I know I’ve been quiet on what is going on with our adoption.  But, rest assured, it is still ongoing.  Because of some rules, we have had to wait and do a re-start.  We aren’t have to pay any extra out of pocket (something that is a very real concern with any adoption) to the agent.  We’ll have our dossier 2.0 complete the first part of May and it will go back over.  We are praying we’ll get to take our second first trip (we have to re-start our trip process too) in June.

For now, we are waiting and praying.  We miss our Y the Brave. Yes, we’ve been very busy with Emmie but Y has never left our hearts, minds, and prayers.  We all still want him home very much.

But, once again, God reminds us that He is in control of our lives and even our Y the Brave.  We are trusting Him to bring Y home at just the right time.

In the meantime, we have a flower/gift delivery service that we are able to use to send special treats to him.  In return, we get pictures from the delivery.

In March, we sent 32 Kinder Eggs.  Thirty-two chocolate treat eggs.  Thirty-two.  We told him to share.  We are praying he did.  His dentist is praying the same thing!  Hopefully, we redeemed ourselves with April’s basket.

Just look at him!  He’s getting so big.  And so we wait on God’s timing and trust him in God’s hand.

While reading through an adoption fundraiser page on Facebook, we found out about shoe fundraisers to help fund our adoption.  Hm, I thought, this is a good idea and an opportunity to help someone else.

We spent 90 days collecting shoe donations from all over.  Those shoes are then weighed and we receive a certain amount per pound.  The shoes are then re-used/re-purposed by microenterprises in third world countries.

In order for us to get the full amount per pound, we had a set goal of 100 bags of 25 pairs of shoes.  That’s 2500 pairs of shoes.  Two thousand, five hundred.

We set it up and then sent out a plea to Facebook.

And boy did they respond!  We had local businesses, doctors and dentists offices set up.  Our neighbor asked people in stores…like normal shoppers.  She was also responsible for getting boxes set up in local gyms!  We even had a friend drive eight hours to bring us the stash she scored from a local consignment sale (over 13 bags!).
We had several pick ups, thankfully, so we didn’t have a garage of over 100 bags for 90 days.

It was definitely a family affair.  The kids were super troopers pairing shoes and rubber banding and bagging them.

When all was said and done we had over 115 bags and made over $1100!  This had to be one of our most favorite fundraisers because it brought our community and our family together.  It was definitely a lot of work but it was so incredibly worth it.

He stretched out his hand to reveal a crumpled one dollar bill and four quarters.

“Here mama,” he said.  “You can have it.  It’s two dollars for your adoption.”

No words.  I couldn’t say anything as I graciously held on to the two dollars our five year old, Bryant put in my hands.  For him, that was all the money he had.  But he wanted to use it for his brother.

****

The afternoon before, three eager young faces came bouncing in from outside.  They were planning and plotting and had an idea.

“Mama, we want to sell hot chocolate to raise money for the adoption. Can we?”

My response was, “Sure but, unfortunately, I’m not too sure hot chocolate will sell in this 75 degree weather we are having.” But then they never had to.

Please don’t think we are telling the kids we have no money and they have to give.  We haven’t.  They have helped with a lot of fundraisers.  They see friends and family giving and encouraging us and, I think, they just want a piece of the action.  To be able to give and do something.

***

December 20th, a text came through from friends.  “What do you need to finish paying for your adoption?”  Mark and I looked at the paperwork and responded back a high sum.  Then Mark remembered money that was coming in from one place.  Then another.  And the number continued to shrink.  I sent them what I thought was a modest amount when Mark spoke up and said he thought it would be closer to a number a bit smaller.  After he said that, I looked down at my phone.  Our dear friends wanted to donate the amount he just said.

Just like that.  Our fundraising for adoption.  Less than a year of working.  Less than a year of me worrying more than I should have been trusting.  And we’re done.  God has provided.  I know He is the provider.  To see His hand move over something that I just knew, at times, would be near to impossible without us going in to massive debt.  God spoke peace over our adoption processes over and over with incidences like this.

