.

.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Adoption Garage Sale

It has been 6 months since my last post!! How did I let that happen? Life has changed a lot and we have been quite busy with many adventures.  Throughout the next few weeks, I am going to attempt to play catch-up. There are so many things to share and many things that I want to remember.

In the last post, we were waiting to travel to China. We had a garage sale right before we left for China that just blew us away. We received so much love and support through what started off as your typical garage sale. It turned into a breakfast serving, lunch serving, barn full, outside full, friends & family supporting us all day. God clearly put his stamp of approval on our sale.

Thanks to Mike and Carmon for giving us their barn for 4 months. That was a huge blessing. Nick spent months cleaning out the barn and setting things up for me. I have an amazing husband and he showed me how much his heart was into our adoption.

Nick's parents donated their garage sale items for our sale which was a good percentage of the goods. As the months of preparation started, boxes of other peoples things started to just show up. Everyday that I opened the barn doors, there were more boxes of items being donated. Talk about humbling, I had many amazing friends donate their time and work in prepping for the sale.

My sister-in-law and my good friend, Clacey, came all day to help manage the food that was being served. They were a true blessing as this made me free to explain to customers why we were having the sale and what the monies were being used for.

The money raised that day went towards our travel expenses and was a huge help.

In summary, this was a garage sale that only God could pull off. 

We are so grateful to all of you for your items, financial donations, your time, 
donated food, and so much more



Friday, May 23, 2014

Travel Approval

We have TRAVEL APPROVAL!!!!!!




China has officially approved us and now we get to go to China! 

Our agency is very certain we will be able to travel on June 5th. 
Yes, that is right.... ONLY 13 days!!!!!!! 

We still need to wait for our Consulate appointment date. 
This appointment will tell us when we will be able to come home. 
The holiday on Monday is causing some delays with scheduling. 
We will know Tuesday when our Consulate appointment is. 

After we get this date, we can book our flights, hotels and travel details. 


Saturday, April 26, 2014

Garage Sale...


SAVE THE DATE.......


We have been blessed with a wonderful location. 
Mike & Carmon Bertsch are allowing us to use their huge barn. Donations have already started to coming in and we have some really good stuff. I will be posting pics later next week of some of the larger items. 


Our girls would are very excited to have a part in this garage sale. 
In the early morning hours, they will be selling doughnut holes and coffee. 







Be sure to stop back by for a delicious lunch served by 
my excited children, husband, and family. 







We would like to not have any pre-sales. 
We do have a lot of items that would be easy to sell before the sale but these items are also the items that will bring more people to the sale.  Thanks for understanding!


Hope to see you all there!

Friday, April 25, 2014

Baby Picture

Adoption is hard but so rewarding. It felt great to finally be able to share a picture of Leah yesterday. It made it all seem a little more real. It is still hard to believe that in just a few short weeks, I will hold her in my arms. Now, she may not like me to hold her but I am excited to be given the chance. 

After accepting Leah's file in February, we have been blessed with pictures and videos but no baby pics. Leah was found and was taken to the Shangrao Children's Welfare Center on August 7, 2012.  By this time, she was 13 months old   Her mother did not know that she had difficulty hearing so she likely was planning on keeping her and was well taken care while still in her care.  Huge praise!!

One evening, I was researching her orphanage in Shangrao. Well, I found something that was totally unexpected and brought me to tears (doesn't take much). As I scrolled through the first page of images that Google brought up, I found myself staring at a little girl... IT WAS LEAH!! 

Our agency Holt, did an article on her orphanage back in April 2013 and put a picture of her in it. This is the youngest "baby" picture that we have of her so far. In this picture, she had been at the orphanage about 7 months. We had been given a picture almost identical to this one just days before finding this picture through my Google search. 


Our first "Baby Picture"
20 months old





Thursday, April 24, 2014

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

I800 Approval

4/23/14


Today we received another piece of the adoption puzzle. This morning I received an email with our I800 approval, which is the Petition to Immigration to make Leah an immediate relative. Next we are waiting for a PDF file and numbers to file for Leah's visa. This should come beginning of next week.

Tomorrow, I am sending our visa applications to Chicago.  Those will take a week or two before we receive our passports back, stamped and ready to go.

We are almost there, just a couple more steps to go before we get our travel approval. 


Praise be to the Lord!!!


Friday, April 18, 2014

Fundraising Friday....

Fundraising Friday....

The expense part of adoption is messy, tricky, and scary. It took a lot of faith for us to begin the international adoption process and not have the funds available.We started the process and God provided every penny. We started working extra hours, spending less, and also starting fundraising. 

After we set up our account through Adopt Together, we sent out a support letter and was given the gift of a fall festival to raise funds. WOW, we were blown away by the support and generosity. Your giving has been such a blessing. 

Our expenses are split into 3 sections...

  • Section 1 was the applications and a lot of the paperwork. PAID  
  • Section 2 was the orphanage donation and agency payment. PAID 
  • Section 3 is travel. 


Since we are now ready for the final couple of steps, we are now ready for our travel expenses. To understand our costs more you can check out this page.

Because of your giving, we were able to send a check to 
our agency which paid for section 2. 
THANK YOU!!!!!!