J's cousin and his wife sell soap and other fun things on their website. http://www.soapandcotton.com/
They donate $1 to our adoption for every $5 you spend, AND will give us $5 for each sale for the first 20 sales!! You just have to click Stewart adoption under the tab Support a Mission under the Merchandise tab.
We're so blessed to see all the different ways people want to help us bring this little guy home. Thank you all so much!!
J and I had our biometrics appt. on Dec. 17th so we're hoping to get our I171-H pretty soon...we don't have all the money we need to send our dossier yet, but we will in His timing.
We had a wonderful Christmas with our family and are looking forward to next Christmas when we'll have another fun little one around. We are so excited to see what this new year will bring as well. God bless!!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, December 6, 2010
Christmas Cookie Sale
WOW!! That was fun, crazy, exciting, tiring and a HUGE blessing. I had about half a dozen people help bake, a couple people help with set up and the perfect amount of people to buy!! The cookies are ALLLL GONE!! Thank you Lord!! We used a classroom at church to sell the cookies. We put out about 3 long tables covered with tablecloths and put all the cookie platters on them with tags in front of each stating what type of cookie it was. We had a few simple decorations on the tables. We had another table set up with all the homemade flavored popcorn my friend made and another table with all the fudge, pumpkin bread, bark, cookbooks and the scale on it. My brother donated boxes from his bakery that we placed next to some "gloves" (sandwich bags) on a table right by the door. People grabbed a box and strolled through while listening to Christmas music play and picked what they wanted. We weighed the box when they were done and they paid by the pound. We rounded up or down to the nearest pound as I didn't want to deal with 1/2 and 3/4 :) People were just fine with that and the boxes held about 2 lbs of cookies when full. Everyone commented on how wonderful everything looked and how smooth the sale was. Overall it was a great success!! I highly recommend doing this as a fundraiser!! Already trying to figure out what I can do for Valentine's Day ;)
Lastly, we have some family who is selling soap to help us raise money. It smells wonderful!!! Check them out at http://www.soapandcotton.com/!! They will donate $1 for every $5 sold.
Lastly, we have some family who is selling soap to help us raise money. It smells wonderful!!! Check them out at http://www.soapandcotton.com/!! They will donate $1 for every $5 sold.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Fingerprinting Appt.
Dec. 17th is the day!!! And if we receive our I171-H a week after that then we could possibly be DTE by the end of the year.......HOWEVER, we are praying for a Christmas miracle. We need almost 3/4 of the money to send our dossier...God knows how we'll get it. And I can't wait to see Him work...
I will be happy to be done with this cookie sale after Sunday, it has been quite time and thought consuming. Not to mention there isn't a flat surface left in my house that doesn't have cookies on it!! I am going to decorate the "cookie sale" room today with some friends. It's going to look great!!
I will be happy to be done with this cookie sale after Sunday, it has been quite time and thought consuming. Not to mention there isn't a flat surface left in my house that doesn't have cookies on it!! I am going to decorate the "cookie sale" room today with some friends. It's going to look great!!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Received!
Well the USCIS received our application and now we are waiting for our fingerprinting appt. We'll have to travel down to Portland for that and there is an Ethiopian restaurant down there we can't wait to try.
Getting ready for our cookie sale, my freezer is full o' cookies!! Praying that it will be a successful fundraiser.
We've also applied for one grant already but there suprisingly isn't much else out there. It's hard to believe that in this big, rich country there isn't more help out there to pay a child's ransom. But again, God's economy is not ours-He can and will do this. So excited to watch how He pulls it all together...
Getting ready for our cookie sale, my freezer is full o' cookies!! Praying that it will be a successful fundraiser.
We've also applied for one grant already but there suprisingly isn't much else out there. It's hard to believe that in this big, rich country there isn't more help out there to pay a child's ransom. But again, God's economy is not ours-He can and will do this. So excited to watch how He pulls it all together...
Friday, November 19, 2010
Sent!!
Well we've had an exciting few weeks...We got our home study rough draft last week, I reviewed it and got the final draft approved the next day!! Then got the notarized copy of it a few days later!!! This is a huge piece of the process and I am thankful we're done with it. On Friday I picked up the home study report and sent our I600-A that day!! It is a form that once approved means we're allowed to adopt internationally. We will get fingerprinted too. When we get the approval back (called the I171-H) then we can mail our dossier to Ethiopia. Again my goal is to get it across the pond before the end of the year-Lord willing :)
Our home study states that we can adopt a child from 0-3 yr. old and we are approved for more than one child. We did that because we have heard of instances where people get over there to get their child and find out there is a sibling that may have been in another orphanage and even a case where they found out their child was a twin!! How could you leave that other sibling behind?! Whenever I've prayed for our son I would hear sons (plural). Don't know why...we are not looking to adopt 2 but we'll leave that up to the Lord. I know my hubby hasn't felt that leading but again, not OUR will but His will be done. Frankly I want another excuse to go Ethiopia, so I'd rather only get one child this time ;) I've never been to Ethiopia but there is a piece of my heart there. A son whom I've never met but who God ordained from before the earth began to be a part of our family. How could my heart not ache to be there??
