Family Fun Night

Tonight was our Family Fun Event at Isaak's Family Fun Center in Mattoon.  We would like to thank everyone that came out and help us make it a HUGE success.  This evening we were able to raise $700 to go towards our adoption.  We excited to say that we have all of the funds needed for our first of three trips, and that we are half way to covering the second trip.  We are so very thankful and blown away by everyone's generosity.  God is truly providing every step of the way and we are in awe of him.

Family Fun Night for Adoption!

When: November 11th from 4pm – 8pm
Where: Isaak’s Family Fun
1421 Old State Road (if using gps enter 5301 Old State Rd.)
Mattoon, IL 61938
What: Come play, eat, and help get closer to adopting our child. Isaak’s Family fun offers laser tag, glow in the dark putt putt golf, a climber and play area, all within a family friendly atmosphere. Selling a slice of pizza and a soda for $2

How Much: You can pay for what you play, or choose our family saver pass.

Family Saver options:
$35 in advance or $40 at the door. This allows your family unlimited golf, unlimited climber for ages 3-12 and a minimum of one 15 minute game of laser tag for ages 6 and up (more games subject to availability)

Family meal saver:
2 large 1 topping pizzas for $20. Additional toppings for $1.65 each
Prepaid pre-orders will be available with your request of delivery time

We will also have a Cookie Lee Jewelry and Scentsy Consultant with products to purchase if you would like as well!

Drawing for the mini iPad and Bulls Ticket will be held at the event as well.

http://tiny.cc/miniipadgiveaway
http://tiny.cc/bullsticketgiveaway

Proceeds going to help fund our adoption.

Use the link below to pre-order:
http://tiny.cc/familyfunnight

Gods Timing is Perfect

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was check my phone to see if we had an email from our agency.  No luck...  I went about the rest of my morning at work, working on the various projects that I have going on when my co-worker asked if I knew when we would be traveling yet.  I had just told him no and just as I said that, an email from our agency came into my inbox.  I could not open it fast enough.  My heart started beating faster knowing that I was going to find out when exactly it was that I was going to be able to see him again!  I opened it and read the email finding the dates that we were being invited to the country!  As I was reading it,  Our adoption agency called to make sure that we got the email.  These dates are almost the exact dates that I had been telling Linda and others that I thought that we would be traveling for the last few weeks.  For security reasons, I wont tell you exactly what the dates are, but we will be back in time to spend Christmas at home.

So about God's timing.  We thought we knew when would be good for us to go.  We thought that the middle of September - October.  Turns out that would have been a terrible time for us. Over the past 48 hours the number of blessings that we have been made aware of is crazy.  We received a letter from our agency with a list of donors and the total dollar amount that had been sent into them on our behalf.  The amount was larger than we thought it was.  We had multiple people in the last 48 hours let us know that they were helping us out, and to top it off last night we were blessed by our amazing Church.  Last night was our quarterly business meeting, we were sitting in the pew expecting to talk about normal Church business when we got to the new business portion of the meeting our church voted to donate toward our adoption.  Linda and I were stunned.  My lip started to quiver and tears began to roll down Linda's cheek.  We did not expect this at all.  It is absolutely awesome to see our Church come along side us and support us in this way doing exactly what the Church is intended to do.  The donation was added to our puzzle filling in the middle of our puzzle and it will be a great reminder to us and him that he has an entire Church supporting him along the way.

After coming home from Church we pulled the puzzle out and added all of the pieces that we needed to add After adding those it left just 9 pieces left in order to complete the puzzle.  About 20 minutes before I got the email with our dates, I received a message saying that we could count the puzzle as done and that the funds were being sent to complete the puzzle.  WOW, I was blown away.

After talking about all of this timing stuff, I then went back to look at the statistics on our blog and I noticed that it was 1 year ago tomorrow that I wrote our first blog post.  Are you kidding me?  I could have started writing this blog on any day.  This time last year I was thinking that we were going to be finding him a home, and that we were going to show him Christs love and what a family was like, and that one of our friends, or someone that read this blog would be the ones that would fall in love with him and adopt him.  1 YEAR AGO,  It amazing to look back on that first blog post and see where we were, and see where we are now, and see where we are going.

We are so incredibly humbled and grateful to everyone that has helped us get this far.  We still have a ways go, but I just wanted to take a moment to recognize Gods PERFECT plan and timing.  Now we work on getting our travel plans together and figure out what happens next! 

