ALMOST FULLY FUNDED!!

An international adoption is no walk in the park. Along with a stack of paperwork as tall as I am the adoption comes with a hefty price tag, somewhere around $30,000.00.  We have about  $6,000 left to raise.  Our fundraising efforts are ongoing and will not stop until Samuel is home with us.  We appreciate all the support we have gotten so far from everyone involved.   Continued support would be greatly appreciated, as Samuel will not be the last child we help.

As many of you know our daughter, Hannah, was born with Spina Bifida and is permanently affected by it.  Samuel the boy we are seeking to adopt was born with Spina Bifida as well.  His mother was told he would never walk, and so she gave him up — but he is starting to walk now and doing quite well.  Given our experience with Spina Bifida it breaks our heart to see a child cast off because of a handicap.  When we found out about Hannah’s condition the first place we turned to was Immanuel and the Lord.  Through the continued love and support of our congregation Hannah has flourished and defied many doctors.  We hope that Samuel will do the same once he is part of our church family.

Over the past 8 months Laura and I have been fingerprinted, blood drawn and tested, pictures taken and pretty much everything else you can think of in preparation for Samuel to come home.  At this moment we are completing our Dossier, which is all the paperwork for Sam’s local government.  Once these are accepted we will receive our first travel date.  We can hardly wait to travel.  We will meet our Son for the first time. For the past 8 months our family has surrounded ourselves with the story and pictures of Sam trying to imagine what he like in person.  Samuel himself does not even know what our family and all of you guys have done for him, he soon will.  We are so excited to bring Samuel home so that our Church family can show him God’s love.

Samuel will not become another worldwide statistic. Our hope as a family is that our adventure might inspire someone else to start their own adventure to help a child.  Throughout this process God has worked through our family.  God has a plan and it is a great one.  When we were pregnant with Hannah we asked God “Why” and now all we say is “Thank You!”

Tshirt Sale!

A sweet friend in Texas is doing a Tshirt sale in hopes to raise money for Sams adoption. We will soon be sent off to immigration and then off to Russia so of course we are fundraising like mad men...we won't stop saving our money,fundraising and scrounging up every last penny of our own till we meet that goal.... check out her cool shirts. "His" color is lime green so of course she did an awesome job with that!!! Click here to check them out! Spina Bifida Awareness T-shirts by Southern Belle

Yard Sale Update

So the yard sale went off pretty well and craigslist has been going well too, they totaled $1056.00 this weekend. Gets us that much closer to Samuel being home with us!! Thanks to everyone who helped us out. We will be having another yard sale May 4th and 5th, come out and check us out!!

Happy Easter/Garage Sale

                                                   HAPPY EASTER!!! He has risen indeed!
   Our Lord is /has been so awesome with providing for our little Sam and I just know our next   fundraiser will be the same. Come out and join us!!

We will be having the garage sale the weekend after Easter, so that makes it April 13-15! We have some great stuff that has been donated from family and friends, THANK YOU GUYS!

Help us spread the word to drive up the traffic for Sam!!! Tell your family, share this on facebook, email it out, anything helps =) Hope to see you there!

Homestudy Update

  Well we are now done with our homestudy visits and things went very well, praise God! We should have a hard copy in our hands within a couple weeks,yay! Along with the homestudy being almost complete we also have our passports on the way, I'm still a little shocked that I have a passport,haha.
    We are now in the process of collecting furniture,clothes,kitchen appliances,game,electronics, pretty much anything to fill a GoodWill truck to earn money to put towards our adoption fund. I you have anything that you would like to get rid of let us know and we will glady take it off your hands and to those who have graciously given to our cause THANK YOU!!!
   Thats the update as of now, will def keep you posted =)

Moving ahead

Fingerprints,check....first homestudy visit,check.....things seem to be moving along. When I made the arrangements to get fingerprinted they said it usually take about 6 weeks for the results and so I figured that would give us that much more time to fundraise. Well when I got them done and paid for the guy told me as he was handing me my receipt that it would take 1-2weeks! Well here we are on Friday and we got our clearance yesterday, that makes a grand total of 2 DAYS!!!! Holy Cow!! God apparently has other plans. Our next homestudy visit,and last, is this coming up thursday. This week we will be gathering up the rest of the homestudy paperwork and doing our online parenting classes,who knew we needed 10hrs of classes ater we have had 3 kids haha. So theats our update as of now,keep us in your prayers and spread the word, we need ALL the help we can get....support and money....

Great Support Groups

     Well like we said before the ball is rolling.  We have all the paperwork sent in that we need as of this point in time, I am sure there will be much more to come.  This week was a great week. We met with several groups that really have helped us lay the groundwork for both the fundraising that we need to get done and the support we need mentally and emotionally.  We had an idea that this process would be stressful and at times overwhelming but I think that was an understatement.  To our family that is what makes this such a special time for us.  Our family as well as many of our close friends are working very hard to make our dream a reality.  When this whole process is said and done and our family is together we will look back at all the blood sweat and tears that were put into this and appreciate every second of the time spent.  In advance we would like to thank everyone and anyone who has helped us out, THANK YOU!

Get the ball rolling

Yesterday was a very exciting day for us. We were blessed with the money for our homestudy and oh how I teared up! I've know from the start of this that it is Gods will and that He will provide but experiencing it and seeing it unfold is simply amazing!
I contacted our homestudy agency this morning and let them know that we are going to be sending the payment and the rest of the paperwork needed at this time their way. She reassured me that we will be on the books very soon (like a week!) Now it is time to gear up for more paperwork...and I thought buying a house or a car was alot of papers,phew,this seems to be more than that and we are just in the beginning!!! Its all very exciting yet stressfull at the same time, but totally worth it! Please continue to keep us in your prayers and keep spreading the word, Thanks =)

International Adoption

Well I thought since we are def in the process of trying to adopt sweet little Samuel I should start a blog for just that!

Over the past month it has become obvious that we are being led to adopt. I came across Samuel while I was doing my daily read on our spina bifida support group page and just fell in love. Since having our youngest who also has spina bifida, we have adapted well and our girls have also. I feel that every child should have the chance to thrive and we want to give Sam that chance. The thought of him not having a forever family breaks my heart. We want to be his forever family!

The fundraising for this little guy is in the works and we are so excited to see what God has in store for us