We have had a super busy summer! Lots of fun time together, trip back to St. Louis, camps and VBS's, also some medical issues with our little girl which will result in a surgery soon, but altogether a fun summer which has been keeping us very busy.
On the adoption front, we got our dossier sent off and it should be completed and shipped off to China any day now. We received our fingerprint approval, I800A form, on July 10! Now we just wait on China to (prayerfully speedily) approve our documents and get us LID and Travel Approval! We are so hopeful to travel for him before the end of the year, but trusting in God's timing. It's so hard because every fun thing we do I feel like he is just missing out and I wish he could be here with us to start his life as part of our family. I wonder how he is doing and what he is eating and what he is learning and what he knows and just everything! We already love him so much and we want to share that with him.
We have been doing some fundraising to pay for our travel with our agency, buy our plane tickets when the time comes and pay for five of us in China. We were blessed to receive a matching grant that will cover most of what we will owe to our agency and we have a short term fundraiser and three longer term ones.
For the shorter term fundraiser, we have a Noonday show this Sunday. For any of you who do not know about Noonday, it is an amazing organization that allows women around the world to make jewelry and support their family and often help them to be able to keep their children and then people purchase the jewelry here in the states and raise money for adoptive families. Our Noonday show will be open online for a week starting this Sunday, so if you would like the information, please just leave a comment and I will be happy to get the information to you.
The longer term fundraisers we are doing are change jars (we have already had friends that have been so generous with these including two sweet boys at our church who took money that they had been saving up and donated it for our sweet boy!) which we are happy to provide to anyone, our T-shirts at adoptionbug.com and our virtual 5K. You can see information on all of these fundraisers at www.foreverhome.us.
We are getting ready to jump back into a more regular school schedule after the surgery and starting a new co-op with some new friends. Please continue to pray for our sweet boy and God preparing his heart for this big change coming up for him. We are so excited for so many firsts we will get to experience with him once he is here.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9
We started by documenting our Ethiopian adoption, which has now changed to pursuing a little boy waiting in China! We are trusting in God's plan and enjoying the journey.
