March Fundraiser

Happy Halfway Through March!  We are still promoting our T-shirt fundraiser to celebrate Jenn's 40th birthday month.  We have had friends, family and friends of friends and family help us out in this way, and we have already made a little over $100!  Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased a shirt, and if you haven't, please feel free to take a look at what is being sold on the site.  You do have to order through our link:

www.adoptionbug.com/ryanfamilyroundup

So, in adoption news, we received our PA, so we were approved to send our little one care packages!  We probably would have waited to send him a package, but his fourth birthday is next week, so we wanted to send him a package and add-on a cake for him.  From what we hear, most children in orphanages do not celebrate their birthday, so we wanted to be able to show him a picture of the earliest birthday that we could and when you send a cake the orphanage is required to send back pictures so that they show that they are using the money that was sent for the cake that you ordered.  We didn't know if we would be able to get his package sent to him this month, but the lady in China who sends the packages got back to us right away and sent out the package a day later!  Mind you, this also included her translating our 500 word letter! 

So, I looked at a variety of blogs to see what people send their child in a package.  We used a package service that our agency recommended which saves us on shipping and she purchases the items in China.  So, we were able to send a letter to him and we also included a letter for the people who take care of him, we added on a six photo book of each of us, him and our family, we added on a reading book for him because he might as well get used to looking at books if he's going to be in this family, we included a camera and film for the workers, and then we added on the birthday cake for him. 

I can't even imagine what he will be thinking when he gets these items.  I've been praying so much that God would help him to be excited and not nervous, and that people around him will explain things to him and help him to understand the huge change that will be coming up in his life.  I don't know if he has seen other children get packages or what the caretakers tell the children about adoption.  I love finding ways to help children understand things, and it is very difficult that I can't even help with the process to explain to our own son what is going to happen to him and to help prepare him for the biggest change of his little life.  It's teaching me such reliance on God, because I have to trust that God is preparing him and bringing people to him that will help him until we can get there and love on him and help his transition.

We are almost done with our dossier paperwork and we had our last homestudy visit, so prayerfully we are planning to get everything mailed in during April.  We also have some fun fundraisers coming up in the coming months including an amazing virtual 5K that our great friend is setting up for us.  We are also beginning to apply for grants, although most of them need a completed home study for us to be eligible.  I can't even express how excited we all are!  We have started studying Mandarin and I even bought him his first hawaiian shirt last week and his very first homeschool book today! 

Thank you so much to everyone for prayers and support!!

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  Hebrews 11:1 (Although I would encourage everyone to read all of Hebrews 11)