First things first, we want to thank everyone once again for the tremendous support shown to us during our fundraising efforts. The parties were a HUGE success and we are overwhelmingly humbled by your generosity. EVERY purchase made is a blessing and an encouragement to us. There are people we have never met, who thus know NOTHING about us, entrust us with donations and significant purchases, we stand in awe of God's promise to provide. It was fun to answer questions and share our story with those who asked as well. Since the party, we have continued to receive orders and cards with checks and notes of encouragement, I hardly know how to respond (if you have encountered me in one of these "moments" I appologize for my social awkwardness, seriously I am stunned everytime this happens!). NEVER in my life did I expect people to be so supportive, to give so willingly, to understand and support us in something that I thought few people had a passion about, I'm clearly wrong. My ultimate goal for this process has always been that God would be glorified in everything step, decision, and action and that when given the chance we would properly represent Him and His will for us. There is no doubt the actions of those who have surrounded us have fully glorified Him and I can only hope that we have done our job half that well. Here are some fun totals of how things turned out!
Vibella Sales.....$1500!
Thirty-One Sales....$3600!
Donations....$795!
That all equals one AMAZING party!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!
Outside of the fundraising we are happy to report that our home study visits are complete and we are currently waiting on my fingerprints to clear FBI (Scott's passed no problem but apparently I have faint fingerprints that the scanner won't read. We've sent off my second set and are hoping these come through cleared soon). Once the fingerprints pass we can fill in the blanks on the actual home study report and get that approved by the necessary people. We will also then finish up the loose ends on the rest of the items that need to be submitted for the dossier. What's left is easy stuff like pictures of our home/family and copies of things like passports etc. At that point (when the dossier is complete) we will submit for translation and then it can be submitted to the courts in Ethiopia. If approved, we then become an official "waiting" family. Woohoo! One of the things people ask about is what kind of a child/children we are open to and how many. We have at this point put in writing that we are open to 1-2 children between the ages of 0-18 months at time of referral boy or girl. We would like to maintain birthorder within our current family and these are the parameters that will allow us to do that.
I think that's all the excitement I have for today and so I sign off in a spirit of thankfulness, even in the midst of unexpected bumps in the road this week. God is good, all the time.
