Money or Not....Here We Come. (Part 3)

  Step 3...It didn't take the devil long to try and steal my joy.  Often times when I've read or talked about the Israelites it amazes me how they could see Gods miracles first hand and still be unthankful and continue to complain and not have faith God was going to see them through.  That's why they wondered around in the desert for 40 years!  Well, I caught myself being just like the Israelites!  God had just provided more than I ever thought possible and here I am doubting that he will provide the rest!  Shame on me!

  I look at this past year and see all the sacrifices we've made to save money for our precious little girl.  Little things that kind of make me laugh to think about.  We all 3 pack our lunches everyday, we only eat out once a week at Mazzios where we can eat for under 20 bucks, we refill our water bottles and have switched from soda cans to 2 liters.  No vacations, no Silver Dollar City passes, no movie theater, no weekend get away to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary.  Jason doesn't drive his truck because there's no gas in it, my car needs an oil change and new tires...just to name a few things.  I said all that to say this. God works differently in everyone's lives.  for some people it's that "Angel singing, bright light moment"  where the money just falls in your lap or a huge check comes in the mail.  I love to hear those stories.  It's those stories that prove it had to be God working.  But for some of us God works more subtly in our lives, it doesn't make him less there, he just works in a different way.  There has not been, up to this point, checks in the mail or money falling into our laps but God is here working.  He allowed for us to have the exact amount of money when we needed it.  I'm not saying I wouldn't love and accept money given to us but there is something to be said about the financial journey of adoption.  I think all the sacrifice and hard work makes the reward that much sweeter in the end.  It has also taught us to trust God every step of the way.  So, right now our savings account is back to zero but we will continue to sacrifice, save and trust God to provide.

Money or Not...Here We Come. (Part 2)

   Now on to step 2....We are not good at asking for help, we are more comfortable giving than receiving.  In fact I have cheated people close to me out of blessings because I wouldn't accept their generosity.  There's one particular time that happened ten or so years ago that still bothers me.  Well we needed to have a fund raiser and I only felt comfortable having a garage sale and asking for donated items.  I mean after all there's a lot of people who would rather take stuff to the free store than sell it so basically it was no skin off their back to help us.  That's how I rationalized it in my head anyway.  We had a lot of wonderful people donate items!  We even had a gentleman in our church give us a hundred dollar check!  That was huge for us!  Nobody before or since has just given us that much money!  Around that time we sold our house (it had been for sale for 2 years).  We had to move the weekend after our garage sale.  So, we had to get rid of everything that weekend and probably let some things go cheaper than we should have.  We still did good though!  We made almost 1,300 dollars!  It gave us the jump start we needed in our savings account!

  In the next year we built a new house and saved every dime of money possible.  We also applied for a grant which we were denied.  That was hard because it made me question if we were really doing what God wanted us to do.  But we kept pressing on knowing that God had gotten us this far.

  In July when my summer checks came we reached our goal!  We had just over 11,000 dollars in our savings acct.!  WOW!  God had blessed us so much!  There was one thing I didn't account for though.  I had forgotten that I needed 300 dollars for our homestudy update in August.  So out it came from the savings.  I also ran us too short and had to take out 175 dollars for grocery's and gas for my car.  I was so disappointed because that's the first time I had to withdraw any money that wasn't for the adoption.

  So, September 6 rolls around and we finally got the call we had been waiting for!  We got a referral of a 13 month old healthy girl!  I was excited beyond belief but quickly thought "Oh, No! We are short on money!"  We were 540 dollars short to be exact.  We needed 11,090 dollars to send with our acceptance paperwork.  So, here's where the story gets good...Jason and I were discussing where and how we were going to come up with the money.  We thought about asking someone to borrow it or getting cash off our credit card.  Neither one of those choices felt right.  God had gotten us this close he wasn't going to leave us hanging 540 dollars short!  Not after a year of saving over 10,000 dollars!  But where was it going to come from?!  This was a Monday and I had written out my bills on Friday but still had not found the time to pay them.  I realized they totaled 300 dollars and they weren't due until the 20th which was the same day I got my first paycheck of the school year!  So thank God I hadn't paid them!  I could hold them and pay them on the 20th when I got paid and they wouldn't even be late!  So, between holding our bills, 60 dollars cash my Aunt and mom had raised for us, cash out of Jason's wallet and some money from our checking acct. we had enough!!!!  Did we have any extra?!  Absolutely NOT!  But we met our goal, our bills weren't late, we had grocery's and gas in our car!  Glory to God!  God never promised us extra or excess but he promised to give us what we need and he did exactly that and we were thankful!

