Orphans

There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 147 millions orphans in this world.

-39 million of those orphans are in Africa.

I was amazed to find these statistics. There are many, many more statistics regarding the orphans of this world. It is so sad to think that these precious little ones, created in God's image, are orphans by no fault of their own.

Our God cares about orphans, each and every one of them. The Bible mentions at least 60 scriptures regarding orphans, the fatherless and adoption. They are important to Him. "The Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun scorched land." Psalm 68:5-6

Adoption Cost

Many of you are like me and have wondered why adoption is so expensive... What does all the money go to? So I looked over the paperwork we have been given and broke it down-
1st payment $6,600- Legal fees, adoption education, program fee, admin costs.
2nd payment $13,500-$16,000- Translations, dossier review, country fees(which include foreign attorney and orphan care).
3rd payment $4,000-8,000- Escort fees, visas, plane tickets, lodging
And then there are fingerprinting and readoption cost, home study fees and a few other fees here and there.

As I have been thinking about the big cost of adoption, I have come to a realization. Adoption is costly. It is a difficult road. However, as much as I wish and think adoption should be cheaper- there are a couple of huge positives to the cost. The first positive is that it helps to make sure that people pursuing adoption are in it for the right reasons and that some person with bad intentions is not just trying to get a child to mistreat. The second positive is the walk of faith that the cost makes you take. The cost is so out of the reach of most people. So when we, and others, start on the journey we get to see how God works. If the cost was cheap and the road was easy our walk would not be strengthened and our faith would not be deepened!! So as much as I would love for it to be cheaper or would love for someone to write us a check today for all $30,000- the growth would be missed. The total dependance is on God for HIS provision.
So as I close I ask you to continue to pray for us on this journey. We are mailing in the 1st half of our 1st payment. We are trusting that God will provide the rest of the payment through the fundraisers we have planned this next month. To God be the glory!!

Half Way

We have had quite an amazing week!! God has provided in an awesome way this week!!
-Our first Chick-fil-a fundraising dinner raised $800.
-We received our first grant. It was for $500 from the Fatherless Foundation.
-Our first Yard Sale was a huge success! We raised almost $1200.
Thank you so much for each of you who helped us. We are blessed to be surrounded by a great group of friends and a wonderful church family!
God is so very good! I am so thankful that we serve such a faithful and loving GOD!!! The funds raised this week as well as a few donations that have come in from family, our blog and friends has put us about halfway to our first payment. We have around $3,000 left to raise so we can "officially" get started with our agency.

Please be in pray for us as we continue to work toward the other half of our first payment. We are so ready to get officially started with our agency.
Thanks so much for following our journey to bring out little girl home from Africa!

Hope in the Dark

We were so very blessed to attend the Hope In the Dark event tonight here in Knoxville. It was an amazing evening! We got to hear from Mike and Beth Hamilton and Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman. They each have experienced adoption first hand. The event was a fundraiser for ministries that each of these couples have founded. God used the event to raise funds to help the orphan, HIV and water crisis in Africa.
Seeing and experiencing all that we did tonight, makes us so anxious to bring home our little girl to her forever family!!
Thanks so much to Chick-fil-a for partnering in this event and inviting us to attend:)
Oh- and don't forget to pray for the success of our yard sale this weekend! Stop by if you get a chance!

One step closer

We had our first fundraiser for our adoption tonight. It was sponsored by our local Chick-fil-a. We had a great time of food and fellowship with friends. God used this event to raise $795 towards our adoption!!! He is sooo good.
We also have so much stuff that has been donated for us to sell at our yard sale on Saturday morning. You should see it all- actually you can! We will start the sale early Saturday morning on Rutledge Pike across from Claiborne Hauling. I am sure we have something you need:) We would love to see you.
Thank you so very much to all who have helped with both of these events. Each and everyone of you is such a blessing!
Please pray that the yard sale will go well and that the weather will be great! Please also pray as we expect to hear back from our first grant really soon.
We are so anxious to get moving with this adoption process. We can not wait to have our little girl home in our arms!!

Home Study

I think we mailed the last of our home study information today. Hopefully, we have not missed anything:)
For those of you are not very familiar with the adoption process, a Home Study is one of the first things you have to do. The Home Study involved a collection of all sorts of information about us. It basically tells all about our lives. We each had to write an autobiography. We had to have doctor notes stating that all 5 of us are healthy. Our dog, Sadie's, shot records. Copies of birth, marriage certificates. Documentation of finances. And lots of pages of questions answered.
The next step in the Home Study is for Dave and I to each to be interviewed and then we will have a home visit.
We are so glad to be getting this step almost completed.
We would also like to thank all of you who have been contributing items to our April 17 garage sale! And we appreciate everyone who has purchased Chick-fil-a tickets!
Please continue to pray for us! There is still a long journey ahead.

God is good

We have a praise!! Our first fundraising dinner is filling up (we have about 14 tickets left). Donations are coming in for our yard sale. We are receiving some cash donations. We still have a long way to go, but we are seeing God at work!! Please continue to pray for us.
On another note- tonight as I was getting ready to pray with our little girl before bed- she asked that we pray for "our girl." I asked her which "girl"- her response was "the one that will sleep in my(her) room." I thought it was so sweet to see that she is beginning to understand that we are adding a sister to our family:)