Ornaments

A very generous friend at our church has a pottery studio and agreed to teach me how to make ornaments to sell.  I spent many hours of peace and quiet working on these ornaments and have plenty available to sell.  At just $10 each I think they are great teacher's gifts or little "happies" for all those people in your life you want to wish a Merry Christmas.  (I even giftwrap!)And you can do it while helping bring our brother and sister home from Haiti! (And, no, we have no news on them!!!)  Just leave a comment, call, text, email, whatever and I will get them to you ASAP!!!!

 

 

 

Fundraising trifecta

When our file (dossier) was officially submitted to the Haitian children's services the first half of the international program fee was due.  This pays for orphanage expenses and governmental fees for processing the adoption in Haiti and here.  Since we are now adopting siblings half of this fee was $15,800! Gulp, deep breath.  The other half, another $15,800, will be do in about 6-8 months from the time that file/dossier was submitted, which was August 12 for us.  So, if you're doing the math, in 4-6 months time this large sum will be do and we will also plan our trip to meet the kiddos which is estimated to require an additional $5000 for the two week stay in Haiti.  There will be further expenses beyond that while we wait to be able to actually bring them home.  I won't list these further expenses in detail- but in total, from today we have approximately $26,000 left to pay.  In the past four years of this adoption journey we have paid over $38,000.  While we had very generous giving in our previous fundraisers, the vast majority of that was from our own savings. 

I had a wonderful conversation with our adoption agency just this week and was told that the likelihood that our wait will probably be quicker than the usual wait time of 6-8 (which, as I wrote above is already down to 4-6 months!).  This absolutely thrilled me given how long this adoption has been taking!  However, we do not have the money to pay for the rest of the expenses.  You see, if we had continued with Ethiopia it would have been at least three years and only one child.  We knew that when we switched to Haiti we would not have that time to save, but we felt sure that God was still asking us to take this leap of faith and trust Him to provide.  We have already had some VERY generous contributions and are in the process of applying for numerous grants, I mean numerous!  We know that this is in God's hands, but many of these nonprofit groups have already indicated that our income puts us outside of the usual "demonstrates need" pool of families applying for assistance.  However, we are in that income bracket that sets us apart from the families that can fully fund their own adoption, especially in our given time frame.

So, here we go-------

Fundraiser #1

We still have t-shirts leftover from the original sale.  Unfortunately, there are no smalls left or any size greater than XL.  If the interest is there, we can have this printed again, but I learned my lesson the first time around- do not order t-shirts you do not yet have orders for!  For this reason, we have the following available: 10 mediums, 9 larges, and 3 XL's.  These would also make great Christmas gifts- I even have a tag made up to enclose with them explaining our "cause." See the paypal button at the right to order one or if you live near I can just bring me one, just leave me a comment.

Fundraiser #2

Our cousin (actually Jason's), Shannon, is an ambassador for a company called Noonday Collection.  As Shannon has shared, this company's mission is "to create economic opportunities in developing countries. We do this by creating marketplace for our artisan's handmade, fair trade accessories! I've visited groups in South Africa, Haiti and Guatemala and I can testify to what a huge difference this work is making in their lives! Dignified work provides food, clean water, education, and helps families stay together."  The women in these countries make gorgeous jewelry and accessories that are made available at Noonday's trunk and catalog shows.  Shannon was hosting a party at our adoption agency this week and when she discovered our ties there she offered to give 20% of the sales to our adoption.  So, this means you can support our kids in Haiti and women around the world trying to provide for their own kids!  Win-Win.  I recently had another dear friend host a show at her house and Noonday sent $100 to our agency for our adoption.  All of the items would make wonderful Christmas presents!  Here's the catch- you only have until Sunday so head over to her web site at www.shannonriesenfeld.noondaycollection.com and enter "America World" at check out so the funds will go towards our adoption!

 Fundraiser #3

I debated over this one a ton, but I'm gonna bite the bullet and host another garage sale!  We would love any donations those living near would like to bring over or have us pick up!  We hope to have this on Saturday, November 8- while the weather is nice.  We would also love to sell baked goods with coffee for our "shoppers," so this another way you could help. 

