, quiet wait!  I pray daily for a gentle, quiet spirit in this time when I can pray for my future kids and all that they are dealing with on a daily basis and all that they will deal with when they finally come home!  Join me in prayer, would you?! 

Sense of Humor!

He says, "Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

Psalm 46:10

 

It has been really quiet on the news of our adoption recently!  Quite frustrating for a mama's heart, but I have determined to Be Still.  I am not the "stillest" person in the world, so this is hard for me.  However, that is a command from God.  The same God who already knows how many hairs are on my children's head (Matt 10:30), the same God who knows when our file will be submitted to IBESR (Job 34:21), and the same God who will make things happen at exactly the right time (Act 1:7). 

 

So as I was typing this - an email came in from our agency!!! 

 

OUR DOSSIER WAS

SUBMITTED

TO IBESR TODAY!!!!!

 

Doesn't God have such a great sense of humor!  Here I am trying to convince myself of His word and somewhat having a pity party for myself - and He gave me a spanking!!  I must be STILL and listen to His leading and to His ways!!  Uh - sorry God!! 

 

So what does this big news mean?!!  Well, now we wait (again!) 6-8 months for a formal referral from Haiti.  This referral will have a picture and other important information included and we have 14 days to accept the referral and give our proposed travel dates for our 2-week bonding trip.  Yikes - 2 weeks away from my kiddos here!  We aren't sure yet what we are going to do with them for this amount of time, but ideas are flying through our minds.  We are excited to let our minds get more serious about this step! 

 

What I originally got on here to blog about was our news about our fundraising!  We sold all 190 pizza cards in 2 1/2 weeks!  That's amazing!  Our kids rocked these cards!!  Our kids had expressed raising funds to help with adoption from the very start (exactly a year ago, actually!).  We told them all profits from these cards would totally be their contribution to the expenses.  And they did it!  They raised $3,050!!  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!  We are proud of them and can't wait to share with our Haitian children how their siblings helped bring them home!! 

 

We are still praying for our matching grant through LifeSong as well as our Amazon link to use to raise funds.  If you need any information about either of those, just let me know. 

 

Thanks God for uplifting and encouraging news right when this mama needed it!! 

Another quick, AMAZING update!!

More provisions!!

We got a letter late last week that we have been awarded a grant for $500!  Praise Jesus!!  We are astounded at how quickly God has built our account back up, ready to pay the next upcoming installment.  

We had a Chick Fil A spirit night and we received quite a bit of money for that easy fundraiser!!  A huge thanks for those that were able to come out and eat some yummy chicken for us!!  We had a blast doing it and look forward to doing another one this summer!!  

We received our Papa John's pizza cards on Thursday and we had already sold enough to pay back the bill in less than 48 hours!  It came within $10 of the total bill!  God has such a humor sometimes!! He is showing me to let go and let God!!  The boys went out on their bikes tonight (with Daddy, don't worry!) and sold another chunk so we are officially in the positive!!  If you are interested in one of these awesome cards, let me know!!  Every time you purchase a pizza, you get a second one free! It isn't just locally, and they are good for one year!  (You should hear my H do his sales pitch, he's too stinkin cute when he does it!) 

We stand in awe at how God is leading our journey!  While the furthering of our package in Haiti seems so slow to us, we know that in His timing we will know and visit our children!  We also covet your prayers for health for the kiddos, as well as provisions until we can bring them home!!