Money or Not...Here We Come! (Part 1)

  I have debated whether to make a post about money but it is a very big part of the adoption process.  I know I have appreciated reading other people's blog post's on this subject.  I have so many thoughts and feelings swirling around in my head, I hope I can make it all make sense. I have so much to say about it I'm going to split it into 3 posts so it doesn't get too lengthy.   Nevertheless here it goes....

  Of course like most people who feel led to adopt we didn't have thirty extra thousand dollars laying around.  To be honest with you we didn't even have a savings account.  We have always had what we need but not much extra.  We are planners by nature so if there would be something we wanted we saved to buy it.  When God spoke to us about adopting it's the first time we stepped out financially on faith, meaning we weren't going to be able to save it all before we started the process.  We believed if God was calling us to this then he would provide the way.

 I had been a stay at home mom to Isaac until he started second grade.  I got a job as a para because I was bored, or so I thought, but God was lining things up just right to provide the way.  We were used to living on just Jason's income so I have been able to save most of my checks for the adoption.

 I kind of think about the adoption fees in 3 steps.  Step 1- the homestudy, dossier fees, I-800A fee, etc.  Step 2- the big chunk at time of referral and Step 3- travel.  Now when we started this process our plan was to save the 6,000 dollars for step 1, get a loan for step 2 (because there was no way we could save over 11,000 dollars) and then save for step 3 (6 to 8 thousand...give or take).

 We were able to pay all of step 1 with my paychecks.  I felt very grateful just to be able to come up with that much.  Let me tell you it was scary for me (who is a type A personality) to write that first big check.  I had to have Jason sit beside me for support because it represented the physical "step of faith".  It's one thing to say you are trusting God but a whole other thing to actually write that check and have faith God will provide the rest but we made it through step 1 of our financial goal!  Ahhh....sigh of relief.

Our First Care Package

I am behind on blogging.  I seem to never find the time to actually make a post on my blog.  I am always thinking about it though, so I am hoping to catch up.

We sent off our first care package to Lauren September 15th!  I was so excited  to buy her things because up to this point I hadn't really....well, I did buy one doll but that's it.  When I would be in a store I would avoid the little girl section like the plague!  Ohhhh but now I just go stand in the middle of it!!  I walk really slowly and look at everything!  It makes me emotional and I almost started crying in Old Navy Friday night but they would have been  happy tears so they would have been ok (I just didn't want anyone to think I was crazy) :).  We have waited for so long just for a referral and sometimes it almost doesn't seem real yet and other times it overwhelms me.  When I  touch and hold the cute little clothes and think there will actually be a little girl that will wear these!  Anyway, back to our care package.  It was so hard to narrow down what we were going to send.  Everything had to fit in a gallon size ziplock baggie and not weigh more than 1 pound.  This is what we decided on....

2 outfits, 1 disposable camera, 1 photo book and a letter to Lauren.  The outfits weren't exactly what I wanted but all the summer clothes had been marked down and picked through already.  So, I had to settle for what I could find.  We can send a care package every 2 months and that will help pass the time while we wait!

It's A Girl!!!!

We are SO EXCITED!!!!  We got a referral of a healthy 13 month old baby girl!!!!  We think she is absolutely beautiful!!!!  We got the call Thursday, September 6.  When my phone rang the number looked familiar but I didn't think much of it because it wasn't Holt which is programed into my phone and that was the only number I really cared to see.  It turned out it was our case worker Judy.  I never once expected the reason for her call was to tell us we had a match!  I knew the call usually comes from the program director or her assistant.  She caught me completely off guard!  I was in complete shock!  I think she enjoyed tricking me because she acted like she was calling about something else and at the last minute said "oh, by the way..."  We are so thankful that God has gotten us to this place and that he has matched us with the most beautiful little girl.
I have kept a journal since we started this process just so I can look back and see what we were doing on the day she was born.  That is the first thing Isaac wanted to look up after we saw her birth date.  She was born the Monday after we had our adoption garage sale last summer.  I thought that was pretty cool.  There wasn't anything cool or exciting that we did on the day of her birth but later I read the next day's entry.  I couldn't believe what it said...I wrote that I woke up feeling that God was calling me to fast that day.  I fasted and prayed the entire day.  I have NEVER felt led to fast before or since that day.  I can't help but think that the reason was because of our baby girl.  Maybe it was for her birth mother that was struggling to make the decision about her newborn baby or for the health of our baby girl.  I love when I can see God's work without a shadow of a doubt. 
We have decided to name her Lauren and it feels good to be able to pray for her by name.  We love her so much already.  I will try to  post her picture and if anyone would like to see it just message me for the password.  Just please do not copy or share her photo.  Thank you!

