Books & Grants

Recently, we have been getting stuff ready for the child's room. We don't have it set up, cause the room is currently full of yard sale items, but we are working on it. I get excited doing this because it makes me feel like we are closer to bringing our baby home. I long for the day we bring him/her home! We found an Ethiopian flag that we will put in their room and ordered a few Adoption books to read to our child and also a Baby Book. We plan on being open with the child about adoption from the start! These are the books we ordered, I copied the pictures from Amazon, so you can't click to look inside, sorry!

I'm excited to fill out the baby book

This is a sweet book

Not what I thought it would be, not too impressed

We got some discouraging news from the Adoption agency yesterday that they will be increasing the wait time soon, meaning it could be closer to 3 years before our child comes home. It is already really hard to wait 2 years and for the wait time to continue to increase is really frustrating and upsetting. I know God is in control and he knows what he is doing, but it is still hard.

We continue to do fundraisers and apply for Grants, along with reading books about Adoption & Ethiopia while we wait. We have so far applied for 6 grants and have been approved for 3. We are currently looking for more grants to apply for, but haven't found any yet.

Opportunities

We are so overwhelmed with the opportunities that God continues to bless us with. If you have us on facebook, then you know we have created a bunch of events to help raise money for our Adoption. God has put several people in our lives recently who have given us some get ideas/resources and we are eager see what he does with each of these. We will continue to do what we can to bring our baby home, we pray that people understand why we are doing these events and don't get frustrated or annoyed by us.

Here is a list of the fundraisers we have going on right now or coming up:

1. We created an Online Auction on Facebook where we have listed new or gently used items for people to bid on. Here is a link if you wanna check it out:  https://www.facebook.com/events/211321982351351/211376739012542

2. We have a Fundraising Night at Texas Roadhouse on July 1st from 4-10pm where 10% of the total food purchases goes to us and another couple (Annette and Bob) who are adopting. Make sure you print a flyer if you plan on coming! The link for that event is: https://www.facebook.com/events/593450557361944/

3. We have a "Locked Up" Fundraiser planned for July 13th at Biltmore Baptist church which we will be doing with the same couple from Texas Roadhouse Night. The link to this event is: https://www.facebook.com/events/370768063023798/ We still need volunteers for this event, if you are interested!!

4. We have a restaurant gift card fundraiser going on, where you get a $50 card for only $20 and in turn Allan and I get $10 of that towards our Adoption. The link to this is: http://coupaide.com/deal/pack-adoption-fundraiser/

5. Last but not least, we will be having another yard sale on July 27th on Rosman Highway to get rid of the rest of our yard sale stuff! No link for this one! :)

We look forward to see what God is up to! :) We are so thankful, grateful and blessed!! 

Fundraiser Yard Sale!

 Our Adoption fundraiser yard sale went really well yesterday!! God blessed us with a beautiful day and held off the rain! We are so thankful to everyone who donated items for us to sell and for our friends and family who continue to support us! We couldn't have done this without the help of our friends! So much goes into a yard sale and we are just so thankful that God takes care of the details for us! We are thankful for Dustin who stayed the night with us so he could wake up super early and help load and unload all the heavy furniture, we are thankful for Erica being willing to wake up early, bring yard sale items and take money and negotiate prices all day, we are so very thankful to all our friends who came by to show support and hang out with us! Our hearts are just overflowing with gratitude! God has blessed us with so much more than we deserve. We are now a little closer to bringing home our baby!!

Dustin and Allan loading furniture at 4:30am!! Thank you Dustin for all your hard work!!

Start of the day!

Erica, Allan and Dustin. Thank you Erica for handling the money and negotiating prices !!

Mid-day progress  :oD

Erica, Tommy, Krystal, Allan, Jonathan and Dustin- we are blessed to have such great friends! Thank you Krystal and Tommy for stopping by and bringing us some Pizza!! :)

Erica and I!

Lots of Stuff to sell!!

FUNdraisers

Work in progress! Here is an updated picture of our puzzle. It is coming along slowly! We sure did pick a hard puzzle, there are so many like colors that it is taking us a lot longer than we thought. We have actually sold 581 pieces but this is all we have been able to put together on the puzzle so far. Only 419 pieces left to sell! :)

As we are in the waiting process, we continue to do different fundraisers to help pay for this adoption. Here is what we have planned right now.  Next Saturday, June 15 we are having a yard sale on Rosman Highway, in front of "The Tannery" from 7am-2pm. Then on July 1st, we are joining together with another couple adopting, at Texas Roadhouse where from 4-10pm we will get 10% of the sales if you bring in a flyer. Then July 13th, we are joining with that same couple at Biltmore Baptist Church for a "Jail" Fundraiser. The idea is that we have volunteers put in "jail" and they have to raise $100 to get out of jail, by asking their friends and family to bail them out. We are still in need of volunteers for this, so maybe ya'll could pray about this and see if it is something you wanna help us with? 

We feel bad that we continue to ask so much of our family and friends with this adoption. We are so thankful for all their love and support and appreciate everyone who has helped bring our child one step closer to us. This adoption process has completely taken me out of my comfort zone and has me doing things I never thought I would/could do! God continues to amaze me by what he is asking of me but I just continue to trust in HIS plan for us and our family. If you know me, then you know I'm super shy and I've never been one to ask people for help or money and with this adoption that sometimes feels like all I ever do. But, God is so good and I have to remind myself that I have an amazing testimony to share with the people I am meeting along the way.

 A friend of mine, had this beautiful necklace hand-made for me. It means so much to me and is also another great way for me to share my testimony when people ask me about it. 
We are waiting..waiting to meet our son or daughter, waiting to start our little family. Waiting is not easy and I really wish we could just snap our fingers and bring our child home.

The waiting is hard, but we know it'll all be worth it in the end. We can't wait to meet the child God has picked out just for us! 

^"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me." Jeremiah 29:11-13