Yard Sale #2

We have another yard sale scheduled for this weekend, May 4th, 5th , and 6th.  If you are heading from Prescott to Prescott Valley, turn left of Robin Drive and follow the signs.  We have even more stuff to sell than last time. Praise God!

If you have anything that you want to get rid of, here is your last chance!  We are still $10,450 short of what we need to submit our Dossier.  It will be a fun time to come and support adoption!

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Our home study is complete which is such a relief.  On the other hand, we found out that we have to do all of the documents for Dossier over again for our new agency.  It makes sense as the documents differ a little from agency to agency but it is such a bummer.  I was feeling so relaxed knowing that we were almost done with our paperwork.  O well!  Time to pick up my pen and start over again!

We did also find out that to submit our dossier, we have to get our I-600A approved(immigration request).  This approval takes 6-8 weeks so we have that time to get our paperwork together and come up with the money.  With how big our God is,  it should be no problem.

We also found out that the process is going to move faster than we thought.  Our dossier coordinator told us yesterday that from the time we submit our Dossier, we should have our kids home in 6-9 months.  We are actually happy that we can not send in our Dossier right now.  We hope to bring more kids into this family when Irelyn is around two years old.  We also have a special trip planned for February that we will not be able to go on if we get our kids in December or January(they need time to adjust to our home before we take them on big trips).  Now don't think I am shallow, I know that these kids are more important than vacations but my grandparents are paying for our family to go to Disney Land!  They are paying for the hotel, which is the Grand Californian by the way, the tickets, and food!  This is something we have been very exited about for a while and really want to go!

Please be praying for God's perfect timing throughout this whole process.  I am posting some pictures of our completed home study celebration.  We went to a local coffee and BBQ place, The Pony Expresso.  They have the sweetest little children's play area for Irelyn.

Making sure her belly does not touch the dirty concrete:)

Such a big girl!

Mama stealing some kisses while we play

She looks so much like him.

Love

Cutest little fussy face ready to go home and take a nap.

Home Study Unofficially Finished.

Here is a fun fact for you....our home study is finished!  It has not been signed and notarized yet but as far as we are concerned it is over!  It is such a relief to be finished with this stage of the process.  One less thing on my mind!  It went so smoothly thanks to our wonderful God and our amazing case worker.  America World Adoption has truly been wonderful with our home study.  We thank God for leading us to them.  Our case worker has never procrastinated and has gotten paperwork done so fast  you would think she was adopting the children!  We are assuming that by the end of this week, we will have a signed copy in our hands.

So whats next?  Well we need to send out our grant applications.  We really can not get much further in the process without some more money.  We also need to file our I600A(application to bring an orphan in the U.S.)
God has provided the money for this and we will hopefully get it in the mail by next week.  This form takes 1-3 months to process.  While we wait, we fund-raise, get the remainder of our Dossier documents together, and plan for our children to come home in about a year or so!

About five months ago, we began the "paper chase."  I am so happy to announce that we are more than halfway through this phase of the adoption.  I am not gonna lie, it has made my head spin at times but I have been so blessed by this process so far.  I have found so much joy in the hard work that is sure to bring our children into our loving arms!

Buy 3 Get 1

The coffee that we are selling to raise money for our adoption is going on sale.  Buy 3 get 1 free!  This coffee is very exotic and delicious.

We get $5 for every bag of coffee you buy!

The link to buy the coffee is on the right hand side of my blog page.

The Number Is Going Down

I am happy to tell you that although we do still have a long ways to go as far as fundraising goes, the number is going down.  We got a generous check from another adoptive family that we have been talking to.  We now need only $10,500 to get our dossier submitted!  Praise God!  We appreciate everyone who has pitched in to help us get to where we are in the process.  We really could not do it if you didn't let God use you to help us.  I can not wait for the day when our adoption is complete and we can  help other families financially who are adopting.  What a blessing to help bring a child into a Christ loving home!  If you have not done the math, people have donated about $1500 in the past three weeks.  God is moving!

Things on the adoption front are slow but steady.  We are still waiting for our fingerprints.  We are told these can take quite a while to come in but we are hoping that they will be here in less than four weeks now.  We are waiting to hear from our family coordinator with A Love Beyond Borders to get our dossier with them started.  We should still be able to use about 80% of what we have already done so it should go relatively fast.  We are not in a hurry as it will all happen in God's timing.

Praises
We are praising God that the money is coming in.  We are so thankful for His faithfulness even though we do not even come close to deserving it.  We are thankful for the comfort of His word and how he reminds us daily that this IS His plan for our lives and He is taking care of it.  We are thankful for our wonderful case worker who supports us and works so hard to make sure everything gets done in a timely manner.

Prayer Needed
We of course need continued prayer for God's perfect timing with our finances.  We pray that we will lean on him even when things seem like a little too much to handle.  We need prayer for support.  Not just financial, but also emotional.  It gets discouraging when people are negative about our situation.  We pray that God gives us the right words to say to explain why we are adopting without provoking a negative reaction.