Another big key to getting the home study report back is that now we can apply for grants. We desperately need a big chunk of change to send our dossier to Ethiopia. We're only a quarter of the way to our goal. We have plenty of fundraisers going on right now. I have three friends who are donating a portion of their business sales to our cause. Our cookie sale is coming up quickly. I have many dear friends/family who are going to bake on our behalf :) We'll sell cookies by the pound right before Christmas, how can we go wrong? Pray for this event and God's continued guidance in this process.
Our home study states that we can adopt a child from 0-3 yr. old and we are approved for more than one child. We did that because we have heard of instances where people get over there to get their child and find out there is a sibling that may have been in another orphanage and even a case where they found out their child was a twin!! How could you leave that other sibling behind?! Whenever I've prayed for our son I would hear sons (plural). Don't know why...we are not looking to adopt 2 but we'll leave that up to the Lord. I know my hubby hasn't felt that leading but again, not OUR will but His will be done. Frankly I want another excuse to go Ethiopia, so I'd rather only get one child this time ;) I've never been to Ethiopia but there is a piece of my heart there. A son whom I've never met but who God ordained from before the earth began to be a part of our family. How could my heart not ache to be there??
Another big key to getting the home study report back is that now we can apply for grants. We desperately need a big chunk of change to send our dossier to Ethiopia. We're only a quarter of the way to our goal. We have plenty of fundraisers going on right now. I have three friends who are donating a portion of their business sales to our cause. Our cookie sale is coming up quickly. I have many dear friends/family who are going to bake on our behalf :) We'll sell cookies by the pound right before Christmas, how can we go wrong? Pray for this event and God's continued guidance in this process.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
More fundraising :)
We had our auction a few weeks ago. It was so fun!! Our auctioneer was hilarious and such a huge blessing. Quite a few people from J's Dad's church showed up and a few others. It wasn't a huge turnout but God still provided and I think it was a blessing to all involved. We also received a check from his Dad's church for all the change they collected over the past month, and they matched funds for it!! So exciting!! So God has provided for the next step as He promised.
We are STILL waiting to get our home study rough draft back-really thought we would've had it by now but our social worker is really busy. We REALLY want it back because the cost of sending our documents to the USCIS to get approved to adopt internationally is going up Nov. 23 so we're praying we get it submitted before that!! Once we get the rough draft, we'll look it over and send it on to our adoption agency. If she approves it then we'll send it back to the social worker and she'll provide us with the final draft. We have all of our documents ready to send to the USCIS, we just need the finalized home study in hand!! Not so sure if we'll be able to send our dossier to Ethiopia (DTE) by the end of the year though...we'll see. His timing is perfect, so I will not stress. We don't have the money for our dossier to be sent anyway, but we know He will provide that when we need it too. I have embraced the phrase, God is seldom early, never late, but ALWAYS on time.
So now that the yard sales, pancake breakfasts, auction fundraisers are over....I'm moving on to MORE fundraisers!!! I am planning a cookie sale at our church Dec. 5th. A dear sister is doing a fundraiser for us where she will donate a percentage of the sales from her business to us!! http://www.ellieannapurses.com/ is the website, you have to mention that you're doing it for us. She has some beautiful hand made purses, jewelry, etc. Another dear friend is doing a Tupperware fundraiser for us. There are some really neat products that are only available through the fundraiser. We're still selling Gooseberry cookbooks as well. Coffee sales from our site are doing well too. You can click on our link from this page to purchase some coffee.
The other big key to getting our home study back is that we'll then be able to apply for grants. There are some neat programs out there that provide them, we just need to have a completed home study!!! Also our adoption agency has a Waiting Children Program for older children, sibling groups and children with special needs. Once we get our home study we can also apply to adopt from there if we find a child we want.
So that's where we're at...just praying that God shows us direction while we wait. There is always a reason for waiting, something to be learned. So we're just being patient and listening and preparing our home for our new child.
Please pray for God to continue blessing this process, to keep our family safe (Satan hates adoption!!) and to watch over and protect our son in Ethiopia and his family as well.
