Fundraising Spotlight

Amy at "Filled with Praise" has graciously placed our family in her fundraising spotlight today. Every Monday, she chooses a family and shares part of their adoption story on her blog to help them fundraise. Check out her blog here


Thanks Amy for sharing our story and helping us bring our child home!!!

Fundraiser Update and a Few Other Things

Well, we had our cookout this past weekend and it was great!!! The Lord provided $700 for our adoption plus I have sold about $50 in bows in the past week! We had some wonderful helpers on Saturday - my dad and stepmom drove down and Jane watched the girls while my dad grilled all day in the heat. Also, our good friend and pastor at our church, J.C., was able to come help us grill as well for a few hours (despite the fact that his wife is 9 months pregnant and they have 3 other children). Also, a couple other families from the church dropped by for lunch and made deliveries for us while they were there :) Thanks to all these precious people for their help!! Thanks also to all the Dillard's & Mall employees and our church family who stopped by and bought a meal from us to help us get closer to bringing our child home! Thanks to Dillard's management for letting us use their dock to set up our fundraiser!! The Lord is so good to continue to provide ways for us to raise money for our adoption! I have been so encouraged to see how the adoption community as well as our church community and several family and friends have been so willing and eager to help us out!

Another fundraising opportunity literally dropped in my lap this weekend! I found out about an event called "Shepherd's Fest" in Shepherdsville this next Saturday (27th). This event is put on by a church and has several arts/crafts booths as well as live music and lots of other fun things. Last year there were roughly 4500 people there. I called just to see if they had any booths left and they were so excited that we are selling bows and other items for our adoption that they said we could have a FREE booth!! Praise the Lord!! How could we pass that up?? Please pray that I can get enough inventory made and that I will be able to find childcare for our children that day. Hopefully this event will help us raise the rest of the money we need for our home study...then we can start saving for our dossier :)

On a couple of other notes, we will be mailing our application to Show Hope tomorrow and to Katelyn's Fund on Wednesday for more grant opportunities. We also have our fingerprinting appointment with USCIS on Sept. 13.

We were able to get together with some sweet friends this past week who are also adopting from the Congo. She was so kind to take pictures of my bows and post them on her blog to help us out. Her pictures are so much better than any I ever take :) Thank you, thank you Ruth!! Check out her blog at www.whatsmixing.com

Thank you for your continued prayers and support!!!

Next Fundraising Event

Well, we are pretty much settled in Louisville (still a few things left to put away...) and it is time for our next fundraiser! Woohoo!! Since our home study is now complete, that means we have a home study bill to pay and we only have part of the funds :) Therefore, this Saturday (20th) from about 11-6, we will be grilling out and selling hot dogs/hamburgers, chips and drinks at the Dillard's at St. Matthews Mall. We will be set up around the back on the dock (where the trucks unload) of the Men's store. This will be right next to El Nopal (the old Panera in the mall). If you are out and about and are planning to eat out for lunch, please stop in and see us. We'd greatly appreciate it!! If you aren't in Louisville or planning to eat out Saturday, please pray that God will use this time for us to share His word with the people who stop in to see us. Please pray that these people will be able to see God's love for them and all the millions of orphans worldwide. Finally, please pray that we will trust that He will provide all that we need for this next step :)

Also, we sent off our first grant application this past week to Lifesong and got an email notification today that it had been received. We are waiting on a letter from our agency and then we are going to apply for a few more grants as well.

I've also started making bows again and have quite a few ready to sell to bring this child home :) Let me know if you're interested! Thanks for all your prayers and support! This is a long process and it is easy to get discouraged but we are trusting in the Lord that this will all be completed in His timing and we will be able to bring our precious child home exactly when He wants us to.

Finally An Update...

Finally, finally, finally our home study is complete!!! Praise the Lord! Now we can move forward in the process to bring our child home! I felt like we were stuck at a standstill for a little while...however, now hopefully things will move a little quicker :) We are quickly finishing up several grant applications and planning many fundraising events as we need to come up with about $3500 ASAP to pay for our home study and send in with our dossier (which is a collection of documents that we send to our agency and they send to the Congo). As soon as we have this money collected and our fingerprints done (which will hopefully be soon), we can send in our dossier. Then, the wait begins - we will officially be on a waiting list for a child!!! We can't wait! Here are ways that you can help - PRAY (I will list specific things shortly), buy or sell bows for us :), host a Pampered Chef show or place an order, donate anything for our yard sale, donate old cell phones, inkjet, and laser printer cartridges. Thanks in advance for all your help and support!!

