So we had our first fundraiser for our adoption! I honestly didn't know how tired you could get trying to put one on! It is such a relief when the sign finally gets put out and people start walking down your drive way. At that point...well...it is what it is! And you can let out that big breath that you feel like you've been holding for a long, long, long time!!! We not only did a yard sale, but we did a bake sale(Thank you Maggie, Lauren and Kennedy for working the stand)....
Thank you so much to everyone who donated goodies....they were all so tasty! I would know...I think I tried them all! We also sold our adoption t-shirts(thank you Shannon and Jaclyn for rolling all of them)...
Yes, that cutie patootie is my little miss Jo Monkey!!! I really don't know how anyone could resist buying a shirt after seeing that pic! But maybe that's because I'm her mamma and I just looooove every bit of her!!! Well, enough bragging...below is a link to my Etsy shop where you can purchase one of our adoption t-shirts! I'm working on getting set up for people to buy one off of my blog, but that is just far more than I can try to accomplish right now!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/156388200
My friend Kristen Dacey over at thedaceylife.blogspot.com designed them...didn't she do a fantastic job?!?! I love them! One of our long time family friends had them printed...she is the owner of Mulberrytreemarketing.com, Mary Pearia- She is really like a second mom to me and I can't say enough thank you's to both of them for helping us make this t-shirt thing happen!!!
The weekend was packed with selling lots and lots of "things" and we can truly say that it was a huge success! Thank you friends, family and friends we made, for all your support. We are humbled and blessed by your generosity and we truly could not do it without y'all!!! We are that much closer!!
On another note and probably which is why my blog is titled "Everything In Between", I learned something this weekend as well....I think seeing friends go through the adoption process I have maybe come to think and perhaps expect that God will work in the same way with us as He did with them. If I am truly honest with myself, I think I had expectations because of that. It hit me in my quiet time yesterday that, we are all on our own journey, and they are never the same...maybe the lesson He is trying to teach us is the same, but His way of going about doing it is so very different. So while many of us are going down the same road and feel God calling us to adopt, the way we get there is different. I have to remind myself not to compare our situation with others! He brought us here and He will continue to lead us down this road and I pray that I won't miss all of the things that He wants to teach me in the midst of it. I pray that I won't miss time with Him because I am so caught up in trying to figure out how to raise money, or get all the paper work done...I have seen him work the HUGE miracle of bringing Morris and I's hearts into agreement over adoption, He won't leave us hang'n to figure out the rest...He is our provider and He proved that this weekend! Thank you Lord for you blessings...You are worthy of all honor and praise...to you be the glory both now and forever! Amen
And little one, while we are still plugging away on this journey to get to you, we are talking about you, dreaming about you, praying for you, missing you, loving you, and.....
My heart aches just to see a picture of your sweet face....to hold you in my arms...to love and squeeze every bit of you, to hear you giggle, to wipe away your tears and to hold you when you sleep. I had no idea how hard it would be to wait for you....your mamma loves you!! Actually, this whole family loves you! We are a little bit closer....
We said, "Yes"...now what? We needed to figure out international or domestic. Although each avenue is important and needed, we were leaning towards international. Then comes, what agency and country? We did some research and through that we had it narrowed down to China and Ethiopia. We met the qualifications for each. However, even with these two as our options, many of the agencies we looked into were not taking applications for Ethiopia. So, that pretty much leaves us with China! The agency we decided to use is CCAI (Chinese Children Adoption International) , and I can't say enough wonderful things about them so far!
Through this process I would look at the "waiting children" list of kids in China, I new in my heart this is where God wanted us to adopt from. It broke my heart knowing that many of them were abandon because of their special need or minor corrective need. We also came to realize that a majority of China's population are atheists. So if a child was never adopted, they would be put on the streets at 14 and most likely never hear about Jesus Christ. This solidified our decision even more. This is a verse that keeps making its way back to us:
"The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40
The orphans of the world are overlooked and ignored. I am sure almost all of them to some degree don't feel cherished, valued or loved. I would like them all to be able to feel and experience these things, but I can't physically do that...I can however, start with one. So down this journey we go....China...he/she may not look like us, but he/she will be apart of us to the core!
