Financial Update

Many people have been asking me about our financial status since the completion of our successful garage sale. We praise God that our home study ($1500) is paid for due to the proceeds, as well as our immigration paperwork ($800) and post-adoption visits ($900). I have changed our ticker on the right side of our blog to reflect our next big goal which is $5500 for our agency fee. Please pray that our cookbooks will sell, as this would make a big dent in that amount. We also have a myriad of other fundraisers going on right now: Avon (through 4/26), Mary Kay (through 4/30), homemade cards being sold at a local art gallery, and sub sandwich tickets for a local sub place being sold around town. There are several other fundraisers in the works, too: Tupperware, Pampered Chef, Tastefully Simple, a Zumba-A-Thon, spaghetti dinners, and pancake breakfasts. If anything interests you from this list, make sure and contact me for more information! You can also pray for a few grant applications that will be going out soon--hopefully God will see fit to provide in that way as well. We are so excited about how God is providing as we need it...thanks for your prayers!

Until Sophia is home...

Praising God for a Successful Yard/Bake Sale!

Here is a synopsis of our Yard/Bake Sale Adoption Fundraiser in pictures...enjoy!

This is what the church foyer looked like on Thursday night when we began unloading the four locations where we had been storing items...

Sabastian and Jonathan were big helpers with the loading and unloading, as well as their friend, Brandon, and several men from church...

When we finally got everything into one location, there was way more stuff than I had ever imagined--what a blessing, but what a lot of work! I'm so thankful for my Mom and some other ladies from church who helped organize on Thursday night and again on Friday morning...

This is Beckie setting up the Bake Sale...she and her husband and daughter are adopting a little boy, most likely from China, and joined us in this endeavor...

Here we are on our beautiful, sunny yard sale day! I am praising God for answering our specific prayers: nice weather and lots of buyers! In the foreground of this photo is Tiffany, one of my special friends from church who helped us on both days of the sale--she's the clothing sorter Queen!

A view of the household items...

The shoes my Mom meticulously separated and organized...

Nicole and Tiffany hard at work on the 40+ boxes of clothing we received!

Some of our buyers rummaging through the clothing boxes...some ladies were at this for hours!

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All told we made close to $3000 on the yard sale and $600 on the bake sale (which we shared with Beckie and her family.) God provided once again, just when we needed it...we got our home study bill on Friday and another bill on Saturday that our yard sale funds covered completely! Praise God! We continue to need our agency fee of $5500, which, if we sell all of our cookbooks, will be covered. Thanks so much for your prayers for this huge fundraiser, and know that God answered them completely!

Praising God for His bountiful blessings!

The Cookbooks are Here!

Forever Family has arrived! And in my humble opinion, it is great! But you don't have to take my word for it...the fact that I have already sold through one box in less than a week says that others think it's great, too!

Forever Family contains 350 favorite family recipes from family and friends around the world. Many of the recipes relate to the ethnic heritage of the person who submitted them, and where appropriate, that heritage has been noted below the recipe title. The cookbook has several "extras" such as a hard cover, a contributor's index, and an 8-page section of helpful cooking and entertaining hints. It would make a great gift!

Would you like to help support our adoption of Sophia from Taiwan by purchasing a copy of Forever Family? You can! The cost is $15 plus $5 S&H, and you can purchase one through our "Donate" Paypal link on the right. Just make sure you put in the notes section how many cookbooks you want, and we will send them off to you. If you do not have a Paypal account, you can leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will send you the information you need in order to pay via check or money order.

Thank you so much for supporting us on our journey to Sophia!

Excitement is Mounting!

We have so much to be thankful and excited about on our adoption journey this week:

1. Our HUGE Yard/Bake Sale is this coming Friday and Saturday! I know God is going to richly bless this effort. We have already been blessed by so many donations of items and time by friends and family. Come on out if you live nearby!

2. The cookbook is here! Stay tuned for how you can order one if you would like one. I'll post about that next week...

3. Our home study is done and in hand! Yeah! Now we can move ahead to the immigration paperwork and other items for the dossier, as well as grant applications.

4. I get to create a scrapbook as part of the dossier--I just found out about that today! What fun that will be!

As you can see, we have a lot to be thankful for and excited about. Please continue to keep us and our daughter Sophia in your prayers. We are many steps closer to meeting our new daughter...I can't wait!

Rejoicing in what the Lord has done, is doing, and will do...

Adoption Fundraiser Opportunity

We have been blessed with so many donations to our upcoming garage and bake sale...continue to pray for good weather and lots of buyers! In this process, a couple of ladies from our church have also offered to help us do a "fundraiser within a fundraiser" through their home businesses. One such opportunity is through Avon. If you are interested in purchasing some items from Avon to help us with our adoption expenses, please leave a comment with your e-mail address, and I will send you a listing of what is available. Special combos of items have been created for this fundraiser in all the categories we know and love from Avon...perfume/cologne, makeup, lotions, etc. We will receive up to 40% of the retail price of anything ordered during the fundraiser, and all of it will go towards our international adoption expenses. Items can be sent anywhere as long as you are willing to pay the postage! Thanks in advance for your support and for helping us bring Sophia home from Taiwan!