Dog Grooming Fundraiser!

Us and our dog Riggs when he was just a little guy!


I am so exited to let you guys know about our new fundraiser.  I have been praying all week that God would show us which fundraisers to do and which to pass on.  There are just so many, its hard to know what is going to help us out and what is  not.  

Today I got a call from a women who we met at our first yard sale.  She told me that she just opened up a pet grooming business inside Cal-Ranch Store in Prescott.  She wants to do a fundraiser for us, bless her heart!  Here is how it works.

She printed up coupons for us to pass out.  We will pass them out to our family and friends and when they get there dog or cat groomed, we will get 20%  of whatever the service costs!  How great!  All we need now is for some of you guys to go get your pets groomed!  If you want a coupon and I do not see you regularly, contact me on Facebook or by e-mail.  My e-mail info is on the Contact page of the blog.  I would be happy to mail you the coupon. 

P.S.  Our next yard sale is planned for May 4th, 5th, and 6th.  We are $10,900 away from paying for our dossier submission.  The number is going down!  God is working!

The Best Fundraisers?

The amount of money we have to come up with in the next few weeks has me going a little crazy.  I have been gearing up for another yard sale in a couple of weeks, researching what other families have done to come up with the money, and getting grant applications in order.  There are so many fundraisers to choose from!  Here are just a few of my favorites.

Yard Sale
I love yard sales of course because we made almost $3,000 at our first one!  It was all God of course bringing the right buyers and giving people the heart to donate to our cause.  It was a TON of work but so worth it.

Sending out Letter
We sent out letters to family and friends about a month ago just letting them know what we are doing.  Although we have only gotten a handful of resposes, the people who did send checks back truly blessed us.  We have also been very blessed by family and friends that live in the area who have wanted to help out.  We have friends who adopted who raised a lot of money this way.

Get your Church Involved
Lifesong For Orphans has a great program that helps a church get set up to help adopting families financially.  Check if your church has anything like this and if it does not then encourage them to get involved.  God calls us ALL to take care of orphans.  Our church is currently working with Lifesong to get something set up.  We are exited to see where this takes Harvest Bible Church.

Puzzle Piece Fundraiser
This is something we recently learned about and love!  It involves people sponsoring a puzzle piece by donating a certain amount of money to an adoption fund.  When they sponsor a peice, there name will get put on the back.  This puzzle will be in the adopted child's room to remind him of how much he is loved!  We are thinking about doing this in the future.

Car Wash/Bake Sale
We did a bake sale at our last yard sale and it was a hit.  We are considering a car wash in the future.

Raffle
We have a friend who raffled off a couple plane tickets and it went really well for her.  We are considering raffling something off to encourage more people to donate.  We are not sure what we would raffle off yet so if you have any ideas let me know!

Selling Merchandise
Besides selling cookies, this has not been a great fundraiser for us.  Every adoption is different and some people do really well selling things.  We have made T-shirts to sell which is a lot of up front cost and so far they are not selling very well for us.  We made cookies which did sell well at our yard sale.  We are selling Ethiopian coffee which we are not making very much on but there is no up-front cost so it is a good fundraiser.  I have heard of people selling all kinds of things to help raise money.  The problem with selling is that there is almost always an up-front costs and most adopting families don't have them money to be taking financial chances.

Sometimes I get so anxious, wondering if I am doing enough.  I know God will supply the money but I am not sure if we are doing the right fundraisers or if maybe we need to be doing more.  Every fundraiser I come across seems like a great idea, we just can't do them all!  I am slowly but surely learning that what I do really does not matter.  Right now I am doing everything I can and God will bless that.  Prayer and Faith are by far the best fundraisers I can think of.

Online Shopping.

I have made some improvement to our blog today!  The snow has me stuck inside so I figured I would finally figure out this whole PayPal thing works and make it easier for your guys to donate and buy.  As you can see to the right of my page are buttons where you can purchase T-Shirts, Cookies, as well as donate.  We will ship to you.  Easy Peasy!  We still have about $11,000 to raise in the next four weeks!

Thank you to all of those who have already supported us and for doing it the old fashioned way and just sending checks.  Feel free to contact me if you would prefer to send a check directly.  We could not have gotten this far without you and we are so thankful.

Update and Easter Pics!

I have changed the title of my blog!   I did not feel that Malachi's Message really fit now that we are adopting more than  one and have no idea if we are getting boys or girls.  I am starting to love this whole blogging thing!  I love finding others adoption blogs that I can follow...they remind me that there is a whole group of men and women going through what we are going through.  We can share in this adventure together.