Here are some specific prayer requests:
* That we will be diligent in completing our grant applications quickly
* That we will be awarded some grant money :)
* That the Lord will provide all the finances we need for our adoption & that we will trust in Him to do so
* That some other fundraising activities that we are working on will work out
* That our fingerprinting appt will be scheduled very soon so we can finish our dossier and be on the Wait List!!
* That our child we be fed and well taken care of until we can bring him/her home
* That the Lord will use this journey as a way for us to be a witness to others

Thank you! Thank you! Josh & Kristen

He's Continually Providing!!

Well, it's been awhile since our last update but there isn't much new to post except to tell you about the Flea Market booth I set up this weekend. Apparently it was a pretty slow weekend for a flea market but the Lord provided us with approximately $575!! Wait till you hear how...We met another family who was also selling bows who was also adopting from Africa - coincidence? Nope, God doesn't deal in coincidences :) They are actually adopting from Uganda and are hoping for a sibling set. Anyway, we talked to them a few times yesterday and today she came to talk to me and give me a beautiful card and $300 for our adoption!! She said that she had been praying that God would show them how to use some of their money that they raised - to whom and how much - and then she met us. Another coincidence? Nope! As one of my good friends put it, "A complete stranger gave you $300?!?!" Yep, they did but they are stranger no more. They are our fellow brother and sister in Christ and are answering his call to bring home orphans and helping others too. They actually make flowers out of recycled clothing and sell them to raise money for their program "Flowers for Orphans." The main thing that stands out for me about this program is that they state that they make flowers out of used, discarded, unwanted clothing just like there are so many children like this. How horrible is that?? But so very true and we as believers are called to care for these children! Anyway, their generous gift totally made the weekend worth it and was obviously the reason the Lord had us there. After this weekend, we realized that we are 1/4 of the way to our goal and haven't even gotten any grants yet!! Praise the Lord!!!

On another note, we have postponed our home study to next Thursday instead of this week. The rest of our furniture will be delivered tomorrow so I would not be able to get the house in order that quickly.

Thank you for your continued prayers! Please also pray for some friends of ours who are adopting as well but may lose their referral. Please pray that the Lord will give them peace and that He will protect this child and allow this child to have a family and not remain an orphan forever. Please pray that they will completely trust in the Lord and not be discouraged by the words and actions of man but that they will remember that the Lord cares for this child even more than they do.

Thanks for reading :)

First Home Study Meeting & a couple other things...

Well, yesterday we had our first home study meeting and it went pretty well. I was quite anxious about it but it was just a "get-to-know-you" type meeting. She wanted to know about our childhoods and things like that. We also turned in some of the paperwork that we've gathered. Of course, we still have ALOT left to get together before our next meeting (our first visit in our new home) which will be on Thursday, July 7.

Another thing I am hoping for (I don't know that it will happen but with God all things are possible) is that we will be able to travel in November to bring home our child. Our director said it is doable that we can bring our precious child home before the end of the year. It just depends on how quickly we get a referral. Since Josh works in retail, he can't travel in December so we are hoping/praying for November...Our director said once you get a referral it generally takes about 4 months before you travel. Therefore, we would need our referral by July :) Which also means we will need to raise the rest of our money quickly too. Please pray that we will get a referral soon and that God will continue to provide the funds we need to bring this child home. We do have another fundraising event the first weekend in July. I am going to be selling bows all weekend at the flea market. Please pray that I will be diligent in making my bows so that I will have enough to sell for the four days I will be at the flea market.

Anyway, that is all the new news with us :) Thanks for your prayers and encouragement!

Louisville and Adoption Update

Well, we are FINALLY back in Louisville! We are beyond thrilled to be back home and back at Immanuel. We went to church there this morning for the first time in almost 2 years and thoroughly enjoyed it! We are looking forward to getting plugged back in as quickly as possible! I am so excited to be living in a neighborhood where so many of our neighbors go to IBC! It almost seems like anytime we go outside we run into someone from the church. LOVE IT!

Now time for adoption update....we mailed off our first BIG check for $3200 to OWAS this week so we are officially contracted with them and now we are beginning to gather all our paperwork for our dossier. Exciting times!! We also have our first meeting with our home study coordinator on Thursday. I'm not nervous yet because we actually aren't in our house yet so it will just be a meet and greet and fill out paperwork kinda session. We have another fundraiser planned for the first weekend of July. I've rented a booth at the Louisville flea market and am hoping to sell LOTS of bows that weekend. If anyone else is interested in buying or selling some bows for us, let me know :) I'm still shipping them out!! I think that's all the news for now. Thanks for your prayers!