Preparing Our Field

This is one of my favorite clips in Facing the Giants.  I wanted to post this clip because of the story about the farmers praying for rain but only one of them preparing the field. It is what I kept thinking about when we worked on our little girls room.  We moved into our new house the first of May and we had touched up the paint in every room except our little girls.  Her room had just been a catch all for the extra things we had to put away.  During one of Jason's vacation weeks this summer he said it was time to work on it.  I was a little apprehensive at first because I didn't want God to think I was being presumptuous by getting the room ready even before we have a referral.  But this clip and the story about the farmers came to mind and it helped me feel better.  The entire time we touched up paint, put the tree on the wall and placed every single blossom in just the right spot I prayed and thanked God for what he is going to give us because it is what he has called us to do.....and we are just preparing our field to receive the blessing...

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Stick a Fork in it!

Oh, what a week it has been!  You all heard me rant about my Monday and Tuesday wasn't much better.  I was talking to my friend Rosie on Tuesday night about my week so far and how rough it has been.  I told her if Wednesday wasn't any better I was just going to "stick a fork in the week and call it done".  Well.....Wednesday turned out to be quite interesting.

I got an emergency phone call at school from my brother saying the field behind our house and our back yard were on fire.  Also, the wind was blowing toward our house and there were no fire fighters there!  I was so scared!  How could I not be?!  This summer has been so dry and Wednesday was a windy day on top of that!  To make a long story short our house survived.  The fire made it within 50 yards of our back porch which was way to close for me.  So, needless to say Wednesday trumped Monday and Tuesday by far!  We were so exhausted because of the emotional strain of the events of the day but even though we were scared to death I was grateful for what God had done.  God gave me the "shake up" that I needed.  I was letting myself focus on all the small little things that had went wrong the last 2 days.  Were they disappointing? Yes, they were upsetting, especially because they were two things that we were specifically praying for.  But, I got a glimpse of how much worse it could be.  We very easily could have lost our home that we just finished building in April.  Sometimes it feels like I can't feel or see God working in my life and I think that is what I had been feeling.  Like maybe my prayers weren't getting to heaven and God wasn't hearing me.  The way things worked out on Wednesday showed me what I already knew, that God is with us always.  Even in the times when we can't feel his presence. There are things that happened Wednesday that non believers would say are coincidence but as a Christian we know there is no such thing...or in the words of Mother Teresa "When I pray coincidences happen and when I stop, they don't".  I feel the need to list them....

1. My brother was on his way back to work from lunch when he saw the smoke.  He is not a worrier but "something" just told him to go check on our house.  If you ask my brother he will tell you it was God telling him and I believe that with all my heart.

2.  Jason and I had just built a fire pit in the back corner of our yard and planted some grass seed around the area.  We had 2 garden hoses connected and stretched out there to water the seed.  So, when my brother got there and he was the only one.  He was able to just turn the hose on and it was already where he needed it to be.  Do you know how long it would have taken him to find more hoses and connect them together to reach out there?

3.  Over 50 acres burned that day and 11 counties responded to the fire.  We had the red cross and Office of Emergency Management there also and guess where they set up their head quarters?  In my back yard!  I was so thankful to have them there because I felt safer. 

4.  Fire fighters were there for approximately 6 hours.  They had to leave because there were 2 other fires that had started.  There was one fire truck with one fire fighter left.  He is friends with my brother and so he sat down with us on the back porch to rest for a few minutes before he left.  He probably sat there 20 minutes.  He was getting in his truck to leave and turned on his sirens and honked the horn for my niece Lily to hear it when he took off across the back yard.  I was confused for a min.  but quickly saw there was a small rekindle behind our neighbors yard to the left of us.  While he was dousing those flames we spotted big flames behind the neighbors yard to the right of us!  Those required help of another fire truck to get under control.  What if he would have left right when the other trucks left?  What if he didn't sit down and talk to my brother for awhile?

This is where the burn line stops and you can see how close it is to our house.

The field just behind our house as you can see there's nothing left but ashes.

Our back yard

I know this is wordy but I just wanted to share ALL the moments in that day where I saw God's hand.  It could have turned out really bad but it didn't.  God was and is always taking care of us.  I want to thank God for his blessings on Wednesday and for giving me a friend with humor.  She text me that evening and asked me if I was ready to stick a fork in it?!  I laughed out loud!