Let the home study (and the
fundraising) begin! For those of you unfamiliar with the adoption process, a
home study is a series of interviews/visits with a social worker, for the
purpose of evaluating our fitness as an adoptive family, educating/preparing us
for the adoption and gathering information about our family to help match us
with a child whose needs we are able to meet. We had our Orientation Interview
with our social worker this week, and she said the home study generally takes
3-6 months. She also assured me she will leave her white gloves at home when
she comes to our house for the next interview! Phew! We are just really anxious
to get started. There’s also a lot of practical tasks/paperwork to start on –
fingerprinting, background checks, etc. That stuff is right up my alley. I
know, I am one sick nerd. I could do paperwork all day, especially if there is
a cup of coffee nearby.
It’s been so exciting to watch
how the adoption is impacting Sydney and Brody (our children already in the
nest). Brody is 2 ½ so his understanding of the situation is limited, but when
I asked him if he was ready to have another sister – he said “YES! And a
brother!” Maybe next time, sweet Brody. ;) Sydney is almost 6, and she is about
as excited as she can be. She is anxious to know what it’s like to have a
sister, and we’ve already had several talks to make sure she knows it will not
be all sunshine and roses. However, having two dear sisters of my own, I know
what a special bond that can be, so I am excited for her too. She has been
asking me to do extra chores this week, and when I give her some coins for the
extras…guess where they go? Yep, straight into the adoption fund jar! God is
growing a very generous heart in her, and I love to see His work in the lives
of my children.
Speaking of the adoption fund
jar, we made the first installment of our agency fee this week. It completely
wiped out our savings, but we are so thankful to have had the funds to get
started. Now we have a few months to do some fundraising, creative saving and
extra work to come up with the next installment. If you have a desire to help
bring a little girl home into a family that will love her forever, we would be
so humbled and honored! Josh and I absolutely loathe asking people for money,
but we are also aware that we need to swallow our pride and allow God to bless
us through the generosity of His people. There is a little girl in China that
is waiting for us. We don’t know her name or her face yet, but she is there.
She needs a forever family, a home, special medical care, love – and like all
of us, she needs to know of Jesus. We are anxious to provide her with those
things, but we cannot do it alone. Our little girl is more important than our
pride. Our family would be eternally grateful if you would be willing to be
involved in changing the life of one little girl - our little girl - forever.
Here are some ideas for how you can be a part of our adoption:
~ PRAY! Pray for orphans in general, our little girl
specifically, our family, our fundraising efforts, etc. Pray that God would
take our “loaves and fishes” and multiply them for His glory through this
adoption.
~ We will be having a garage
sale at my Mom & Dave’s house (see Upcoming Event info in the sidebar) on
October 19-20th with all the proceeds going toward the adoption. Sydney will have
a bake sale there too. ;) If you are local to the Atlanta area, we would
greatly appreciate any goods you may have to donate to the sale (prior to
October 17th). We’d be happy to pick them up too! If you don’t have
any goods to donate, come shop the sale! If you live out of town, might you
consider gathering donations from your friends/church/workplace and hosting a
garage sale on our behalf?
~ Collect your change! This would be a great way to get your little ones
involved too. Sydney and I would be happy to roll your coins and take them to
the bank! If you are out of town, you could just collect them and then send a
check. Seriously (which is Sydney’s favorite word these days)…ANY amount is
helpful! Do you work somewhere that may be willing to put a donation jar near a
register or in a break room? Here is a link for a label I designed that you can wrap around a collection jar! We used a glue stick for ours, and it fits perfectly around 3 sides of a large glass mason jar.
~ I’m also going to start working
on making some goods to sell for the
adoption. I will keep you all posted when those are available. If you have your
own business, would you consider having a benefit month for our adoption – where a certain % of your sales
would be given to fund the adoption? We would be happy to plug your goods
during that benefit month via word of mouth, on our facebook pages and on this
blog!
~ Give. Maybe you just simply want to give a donation. No
complaints here! ;) Contact us and we’ll get our address to you, so you can
just drop a check in the mail. We have also added a “DONATE” button to this
blog to give through Paypal. As a disclaimer - when you give through Paypal via
a credit card, there is a 2.9% charge plus a $.30 transaction fee. So, there’s
a small cost to us for that convenience, but go for it, if it’s worth it to
you. There is another option as well called Popmoney, powered by Josh’s
employer Fiserv, which only charges a $.95 transaction fee. Popmoney allows
one-time transfers up to $500 directly from your checking account/debit card to
our checking account. It is totally secure and very easy to use. Let me know if
you are interested, and I will get the information to you. And this Momma CPA wants to make sure you know these gifts are not tax-deductible (unfortunately). We may be able to participate in a matching grant program in the future which would allow for that, but we have to have our home study completed first.
~ Have any other ideas? We would
love to hear them!
And for my fellow visual peeps
out there, I’m including the following video that was put together for Orphan
Sunday, which is coming up on November 4, 2012. It happens to be set to one of
my all-time favorite songs (you should hear Sydney belt this one out in the
car)!
Orphan Sunday 2012 from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.
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