Fundraiser Blessing

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

During these past couple weeks, I have been trying to come up with the right words to express our gratitude towards the support we received through our Fall Fundraiser . 

Conclusion, there is not a single word to describe our sincere thankfulness. 

Nick's Brother, Matt and his wife Elizabeth, put a lot of hard work and love into this party. 
Elizabeth, had beautiful decorations and the most delicious food prepared. 
She can easily be described as a gracious person. 
Thank you!!!!

Beautiful garage for our food line.

Just a couple of the many food and kitchen help. Thanks ladies for all your help!

Our Welcome table with information and delicious caramel corn.

Nick's sister, Terri, helped me welcome our guests the entire day. She also made all the caramel corn (which was A LOT). 

Thank you Terri for all your hard work and for your help! 

We appreciate you!

On October 20, the Lord gave us a beautiful day to celebrate our adoption.

Many of you, our family and friends and even complete strangers, showed up for tons of food and fun. We were so humbled as we greeted each of you. 

Thanks Bob for helping!

My sweet niece, Alaya

We had come fun activities like......
balloon dart game (thanks Terri!)

 Carnival type games
Nick's Mom bought goody bags and prizes for all the kids. When they finished playing a game, they could fill up their bags with trinkets and candy. 

Nick made this barn rope swing. Tons of fun!

Nick also made a couple of these climbing ladders. 

Such a handy man!

 Playhouse and swing set

 Barrel train ride. 
My handsome husband having fun driving. 
Love you honey!

Hay rides 

 This inflatable obstacle course was the main attraction for both adults and kids. 

My lovely husband being a kid and LOVING it!!!

We were able to capture the entire day through a friend of mine. Kelsi gave of her time to come and photograph the events of the day. Not an easy task but she did a fabulous job! 
Thank you for your kindness and support!


This fundraiser was a huge success!!! 
It exceed our expectations.  
Yes, adoption is expensive but we know that God has a plan. 

Through your generous giving and loving support we raised almost $6,000! 

Wow, our God sure is amazing!
Our family is so blessed!
Nick and I are blown away by all the love, encouraging cards, financial donations and promises of prayer. Thank you!

Premier Party

A good friend of mine wanted to help our family with our adoption. Her Mother is a Premier Jewelry consultant and offered to  give part of the sales back to us in cash. The party was a lot of fun and the ladies all found items that loved.  

Thank you ladies for coming and supporting our adoption. 

Your support and prayers mean a lot to us. 

A huge Thank-You to Marie Auman for serving the Lord!

We have offically started our adoption fundraising 

through this generous gift of $275.

Provided byFund-Raising-Ideas-Center.com

Letter to Family & Friends.....

           As  many of you know already, we have begun the process to adopt a child from China. This decision is the product of many months of prayer and discussion. We feel that God has blessed our family beyond imagination and that He is leading us to share these blessings with an orphaned girl from China. This is not a decision that we take lightly, but we know that He will guide our steps. Our three biological children; Alaina (7), Melanie (6), and Emily (3) couldn't be more excited, and we know they will be amazing sisters. They each have a love for Jesus and are excited to bring this knowledge to their new sister.

            Right now, we are still in the paperwork stage of the process. We have completed our home-study and await approval of our paperwork from both the United States and Chinese governments. Once this process is complete, which we expect by November, we will begin the wait to be matched with a child. That wait could be long or short, we trust God will direct us to the child He has waiting for us, and we will travel to China to bring our daughter home four to six months later. 

            Adoption is not an easy process. The paperwork, waiting, and travel are stressful, but that is the easy part. Our daughter will have a "special need" that requires extra attention, and although we don't know what it will be yet, we have begun to try to prepare our family for this addition. The best way that we can make this preparation is through prayer, both ours and yours. We are asking for your support. We have been blessed in this community with amazing family and church support, which is what we want to share with a girl who would otherwise never know the such love existed.

            Please pray that:

                        - God will lead us to His will, and we will faithfully follow Him.

                        - We will be patient as we wait for His timing.

                        - He will prepare our family for the changes ahead.

                        - He will protect our daughter while she waits for us.       

                        - He will provide the means and funds necessary to bring her home.

            We do not currently have the funds required for this adoption, but believe that God will provide for His will to be done. Adoption is expensive. Our estimated cost will be around $30,000. This is due to the costs of travel, home-study and domestic paperwork preparation and fees, and Chinese adoption fees. This last category is the bulk of the cost. Around fifteen thousand dollars will be necessary for fees such as Chinese medical exams, paperwork, and reimbursement to the orphanage for taking care of our daughter while she waits for us. We have been saving for these costs, living as frugally as possible, and seeking additional work to provide for these costs. There is also an Adoption Tax Credit made available from the US Government that we hope to qualify for once the adoption is complete.

