Scentsy Fundraiser Update!

Right before Christmas, my friend of twenty-four years (is that even possible?) and Scentsy consultant, Angie, hosted a Scentsy fundraiser for our adoption.  She was in town last week and handed me the check:  $220!!!!

Just had to share that bit of good news with you.  =)

Tick-tock...

Here is our new number.  

It seems like a decent number, by itself.  26.  But in reality, it means a potentially long wait.  When we switched to Uganda, we researched agencies before picking one because our main criteria was doing things ethically.  But doing things ethically can also mean more waiting.  So now's the time where we sit back and pray for our future child and try not to get too anxious.  =)

Big financial news!

Adoptions cost money.  Lots of money.  I know plenty of people are of the opinion that if you can't pay for your adoption yourself, you shouldn't adopt.  We don't agree with that thought, but at the same time we have avoided putting our hand out and just asking for money.  Because we have the time and resources, we have done things like yard sales, fundraising dinners and silent auctions, bracelets, etc.  We have saved lots of our own money and prayed and worked for business growth.  Nevertheless, many friends and family have hugely blessed us with donations "just because."  We have received checks in the mail from friends and total strangers and from family members for Christmas.  My friend's daughter even saved her change ($10.72 worth of change) to help with our airfare!  We have been abundantly blessed and have always, always had enough money in our adoption fund to write the checks necessary.  So for those gifts and support (via yard sale donations and supporting our other fundraisers) we are hugely grateful!  Which gets me to the big financial news.

I received a phone call this morning from Lifesong for Orphans.  They are a fantastic organization that assists adopting families with fundraising support, by providing a tax-deductible account, matching grants, fundraising ideas and support, etc.  We applied for a "fundraising support packet" which provides the tax-exemption for anyone who contributes to our adoption.  We applied a couple months ago and have finally been approved!  But this is only the first of our big financial news.

Secondly, my husband received two new routes for his business.  This is not only an answer to 3 years of prayers; two routes at the same time is a complete MIRACLE!  I have not heard of this happening before (a contractor getting two routes at the same time), but it did, and it happened to my husband!  Though this is a huge help in the big scheme of things, it came with financial requirements of its own and won't mean anything to us personally for awhile yet.  But adding children to your home also adds financial obligations, so by the time we're home with our child(ren) it should give us a little boost.

And the third bit of news.

[deep breath]

[okay, another deeeeeep breath]

We've just been given $10,000.

I'm not even sure I understand the magnitude of that gift, other than I can't even believe it.  Nobody just gives away $10,000.  Except in my dreams.  Okay, and once in a story Dave Ramsey shared about a family working their way out of debt.  They ran into a couple from their church and got to talking about life and Dave Ramsey and paying off the rest of their debt (about $10k).  The couple from church asked them what they were going to do when they got out of debt and the husband and wife said they promised their kids a trampoline, but ultimately wanted to adopt. That couple sent a trampoline to their house, then called and asked to stop by and talk to them about something.  Afraid it was a multi-level marketing scheme, they tried to put it off.  Finally they agreed to meet, and that couple stopped by and handed them a $10,000 check to get them out of debt and allow them to adopt.

So excuse me, it doesn't just happen in my dreams.  It happens in crazy-absurd-must-use-as-an-illustration Dave Ramsey stories.  And apparently now to us.

$10,000.  $10k.  Breeeeeathe.

That puts us a measly $2,500 away from our tentative target goal* which is such a feasible number for Stuart and I!  I can't thank you all enough for your encouragement, prayers and generosity!

*If we get matched with two children, our goal will go up by several thousand dollars, but we'll cross that bridge if/when it comes. 

29

We've dropped down to 29th place!  Just thought I'd let you know.

To explain more about the waiting list, this is the order in which families within our agency have completed all necessary steps to become approved for a child.  This is NOT necessarily the order in which the adoptions will happen, as those are dependent on various factors, mostly having to do with age/gender specifications.

Stuart and I have been "provisionally approved" for up to 2 children of either gender, between the ages of 8 months and 5 years, with some special needs.  If ten of the families ahead of us on the waiting list have requested children under the age of two, in a sense that would mean we're 19th on the waiting list for any child(ren) over the age of two.  That's the simple explanation, but know there is more to it than that.

I'll keep updating as changes occur.  =)  Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement!

Thirty-One.

Thirty-One.

That's the magic number right now.  31. 

For those who haven't heard, we received our i-600a approval from immigration on November 8th, 

which means on November 9th we were placed on the waiting list for our adoption!  And we're #31.

Then today we received our third set of fingerprints, needed for our dossier.  That's a big sigh of relief as it's the last bit of paperwork we needed to have processed.  

So that's our current update!

We have a date!

If you check out our timeline page, you'll notice I finally updated it.  You'll also notice I updated it into the future.  That's right friends - we have our biometrics appointment set!  I'm not sure what is normal as far as timelines go, but we were told this whole process is backlogged and could take several months.  So far, it seems as though we're moving along just fine...  =)

Stage #3!

Stage #1 is the picking the agency and applying.  Check.
Stage #2 is the home study....paper chasing, home visits, interviews, etc.  Check.

We received our finalized home study in the mail last week and officially moved onto...

Stage #3 yesterday: send in application to USCIS!  Moving onto this step alone drained our adoption account by thousands of dollars.  I cannot tell you HOW THANKFUL we are for all the donations of prayer, money, yard sale items, etc from our friends and family that enabled us to pull this off.

We'll be waiting 2-3 months for approval from USCIS and then we will be officially approved to be matched with a child.

BRACELETS!
In the meantime, we're still selling our "Pearl of Africa" bracelets!  So far we've sold over 50 bracelets so a HUGE THANK YOU to those of you sporting these beauties for our cause.  We now have new colors available...TEAL and AUTUMN RED (pictures coming soon!).  Feel free to visit my etsy store to purchase, or arrange with me via email or facebook.

MONSTER BAGS!
I'm also selling these cuties!  Hand-made by me (please don't analyze the stitching), these little guys come with 5 twistable crayons and will perfectly fit coloring books or construction paper (not included).  My kids are currently using them for their art supplies.  =)  Below are the monsters I have one hand, but I can make a limited number more, with your choice of bag color and monster color.

Pink Monster...$10  -  Qt. 1

Freckled Monster...$10 - Qt. 1

Blue Monster...$10  -  Qt. 1

Leave a comment or email me at beecurrency@gmail.com to let me know if you're interested in a bag!  Thanks!