The Call - written by Linda

Oh there has been so much going on lately.  I have been getting so many messages asking what does a referral mean.  Before we go there I want to share steps leading up to this process.  A couple weeks ago our Dossier was submitted to the court.  The dossier is the important paper work that the court has to approve before you are allowed you to adopt from their country.  Every case is different but in most cases it takes a couple of weeks to hear back from the court.  We got a notification that our Dossier was submitted.  We started praying.  Not as though we have ever stopped praying throughout this journey but you know what I mean.  We were told that it was going to take a couple of weeks so we thought we were prepared.  LOL  The first week we did pretty good with waiting.  The second week I started marking days on the calender.  Then a couple days into the 2nd week I started FREAKING out.  Ryan and I were both about to come out of our skins. On Tuesday we were hit with the information that something needed to happen on the courts end that could hold up the process.  We both wanted to throw up.  I think we both cried ourselves to sleep.  We were going to have to make a decision as to rehost or just wait.  We were sad we didn't want to rehost we wanted to adopt.  At church on Wed. night I just wanted to cry as I talked to everyone about the situation.   On Thursday Ryan and I were just down.  Ryan came home for lunch and he was just having a bad day.  We were sitting down eating lunch and the phone rang.  I said oh I pray that this is our adoption agency.  Sure enough it was.  I told her " I'm not sure if it's good news or not but, I was glad that she was calling."  Just getting information means so much at this point.  She then went on to tell me that she had good news!  The tears started flowing then she said we got the referral.  At that moment I started balling my eyes out.  I couldn't control it.  I told Ryan and then he burst into tears.   The kids came running in to see what was  wrong.   Ryan told them and they were running around screaming.  At this point I'm sure she thinks we are crazy.  She said oh this child is LOVED.  I only cried harder. 

 So what does the referral mean?  It means that you receive approval from the country to adopt a child.  You also receive information on the child.  We read the information and accepted the referral right away!  Now we are waiting for our official invitation to their country and our travel dates!  I can hardly believe that I am typing this.  We will soon be traveling.  We are hoping to learn the dates next week and then things are going to get crazy.  Most families get their dates about 2 - 3 weeks out. This could mean early Nov.  In that time we will have to find an apartment and book our flights.   The first trip will be for a couple of weeks.  We will rent an apartment and live there with him to "bond."  Oh I can't wait to see him again...   We have never traveled out of the country nor have we ever taken all of our children on a plane.  This should be fun!   Our plane ride will be around 9 hours with a lengthy lay over.  If you can't tell I am a little nervous about the trip.  The longest plane ride I have ever been on was about 3 hours and I thought I was going to come unglued.  I'm not scared to fly I just struggle to sit still that long.  Hmm I wonder where my kids get it from.  

 A huge blessing that I am so thankful for is that we will have other families in country with us.  This is huge to me.  Just having others there comforts me.  I do have a huge prayer request.  We have dear friends who are waiting for their referral.  Please join us in praying for them.  Their child will be aging out soon and we are praying without ceasing that they get their referral next week.   Another prayer request is that we are able to come up with the funds that are needed to make this trip.  We know that God has brought us here and he has provided every step of the way.  We have seen Gods work throughout this whole process and it is amazing.  My faith has grown so much during this process.  This is all out of our hands.  We are not capable to do this on our own.  God is leading and we are following.  I love the illustration of the foot prints in the sand.  Lately it feels like God is just carrying me.  I like to control my situations.  I like to plan and love to be organized.  I have been struggling with a health problem.  Nothing life threatening but I do need an out patient procedure done next week.  Oh perfect timing?  Ummm  NO...  I am just ready to be feeling normal again.  Prayers for a quick recovery would be greatly appreciated. 

 So in the next few weeks we will be doing as much fundraising as we possible can. One way you can help us greatly is by sharing our fundraisers with others.  If you are on Facebook please share the post.   We just got done with a garage sale where we brought in a couple hundred dollars.  Huge THANK YOU to all that donated.  We are selling reusable bags for $5.00 plus shipping that say " This bag helped a child find a forever home.  What did your bag do?"  They come in red and grey.  We ordered 200 of these babies and we need help selling them.  In case you haven't seen we are selling tickets for a chance to win Bulls tickets for Dec. 14, 2013.  We are also getting ready to sell tickets for an I Pad Mini.  For our last fundraiser  will be having a family fun night  at Issak's family fun.  We just love this place.  They offer putt putt golf, laser tag, and a climber.  It will be a great family night.  Nov. 11th  VETERANS day from 4-8.  We will also be drawing the winner of the Bull tickets and I Pad Mini that night.  You do not have to be present to win.  

 WOWZERS here we go!  

Our newest fundraiser!

Eeeekkk they are finally here!  Our bag fundraiser is officially underway.  I love how they turned out thanks to a good friend for putting together the design.  We ask that you donate what you would like, but are asking for a minimum donation of $5.00 (if paying via paypal please add 50 cents to cover the paypal fees).  I think it would be a great way to wrap your Christmas presents this year!  I love that every time I  use this bag I will get a chance to share our story.  I hope that in doing so more children get hosted and more children find their forever homes!  Let me know if you want some bags and we can arrange a drop off, or for a little extra we can ship it to you (Shipping usually costs between $3 and $5 thanks). 

Paypal:

Out of our hands!

Well, in a few short hours (Monday early AM) everything will be out of our hands officially and we will be waiting... waiting for a referral which we hear could come in the next 2-4 weeks!  Will you please pray for those that are looking over all of our paperwork and pray for us as they do.  We are so excited to get there!