We praise Him for providing but also for who He is and how He is working in our family.

I was told by lots of dear friends who have been there that this road was long and hard and heartbreaking.  I understand now what they meant.  We won’t be able to travel until sometime after June.  As hard as this is, we are trusting God for His timing and that He is watching over our Y the Brave.

This is it.  The final waiting time before we start to travel to bring Y home!  That means we are at a final push to try and get our funds together to bring him home.  We still need about $15,000 which will cover our food, lodging, airfare and travel in country, as well as translator and facilitator fees and other government type expenses.

It is our heart’s desire that we can complete our adoption with out debt.  Emmie’s surgery in April pushed us to meet our out of pocket maximum for the year with insurance.  That was wonderful because it means all of our other medical (which wasn’t a lot until Emmie’s hospitalization in August) is free.  But, it’s not so great because if you have ever looked at your deductible and out of pocket max, you know that those numbers are not easy to meet (meaning very expensive).  That means our medical debt is slowly accumulating.  By the time we get this out of pocket met, Emmie will be looking at or will have completed her third surgery.  That means our deductible for next year will have been met and possibly our out of pocket maximum will be met again.  So, our desire to go debt free on this adoption is two-fold.  We know that Emmie’s medical expenses will continue to max out amount to pay and we really do not like going in to debt.  Before surgeries, we were blessed to only have house payments as our only debt.  Our cars are paid for.  If we use our credit cards to get the rewards, we pay them off each month.  We would prefer not to have any extra debt to burden our home and family.

With that being said, we are working hard at several fundraisers and even have friends out working hard too.  This next one, I am super excited about.

Most of you know I’m not a jewelry person.  But, when I saw these beautiful necklaces, I just couldn’t resist.  Mark purchased a necklace similar to these with Emmie’s life verse on it (Proverbs 31:25).  I love that necklace!  Handmade Hope was started to help bring home a beautiful daughter from China.  Now, Tina is reaching out to other adoptive families to help them bring home their beautiful children.  We were one of the blessed families chosen by Handmade Hope to participate in this fundraiser.

Check out what I got.  I am waiting, impatiently for them them to arrive in the mail (USPS decided to delay the shipment for some reason), but you can go to the website to check them out.

For our Y the Brave

And to add to Emmie’s necklace(which will be hers one day).

Each purchase made from Handmade Hope from now until September 30th will contribute to our adoption fund.  We will receive 40% of profits and if you mention our family adoption then we will receive 45%.  Our goal is to raise $500 through this fundraiser.

And for my Bama friends, you must check out these!

Now is a great time to start shopping for Christmas and birthdays too! Click here to shop now.

If you are not a Facebook follower to our page, I know that you may have not seen the updates, but we are home after eight days in the hospital.  Emmie is doing great adjusting to her brace and sleeping a tad better.  I’m working on a more detailed post with lots of cuteness pictures interspersed but that will probably come this weekend.

Y the Brave is now “across the pond” and we are all missing him terribly and ready for him to be home. I keep counting and stop at eight and look around confused.  After I do that a couple of times, one of the kids pops up and says, “Mom, there are only eight of us now.”  I knew that.

We have just mailed off our last document to get apostilled and sent two other documents to our agency for our dossier.  Once those three are approved, apostilled, chanted over, and whatever else they have to do, then they will make their way to Eastern Europe.  Joining their brothers to be translated and sent on to the SDA (their child care agency).  And then we’ll await the call to travel.

We have been blessed with a grant!  We would like to use this grant as a matching grant.  That means, if you feel led to donate $5, it will actually be $10.  $20 becomes $40, etc.  So, here goes our first big fundraising challenge!  We would love to see this grant doubled by the end of September.

Of course, more than anything, we ask that you please pray and seek out what God would have you do.  If you feel called to give, no matter the amount, you can go to our Youcaring link.  Youcaring is completely free for us but they do have to take out processing/card fees for the money agency (Stripe, similar to Paypal).  For every dollar given from now until the grant has been completely matched, we’ll add in that money to our site.  Thank you for praying and giving!