            If God would lay it upon your heart, we would ask for your support as well. Our first request is for your prayers, as detailed above. Financial support would also be very appreciated, but is nothing compared to the power of prayer and love. If you decide to do so, we have set up the following fund to be used exclusively for adoption costs "adopttogether.org/bertschfamily". Your gifts through this fund are tax-deductible. Payments can be made online or checks can be payable to AdoptTogether with Bertsch in the memo.

            Regardless of how God leads you to support us, we would love for you and your family to join us as we celebrate the wonderful family and friends He has blessed us with at our Fall Festival. We look forward to your company.

In Christ's Love,

            Nick, Brooke, Alaina, Melanie, and Emily Bertsch 

Adoption Beginning

Welcome back to our family blog! I obviously have not been great at updating our blog in the past umm ...year and a half. That is sad! A lot has changed in that gap including our newest adventure. 

God willing, we are adopting a daughter from China!

A few years ago, we were introduced to a local ministry that provides hope and guidance to orphans around the world. Forgotten Children Worldwide,  https://www.forgottenchildren.org/ ,

opened our eyes to devastating issues around the world and God open doors of opportunity for me to get involved. My passion for orphans quickly grew but I was unsure if adoption was part of God's plan or serving in other ways was my future. I definitely felt a desire to adopt but Nick had no desire at all. In February 2012 I officially joined the FCW sponsorship team. AMAZING!!! God is doing glorious things and I get to help. Serving in this ministry did not fulfill my desire to help. Instead, it made my desire to adopt grow even stronger. 

Adoption is not a new term in Nick's family. Our Bertsch family has been blessed by adoption twice in the past 5 years. I have a nephew from Ethiopia (home June 2008) and a niece from China (home December 2012). They are such blessings to our family and we all look forward to watching them blossom. They now have the opportunity to hear about Jesus and to have a loving family. God is so amazing and I am so thankful He has brought them into our lives. As these two children joined our family, we could ignore the devastating numbers of children just like Eli and Adalynn. I continued to pray for the Lord's direction.

Our official adoption journey began in January 2013.  Adoption has been on my heart for many years but in January, God was speaking clearly to Nick that we should start the process. God told Nick to "just do the next thing" and He will take care of the details.  We both like to have an exact plan for our adventures and have everything laid out. For this adventure we did not and that was petrifying and still is at times. 

The financial stress of adoption is not secret to the community. We all know it is very expensive and that can seem like such a mountain to climb. We felt God leading us to  have faith and trust in Him with the financial part. So with out a plan and without a large amount of cash saved up we decided to follow God's prompting and have FAITH.

With millions of orphans worldwide, it is hard to narrow down the field to specifics  They all need to know Jesus and they all want to feel unconditional love.  We were open to domestic and international adoption but through lots of prayer, God lead us to international adoption. It seemed that there were so many different countries to adopt from, we did not know where to start.  A local orphan ministry, Loving Shepherd Ministries, https://loving-shepherd.org/ ,was able to guide us to the point of choosing a country and then deciding on an agency. The month of January was spent in deep prayer on the specific topic of adoption.  In February 2013, we sent our application to Holt International that that was just the beginning of our adoption adventure. 

http://www.holtinternational.org/

Right away, we set up our first home study visit. On April 3rd was our first home study visit. We were very nervous and the kids were very excited. May 3 was second visit and we were excited to have both visits out of the way. 

Our next step was to complete 12 credit hours of Hague training. We completed this by the end of May and it was another item checked off our list. 

For the next couple of months we started collecting certain documents that would soon be use in our dossier. A dossier is every detail of our lives (birth certificates, marriage certificate, employment letters, passports, financial status, medical exams, police clearances, photographs) put into one large packet to be given to the Chinese government. As of now, our documents are all completed and are waiting to go to Indianapolis to be state certified.

Our home study was in our hands on July 24 2013. It was such a great feeling to finally have that done and ready to go. Our next step was the I-800A. The I-800A goes to the Department of Homeland Security for our immigration approval and our fingerprints. Our fingerprint appointment is today down in Indianapolis. We are also taking along the remaining documents that need to be state certified for our dossier. Those documents are being sent to the Chicago Consulate today for authentication. We will wait for another 30+ days to get our approved I-800A which is called the I-797. Our approval will then need to be state certified in Indy and then sent to Chicago to be authenticated. THEN....our documents are headed to China!!!! As of now, our projected travel time frame is March-August 2014. There is a lot to be done before then.

Since we are further along in our process, we are ready to start fundraising for our daughter. We have a couple smaller fundraisers planned and one large one scheduled for this fall. We are blessed to have family and friends willing and ready to help us raise money to bring our daughter home. I will post later this week on ways that you can support our adoption financially and in prayer.

This is a lot of paperwork and is very time consuming but our daughter is worth it. Our entire family is very excited to see what God brings out of this adventure. Could we ask you to pray for the millions of orphans that will never get the chance to know about Jesus and for the Mothers who have to make difficult choices for different reasons. Our daughter are all very excited but this is going to be very hard on them as they welcome a new sister into our family.We would love for you to join us in prayer as we continually seek God's direction is this long and difficult path.