We are STILL waiting to get our home study rough draft back-really thought we would've had it by now but our social worker is really busy. We REALLY want it back because the cost of sending our documents to the USCIS to get approved to adopt internationally is going up Nov. 23 so we're praying we get it submitted before that!! Once we get the rough draft, we'll look it over and send it on to our adoption agency. If she approves it then we'll send it back to the social worker and she'll provide us with the final draft. We have all of our documents ready to send to the USCIS, we just need the finalized home study in hand!! Not so sure if we'll be able to send our dossier to Ethiopia (DTE) by the end of the year though...we'll see. His timing is perfect, so I will not stress. We don't have the money for our dossier to be sent anyway, but we know He will provide that when we need it too. I have embraced the phrase, God is seldom early, never late, but ALWAYS on time.
So now that the yard sales, pancake breakfasts, auction fundraisers are over....I'm moving on to MORE fundraisers!!! I am planning a cookie sale at our church Dec. 5th. A dear sister is doing a fundraiser for us where she will donate a percentage of the sales from her business to us!! http://www.ellieannapurses.com/ is the website, you have to mention that you're doing it for us. She has some beautiful hand made purses, jewelry, etc. Another dear friend is doing a Tupperware fundraiser for us. There are some really neat products that are only available through the fundraiser. We're still selling Gooseberry cookbooks as well. Coffee sales from our site are doing well too. You can click on our link from this page to purchase some coffee.
The other big key to getting our home study back is that we'll then be able to apply for grants. There are some neat programs out there that provide them, we just need to have a completed home study!!! Also our adoption agency has a Waiting Children Program for older children, sibling groups and children with special needs. Once we get our home study we can also apply to adopt from there if we find a child we want.
So that's where we're at...just praying that God shows us direction while we wait. There is always a reason for waiting, something to be learned. So we're just being patient and listening and preparing our home for our new child.
Please pray for God to continue blessing this process, to keep our family safe (Satan hates adoption!!) and to watch over and protect our son in Ethiopia and his family as well.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Trust & Prepartion
A week or so ago I was reading in Mark, Chap. 8:1-10. Jesus tells the disciples he feels sorry for the crowds who have gathered and have no more food to eat. Most of them had come a long distance and wouldn't have the strength to get home. The disciples ask how they could possibly feed all the people. Jesus asks THEM how many loaves of bread they have. They answer seven. So Jesus took the seven loaves and thanked God for them, broke them into pieces and gave them to the disciples who then distributed them to the crowd. Everyone ate until they were full and there were still seven baskets left over. Jesus fed four thousand people with seven loaves of bread.
This verse was so encouraging to me and not because I have ever wondered where the money would come from for this adoption but because it just reaffirmed that all He asks is what we HAVE. He will do the rest if we're willing to let Him. God knows we don't have all the money for this adoption but He just asks what we have. Well we have willing hearts, room in our house and hearts and that's all. HE will provide the rest.
I was also thinking this week as we were at J's Dad's church about all the people there who are rallying around us and how God prepared them for that. After a couple spoke last year about Haiti and brought their little boy they had adopted from Haiti with them to speak at their church almost everyone started sponsoring children from Haiti. What if God hadn't primed their hearts for the plight of orphans? I am amazed and yet not at the same time-He is just sooooo good!!
He also brought to my mind all the little boys I've babysat over the past four years. What amazing preparation for our youngest!! Since birth, she's not had all of Mommy's attention. It's always been shared with older siblings and other little boys her age. God is one smooth operator!!!
I love looking back at how God's hand has guided everything. His plan is the only one I want to follow and I continue to look forward to meeting the little boy He has had planned for our family before the beginning of time.
This verse was so encouraging to me and not because I have ever wondered where the money would come from for this adoption but because it just reaffirmed that all He asks is what we HAVE. He will do the rest if we're willing to let Him. God knows we don't have all the money for this adoption but He just asks what we have. Well we have willing hearts, room in our house and hearts and that's all. HE will provide the rest.
I was also thinking this week as we were at J's Dad's church about all the people there who are rallying around us and how God prepared them for that. After a couple spoke last year about Haiti and brought their little boy they had adopted from Haiti with them to speak at their church almost everyone started sponsoring children from Haiti. What if God hadn't primed their hearts for the plight of orphans? I am amazed and yet not at the same time-He is just sooooo good!!
He also brought to my mind all the little boys I've babysat over the past four years. What amazing preparation for our youngest!! Since birth, she's not had all of Mommy's attention. It's always been shared with older siblings and other little boys her age. God is one smooth operator!!!
I love looking back at how God's hand has guided everything. His plan is the only one I want to follow and I continue to look forward to meeting the little boy He has had planned for our family before the beginning of time.
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