Blessing

I come to you tonight with a thankful heart.  My mind is just spinning out of control thinking about everything that is going on.  This was a big couple of days for us.  We found out that a special little man was asked a life changing question and that he officially said YES.  I was told on the phone " I said yes MOMMA"   The fact that it was a YES made my heart skip a beat but hearing MOMMA made my heart about pop out of my chest.  During hosting I wasn't called mom I was Linda.  Until there was a change.  Then over night I was called Mom.  Hearing it caught me off guard.  I have 3 young children running around the house saying MOM all day long so it's normal. Although hearing it with that little accent always catches me off guard.  Our second big news is that we have gotten approval from USCIS.  This is the paper we have been waiting on for 73 days.  This is the last paper to send then everything goes to  the orphan court!  This is huge!  We are so grateful.  

The other day the kids and I were able to travel with Ryan.  He had an install at a customers site.  It just happened to be close to fellow hosting families.  So while Ryan went and worked I got the privilege of sitting at a park on a beautiful day talking to 2 fellow host moms.  It was wonderful.  We didn't now each other 4 months ago!  Now we have all gone through something life changing and we will be forever connected.  I do have to say that even our children were connected.  I heard 2 of them talking about hosting.  Later that day we were able to have a wonderful meal and were joined by yet another host mom. We had an enjoyable time sitting around the table sharing our funny moments of hosting.  I could have stayed all night talking, laughing, and crying.  We left way too late and headed out for a 6 hour drive home.  At midnight I took over driving while Ryan got some sleep.  I started out with some car karaoke and then I went to praying.  I was overcome with thankfulness for everything God has done.  Thinking about being called to host  and then to adopt just amazes me.  Why us?  We are not perfect parents!  We are not rich!  We are not knowledgeable in all the adoption mumbo jumbo!    I do not know why God called us to host and to adopt but I am so thankful he did.  My life has been forever changed.  My heart will never be the same.  

We are almost at the 1 year mark.  About a year ago we were sinning up for hosting.  Oh how our lives have changed in a year. I know that I have never cried this much in my entire life.  I have seen God provide in  every way.  I wish I could say oh I handled every obstacle that came my way with grace.  Umm NO...  We are real and we fail in so many ways.  About a year ago we shared with our family, church, and friends that we were hosting. Some thought we were completely CRAZY!  It sounded crazy.  We are going to be bringing home a child who speaks very little Engish and give him a family for Christmas!  Oh we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  We thought we were going to be blessing him. We didn't think we were going to be  blessed by him.    When we signed up to host we knew it was going to be financially tight but we knew that we were suppose to do it.  It took 5 days!  5 days until we were able to pay all of the fees for hosting.  When we pursued adoption we knew once again that God was directing the way.  We knew that he was going to provide and he has.  Every time there is a payment needing to be made there is always enough.  There is so many instances where we have seen God provide.  When we were doing our auction we were down to the last few hours. Ryan and I were kind of freaking out.  We had set the auction to cover our apartment rental estimated at $2000.  We were at $700 then people started bidding and we were once again blown away when we ended $1563.  Then people paid even more than what they had bid.  WHAT!  Once everything comes in we should end at $2527.  That is crazy!   God is showing us to trust him completely and not just financially.   Our family is getting ready to change.  Yes we will try to guide and direct this change but honestly we are completely trusting God.  My faith has a whole new meaning.  I know it's going to be a transition for our family but I do have this amazing peace in my soul that is telling me God has this.  At times I need to remind my brain to stop trying to figure things out.  

The future:  We don't know!  

From what we have read from other families who have gone before us.   We could be about 6 - 8 weeks away from travel.  After a few more steps we will get our travel dates.  Usually they give you a 2 week notice before you are to be in their country.  Could the government shutdown affect us.  YES  Could the holiday season affect us YES.  SO we really have no idea :(     I'm a planner people!   

What I do know is that we are not ready financially.  We are currently trying to raise the roughly $5500 that we still need to cover our first trip.  Thankfully we have 3 plane tickets already funded.  We are still selling puzzle pieces.   We currently still have 117 pieces left to add to our puzzle.  If we are able to add all of the pieces to our puzzle the total still needed will be down to $2600 and all of our plane tickets will be covered!  We have a couple of fundraisers coming up but I know God will provide on his time. A garage sale is planned for next week.  We will be selling tickets for a chance to win an I Pad Mini! Also our adoption support group is helping us with many different fundraisers as well.  We are so grateful for all of the support from everyone!  

People are always asking us how can we help.  It is amazing and we are so thankful.  We believe in the power of prayer and so we are asking that you join us in praying for our adoption. Here are some specific things:

1. We are waiting for our USCIS to come in the mail.  I pray it is in the mail tomorrow.  

2. That our paperwork gets processed quickly in his country.  

3. Please pray that we will be able to travel with some other families.  

4. Pray for this child who is taking a huge leap of faith. He is saying yes to an adoption that is going to move him half way around the world. 

5. Pray that we will have the funds available when we get our travel dates.  

6. Pray for our kids this is a huge transition that they are getting ready to go through.  

7. Please pray for Ryan and I and our marriage.  

8. Please pray that God is able to use us to GLORIFY Him!  

Thank you so much for all of your support.  We are blessed to have you in our lives.