 

While this is humbling, I am excited to see how the Lord choses to bring His children to a forever family and thank you all for loving them before we even know them!

 

Stay tuned, I have some other opportunities for later if they work out!

Another year passes already?

Yes, another year has passed since I last posted.  Do you see a pattern forming here?  I like to keep you in suspense, always wanting more!  Sure, that's what I'm doing....

Actually, there has been quite a lot going on in the past year.  We did finish all our dossier paperwork for Ethiopia and sent off to our agency the first of November for it to go to the Ethiopian embassy in D.C. for authentication.  What an exciting time!  We finished.  The paperwork was done.  It was correct.  I didn't wake up every morning wondering if we'd get the last signature today and if the notary on it would be valid or if there would be some strange mix up like someone putting the wrong year when they dated it!  We knew we had a three year wait (at least) and we settled in to just accepting it and feeling confident that God was using that time to help us save money to pay the rest of the expenses of the adoption and prepare ourselves as a family. 

We were sitting at a soccer game one evening just before thanksgiving and I took a minute to check my email.  There was an email from the director of our adoption's agency's Haiti director.  She was sending out an email to everyone in the adoption process to alert them to the need for a number of children in one of their orphanages to find families or they would have to pass them along to another agency.  The list only included genders and age.  All throughout this process we have wanted to adopt siblings but with Ethiopia this would take so much longer.  And, here, on this list were a number of sibling sets in the age range we wanted.  I showed it to Jason and we agreed it wouldn't hurt to inquire more.  We knew the offices were closed, but as soon as they opened the next morning I called.  We heard back that afternoon.  All of those children were being considered by other families.  That's amazing!!!  As far as we know, they all found their families from that one email.

We talked for a while to the director of the Haiti program about the need in Haiti.  She said that since the earthquake in 2010 the orphanages have been overcrowded with children.  Not only did more children lose their families, but the government had since closed a number of orphanages for substandard conditions so the other orphanages were having to take in more children.  She said the wait time was around 18-24 months tops and they definitely could refer us a sister AND a brother.  After much prayer and discussion we decided to pursue the transfer from the Ethiopia program to the Haiti program.  For us, this adoption is not a pursuit of a certain nationality, but of a child in need.  Yes, there are children in need everywhere, but we felt that the need was immediate in Haiti and we could fill it.  At the time we transferred, the government had certain age and length of marriage stipulations in place that we met but that a lot of families would not.  And we love the thought that because Haiti is closer and easier to travel to, we could visit again and take our children back some day, and maybe have more involvement as a church family.

We decided to move forward and apply for a transfer to the Haiti program and the first of the year, 2014, we were accepted into the Haiti program!!!! When we made our first inquiries into the Haiti adoption process we were told that most of the documents we collected for the Ethiopian dossier would easily transfer to the dossier needed for Haiti, with some additional items needed.  Now that we were officially in the program, the program director had a chance to look at our documents and realized that ALL of them had to be obtained again since Haiti requires that they be no more than a year old, where Ethiopia allowed them to be older.  AND we had to get a formal psychological evaluation.  Not only did all of this mean more time and hassle, but a good deal more money as everything had to be paid for again- home study updates, blood work, physicals, background checks, and a psychologist.  But, with the experience gleaned over the PAST 2 times we had done this already, it only took five months his time- um, did I just type only?!  It seemed like forever. Then, off the new dossier went to translation in May.  Long story short the translation took twice as long as predicted, was then sent to Haiti to be legalized in July.  At that point it was supposed to take up to two months before formal submission to the IBESR (the governing body in Haiti that decides which children are truly adoptable and which families are eligible to receive them).  And finally........ this went quicker than expected and a month later, August 12th to be exact, we were submitted and began the wait for a referral for our kids!!!! In 6-8 months we will receive a file and pictures of TWO kids (siblings)- one boy 0-4 years old and one girl 0-6 years old!  We are thrilled, we are overwhelmed, we are expectant!!! More details later on with all that we are thinking, needing, and praying.  Thanks for continuing to follow this very long journey we have been on, though we know:
"beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" 2 Peter 3:8