Fundraising Friday / Supplication Sunday

First, the cute:

We got a new (to us) camera. Hi, Ezra!

Next, the crazy:
Because our adoption is now going so quickly, we will probably have the girls home with us by 6 months from now. SO EXCITING! But it means we need the rest of the funds for our adoption very quickly. The way the fee structure works means we will need the vast majority of the fees (agency costs, lawyer costs, etc) by the beginning of October.
And because we've had essentially two failed adoptions (one with the Congo and one with our other agency in Uganda that shut down), we've spent all the money we've raised (about $10,000 y'all!) and ~$14,000 of our own. If it makes you feel more positive, we've spent $13,000 of that in the past 2 months...Does that? It's so much that it's starting to feel like Monopoly money to me. We just don't deal with money in these amounts in our house.
So anyway, we still need ~$24,000 to complete our adoption. We need about $18,000 of that by the beginning of October.

I know it's a lot, Judah, but let's not have a tantrum about it.

Last, the exciting:
First off, we need that money in October because that's when we'll be making our first trip to see our girls and have our court date. So that's exciting, and that's what I'm focusing on as we figure out how to raise that much in basically 6 weeks' time.

Oh, these girls. Worth it. Worth it all.

We just received incredible news from a couple who loves our family: they are doing a matching gift, dollar for dollar, on all gifts we receive, up to ten thousand dollars!!! That means every $5 gift becomes $10, and every $1,000 gift becomes $2,000! You guys. How could we be so blessed?!?

I used to wonder why people would do matching pledge things, like why not just promise to give the whole sum? Until today. They're doing it to challenge others to give. When you think about $20,000, even a large gift like $500 feels like not very much, but the doubling effect makes everything feel bigger, more effective. And their generosity is an aid to me when I'm feeling overwhelmed. They believe that God can call people to help us bring these girls home so we can call them our daughters. So I will too.

Here is the place you can donate. In the "Gift Preference" box, select Adoption Funding. In the "Adoption Gift Preference" box, select Family Specific. Our account number is 3243. All gifts are tax-deductible and there is no administrative fee (beyond the fee the credit card companies take).

Also, would you consider sharing this post? And thanks for reading to the end. Tomorrow I will try to explain clearly why it will be problematic to slow down our adoption timeline. I'll need grace for it, because I don't think I've done that successfully yet. And I've tried. Several times.