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!

Yard Sale #4

With the combination of cash donations and yard sale earnings, we made $352!  We also sold another 5 bracelets last week, for a total deposit of $402.  Yay!!

When it rains, it pours....

....in a most wonderful way.  =)

Since my last post, we've sold another 8 bracelets and received two checks in the mail, one from wonderful friends who continue to encourage us, and another from a complete stranger.

Thank you, thank you!!

BAM.

If you've been watching our little (actually, it's rather big) thermometer to the right of our page, you may have noticed it jump up over $1000.  =)

I deposited all the bracelet money plus a very generous donation from my younger sis plus money we personally had set aside and BAM....it totaled $1031!!  We've almost reached our half-way mark!!

Drum roll please...

As of today we have sold THIRTY-TWO bracelets!!  And many have been sold to people we've never even met.  Speaking of, if your bracelet led you to this site,welcome!  I just want to thank everyone who has already purchased a bracelet (or two...or five...or eight..).  It truly means a ton.

Oh, and again, a big huge thank you to my friend, Michelle, who spear-headed this fundraiser and took on all the costs of the materials so that 100% of the proceeds would benefit our adoption.

Bracelets, home study and finances...

I know you all have been waiting on pins and needles for these bracelets.  ;)  With a HUGE thank you to my amazing friend, Michelle, we finally finished our leather and pearl bracelets.  Oh, and because she donated ALL the supplies for the bracelets, 100% of the purchase price will go towards our adoption costs!!!  


Visit my etsy store here or visit my "Store" page to get one for yourself.  

As far as where we're at in our adoption process, we are about 5 pieces of paper away from finishing up our home study.  We've had our interviews and home visit so now its just a push to finish the required paperwork.

However, we received an email this past week informing us that a portion of the fees have gone up by $1,000.  This is both sweet and sour for us.  Sour, obviously, because of the extra expense.  However, one of the biggest issues with adoption in Uganda is the ethics that many people overlook.  These fees are the result of the extra work our Ugandan attorney is doing to ensure that the adoptions he's involved with remain legal and ethical.  Despite the added costs, it is also reassuring to know that his fees are still HALF of those of other attorneys because, while this is his career, it's also a ministry for him.

That's where we're currently at.  Thank you to all those who have sent letters and emails of encouragement, random donations, prayers and verbally given your support!  We really appreciate you all.

Where we're at now...

I gave you fair warning that it could take a month to update my blog again.  Now that I'm WAY overdue, here is a quick update:

About a month ago, the back portion of our house flooded.  This required lots of remediation that took nearly four weeks to finish.  We're almost done with our home study, minus a handful of paperwork and our social worker visits, but with half of our house out of commission we couldn't do the visits.  We also went through some rather big business changes, put on a bridal shower, taught Sunday school for the month, and went camping.  We were busy.

Now, with all that out of the way, we've fully resumed the adoption process and met with our social worker yesterday.  That meeting went great and we scheduled the rest of our visits.  I'm optimistic that our home study will be finished in early July.

On another note, my friend Michelle has come up with a fantastic awareness fundraiser that we'll be getting off the ground really soon.  Uganda is known as the "Pearl of Africa" because of its beauty, so we'll be selling these freshwater pearl bracelets for $10 a piece.  All of the proceeds will benefit our adoption.  Once our adoption is fully funded, we will continue to sell them to support other Ugandan adoptions.  The bracelets are an excellent way to be visually reminded to pray for the orphans in Uganda and (hopefully) to keep our own adoption in your prayers.  Let me know if you're interested in purchasing one (or more..)!

Last of all, I want to thank everyone who continues to ask how we're doing and who supports us in our process.  Adoptions can take a really long time, especially since you can't stop the rest of your life to focus on it.  We have been really encouraged through conversations we've had, prayers, encouragement, and a few generous gifts.  A very big thank you to all who have provided that support.


love, jessie