As I read more blogs, I see so many crazy long wait times!  I feel so heartbroken for these families that are having to wait years to bring there kids home.  I also feel so blessed that God led us to our adoption agency.  A Love Beyond Borders has been great so far.  We sent our contract to them yesterday and will hopefully be submitting our dossier in about a month.  The paperwork will be done, and the lack of money that we currently have will insure that it all happens in God's timing.  My amazing husband reminded me yesterday that $11,000 really is not that much money:)  Gotta love him!  We were told that the wait time went from 6-8 months to 3-6 months!  Thank you Jesus!  He has our life in his hands for sure!  I love how the fee due dates keep getting closer and closer as the adoption timeline gets shorter.  We can't wait to see God work!

I thought I would share some photos of our families Easter celebration!  As I enjoyed my family this past weekend, I could not help but long for the day when we can spend holidays with our children who are waiting for us in Ethiopia.  As we plan for a trip to Disney Land that my grandparents are taking us on in February, I think about how on average, that is around the time we will be flying to Ethiopia.  The trip to Disney Land seems so soon, although our children seem so far away..funny how that works!

Ready for good friday service!

Smiles with papa.

Cousins!

My sister and I with our babies

I had to add this picture of baby Jack(our nephew)

Hunting for Eggs

Found one!

This is the only pic I took at the Pehl grandparent's Easter.  Her Mimi ended up taking so many that I did not see the point.  I will post more from this Easter on my FB in a bit.

First holidays are so much fun!  I think we enjoyed ourselves more than she did:)  We dressed her in numerous outfits, put bunny ears on her, fed her new kinds of candies, and let her play with all of her cousins.  When she got home, we could hardly keep her awake long enough to feed her.   Sweet little sleepy baby!

Its just painful

I had the opportunity to attend the good Friday service at our church and it was amazing.  I took the whole day off adoption stuff to focus on Jesus and what He did for us on the cross. It had not crossed my mind that although I am leaning on God through this process and constantly pouring my heart out to Him I am not taking enough time to simply thank Him for being Him.  It was such a relief to just focus on Him for a whole day and let Him work in my heart.

I realized that I think about the adoption entirely too much.  I think about how we will get the money most of the time and this is just doubt.  It felt so good to tell God that I am just not going to think about it anymore.  It is absolutely PAINFUL waiting and not knowing.  I feel like a part of our family is missing and it kills me!  I yearn for our children in Ethiopia like I never imagined I would.  But I WILL patiently wait on the Lord.

Psalm 90:13-17
Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,
so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.
Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!
Replace the evil years with good.
Let us, your servants, see you work again;
let our children see your glory.
And may the Lord our God show us his approval
and make our efforts successful.
Yes, make our efforts successful!

I have gotten word that our application has been accepted by A Love Beyond Border.  Now that all of their staff is back from Africa, things should move at a much quicker pace.  They sent out our contract today.  After we sign it and send it back, we should get assigned a dossier assistant who will help us get all of our paperwork together.  I am hoping to already have most of the paperwork and not have to re-due too many documents.

We are holding at $11,080 for the amount we still need to get on the list.  We did just sell our first T-shirt which is a blessing and very exiting!

We can change the world for an orphan

Quote from Steven Curtis Chapman, August 2008
"If only 7 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world would care for a single orphan in distress, there would effectively be no more orphans. If everybody would be willing to simply do something to care for one of these precious treasures, I think we would be amazed by just how much we could change the world. We can each do something, whether it is donating, adopting, fostering, mentoring, visiting orphans or supporting families that have taken in orphans. You can change the world for an orphan."


I came across this quote while reading one of my favorite adoption blogs.  What a mind blowing statistic and an enchanting idea.  Only seven percent!  It breaks my heart at how few people are doing anything to care for these precious treasures.  I was one of those people before God intervened and am so thankful that God opened my eyes to what is important to Him.  My daily prayer is that God will continue to break our hearts for what breaks His.  May we be a generation that runs after HIM!


It takes a village to raise a child.  This is true with Irelyn as we lean on our church family for support while raising her.  It is also true when it comes to the millions of orphaned children in the world that need our help.  We are Gods hand here on earth.  We need to let him use us!  Between the emotional and financial aspects of adopting children, it truly takes a village to make it happen.  I am so thankful for the village that is helping us along!

Road Trip!

This past weekend we made our way down to Phoenix to finish up our home study.  Going down to Phoenix makes us feel very thankful to live in Prescott.  It was 90 degrees on Saturday which is too hot for this family!  We left on Friday and were very happy to find the location of our first appointment with our case worker.  Irelyn did great through the whole thing although I know she was terribly hot and uncomfortable.  We were told that the A/C was on in the building although we were still sweating like pigs.  Blah!

Our second appointment was at a park in Tempe.  Both of our appointments went great and were less invasive than we thought.  We were way too concerned about the home study through this process so far.  It really was no big deal.  Our case worker has been a huge help and we are so thankful that we used America World as our home study agency. Our case worker has let us know that she feels confident recommending us as adoptive parents.  We are now just waiting on our fingerprint cards which can take 4-6 weeks.  After our case worker get those, our home study will be complete!

While we wait, we will be preparing our dossier.  It should not take any longer than a month for me to collect the remaining paperwork.  We hope to be DTE in a month or two!  We can't wait!