Some Exiting News!

We can finally see something happening!  On Sunday we learned that we got a $3000 matching grant from lifesong!  We are so exited!  We definitely did not expect to get a grant this early in the process but we sure do need it.  We are not completely sure how it works yet.  Our church is partnering with Lifesong so it works a little different for us than it does for people who are going only through Lifesong.  I am pretty sure that we will collect addresses and give them to Lifesong.  Lifesong will then send out letter explaining the grant and that we are trying to raise money.  All of the donations will be tax deductible.  Then Lifesong will match up to $3,000 of what we make.  How exiting!  I will give you guys more information on how it works as soon as I know.  In the mean time, if you want to be on the list of donors and I don't have your address, please e-mail it to me.  My e-mail address is on the contact page of my blog.

How much do we need to raise now...you might ask.  I know it gets a little confusing.  I announced on a recent blog that we were only $1700 short of what we needed to submit our dossier.  Well "stuff" happened and we can no longer put in the $3000 of our money we thought we would be able to.  We now need to come up with $4700 just to submit our dossier.  It was a little disappointing at first but it is just more proof that God has complete control over this situation and wants us to have more faith than we ever thought possible.  These situations he brought into our lives that are using up all of our extra money are all things that he aloud to happen for our good and His glory.

But wait!  We have some more exiting news.  We got our immigration approval in the mail yesterday!  This means that we are ready to send our dossier to the secretary of state for him to certify.  This takes about 10 days.  Then we will be paper ready to submit our dossier.  The only thing we will be waiting on is the money.

The thought of finally being at the point where we are waiting for a referral makes me feel things I can honestly say I have never felt before.  I have been crying, laughing, and reminding myself to breath.  It feels too good to be true...too official.  I feel like this next step makes the whole process so real.  O my goodness we just can't wait.

We are planning a yard sale for the second week of September.  If you have anything you can donate for us to sell, please let me know.  While you are waiting for the next update, please pray for financial provision.  More specifically pray for a great turnout at this yard sale.  We need lots of traffic so we can sell lots of stuff.  Also be praying that God would speak to peoples hearts about helping us with this grant.

Nesting Instinct

I remember being pregnant with Irelyn and hearing about the "nesting instinct."  I was told that women get this in their third trimester of pregnancy.  They usually organize, clean, and re-organize to make sure everything is ready for their little one.  I thought it was a bunch of hog-wash.  I felt like a walking whale and there was no way I wanted to clean the entire house.  Sure enough when I was about 34 weeks pregnant, the instinct kicked in.

I was scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees, washing the walls, cleaning light switches, and color coordinating clothes.  If you know me at all, you know this is not my normal way of behaving.  I remember feeling like I could never get the house clean enough for my little ones arrival. I wanted everything to be perfect.  Ironically, by the time she came, everything was a mess again.

Well this adoption Journey has been an experience.  It is nothing like I thought it would be.  I just have no idea what to expect anymore.  So when the nesting instinct kicked in, I just went with it.  Earlier this week I felt the urge to get ready for the babies.  It started in Irelyn's room which has gotten a little messy in the past year.  All of the clothes that she has yet to fit in to, the boy clothes I have accumulated, and the clothes she has grown our of were all thrown in her huge walk in closet.  It took me an entire day to go through all of the clothes and organize them into clear bins...only to decide I wanted them organized in a different way and do it all over again.  I continued to arrange her books from tallest to shortest and organize her dresser, diaper bin, and accessory bin.

I then moved on to the living room where I have rearranged furniture as well as gotten rid of some furniture because I feel like it looked cluttered.  I have emptied every drawer and moved the contents somewhere else....and I am only just getting started.  I can only imagine how bad this can get seeing as we still have about a year before we will bring our kids home.  I just can't help it!  The wait it starting to drive me crazy and I need an outlet.  I can't wait to tell them that I loved them so much and was so exited for their arrival that I prepared for them for a year.  They are so cherished already.

Sort of a Fundraiser....

I feel so unorganized these days.  I completely forgot to say what happened with the puppy fundraiser.  It did not got as well as we hoped for.  People have done this sort of fundraiser and have been successful.  We ended up giving him away to a good home.  So we did not make any money but we are happy that he found a good family.

We are going to do another Yard Sale the first week of September.  These are always successful and we are in need of some more cash to submit our dossier.  If you have anything you can donate to the yard sale, we would really appreciate it!

We should hear about our Lifesong grant in about two weeks!  Keep us in your prayers as it is a long shot that we will get it because of the point in the adoption that we are at.  Our application is going in front of the committee in September for Grace Adoption Grant Ministry so be praying for that we well.