Sunday, October 21, 2012

Little Ways to Help

Sometimes when I think about the number of orphans in the world and the scope of their needs I get completely overwhelmed. It seems as if the problem is so big that the small things that I am able to do could not possibly make a difference. But I have learned that small things being done by many people add up quickly! If each of us does one small thing to help an orphan, the end result will be BIG.

Here are a couple of small ways that you can help....

The orphanage that A.J. lives in now has many needs. After talking to the director, we discovered that one of their greatest needs is for a commercial dryer to allow them to keep up with the huge amounts of laundry created by 70+ children. This will cost approximately $700. Our hope is to be able to raise enough money to be able to purchase the dryer when we travel to pick up A.J. If you would like to help us meet this need, you can leave a comment here or contact me on Facebook or e-mail.

We are involved with the Love the Least Orphan Care Ministry at our church. This ministry currently supports several orphan care initiatives locally and internationally. We are involved with building homes for displaced children in Haiti to prevent them from becoming victims of trafficking, supporting the Village of Hope Uganda through sponsorships and mission trips, assisting the Central Texas Children's Home in several ways, and also helping adopting families afford the cost of adoption. Unfortunately, all of this takes money.
As part of our fundraising we are sponsoring a "Christmas Shopping Party" on Saturday, December 1st. You've all heard of Tupperware parties or Mary Kay parties right? We this is the same thing, only much bigger.  We will have tons of vendors for you to chose from and part of each sale will benefit the ministry. And we will have refreshments too. You can get all of your Christmas shopping done in one stop, avoid the mall and Target, and get chocolate too!!  Plan to join us! If you, or someone you know owns a home business and would be interested in participating in the event please let me know.

How do you reach 147 million orphans? One at a time!

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Final Paperwork - Take 2

I should have known that nothing would go as planned with this final set of paperwork! Nothing has been easy so far, so why would it start now? ;-)

We sent in our I-800 to get the final approval for A.J.'s visa and within a week of it being received we got a phone call from our officer telling us that she needed the wording on our home study to be changed... again. I called our social worker that same day to ask her to make the needed changes and found out she was out of town. Of course! Every other piece of paperwork has been delayed, why not this one too? I was so incredibly frustrated that I wanted to cry. So it took us two weeks to get the home study updated and the new request for our USCIS paperwork is on its way. And the best part of all of that? It cost us $360 to file the supplemental paperwork to make the changes that were requested. Grrrr....

As we were waiting for the USCIS paperwork we were also working on getting our medical clearances updated by our physician. He is a very good doctor, but he and his office staff apparently flunked "Paperwork 101" because we had to go back to his office three separate times to get them to re-do the paperwork because they had filled it out incorrectly. Apparently I do not have anything else to do except drive to the doctor's office repeatedly. Grrr....

The good news is that our officer at USCIS is very kind and obviously wants to get us our approval as quickly as possible. She could have just waited for the written request to make its way to us in a week or so, but she took the time to call us, let us know what was needed, and give us specific information about making the updated home study meet the requirements. I really believe that she will be calling us as soon as she receives our updated paperwork to let us know that we have been approved and that our Article 5 letter is on its way to the embassy.

Praying that there will not need to be a Final Paperwork Take 3! :-)

Hang in there little man. Momma and Daddy will be there soon.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Birthday Benefit for Chrissie

Those of you who have been following our adoption story from the beginning might remember that Chrissie Patterson and her family were a big part of God's plan to lead us to adopting a special needs child.

Today would have been Chrissie's 7th birthday and her parents are hosting a virtual benefit in her memory. Village of Hope Guatemala will be opening in Spring of 2013 to give special needs orphans in Guatemala family, faith, and a future. Guatemala is currently closed to international adoption, and special needs orphans are almost never adopted within the country. Village of Hope Guatemala gives these children a chance at life in a family setting, education, medical treatment, the childhood they deserve, and a more secure future.

I know that many families (ours included) are on tight budgets. I have found myself thinking sometimes that the $5 or $10 that I have to give is so little that it won't make a difference. But I am realizing that when all of these small gifts are added together they become something BIG!

Check out Chrissie's benefit and be part of caring for children who are often overlooked. Your small gift will multiply!