Generosity

I have the gift of generosity. And I wanted to talk about it openly bc I think people can get tripped up in different ways around this topic. 

This came to mind as I was reading in Matthew 6, which you will recall if you grew up churched or if you've spent time in the Gospels. Jesus makes the hyperbole of one's left hand not knowing what one's right hand is giving. 

Being in support-based ministry means I have access to another aspect of this by seeing some give anonymously in order to follow this principle.

But really, this passage is about self-glorification and not about how giving makes you feel. When I say I have the gift of generosity, I'm saying it is a great desire of mine, and (or maybe even because) it is incredibly rewarding personally. 

What I wish I had, almost constantly, is the gift of service. Even to me, it feels more useful, which is crazy, because our church plant would not exist without people giving to support 8 members who are also on staff (5 of them are full-time). A church like Taproot (and Fellowship, our Mommy church) could not flourish without generosity. But service feels tangible. Service feels more, well, servant-like. Jesus didn't run around Judea throwing denarii at people.

Still, generosity is listed in the Bible, so we all can agree it's legit. But the Matthew 6 passage has bothered me as a niggling doubt in my head since I started following Jesus at 20: should I enjoy giving quite so much? Is my attitude toward giving shaped mostly by growing up with (certainly by a global standard) a very comfortable life?

But generosity sows itself in many different ways, and I have come to some healthy realizations over time through giving a gift that many would interpret as an act of service, such as preparing meals for a retreat, or even doing a small part of such prep, like pricing out food to know where it get it more cheaply (or if a meal would be too expensive to make for, say, 300 college students). 

I know they are gifts and not acts of service for me because (1) acts of service is a love language I do not speak at all (and my husband, a serverman, can attest), and (b) I do it and experience others' reactions to it differently than those who do these things out of a love of serving.

 And it's just looked on well to do things like make meals, mainly because a lot of people would rather have their toenails pulled off. But to me, feeding someone is caring for their bodies and selves and lives. It is a delight to me to spend hours making a cake for my friends or family: it is a way to lavish love on them. Making food people enjoy, and seeing them communing together around a meal that I made (or orchestrated), I teem with joy in and gratitude to the Lord.

Make no mistake, I love giving money. Love it. I loved it even before my husband went on staff, and I love it to this day. There are so many people I am DYIIIINNNNNG to support financially because I want to put my money where my heart is! I have learned the hard way that we can't support everyone I want to because we must support our family as well. This is not me tooting my own horn. This is me saying, giving someone money makes me feel alive in Christ; it makes me feel like I am advancing the Kingdom both in my own heart and on Earth. Just like with making food, it makes me rejoice in the Lord.

Please don't think we are big donors. Right now the vast majority of our income has to go toward caring for our family. And please don't think that I think this makes me better than those with other gifts. I really don't. I regularly wish I had the gift of service, because if I'm not careful, I'll make food for my kids or plan a fun time as a gift, and when they complain, it hurts my feelings. Honestly, having a gift of generosity is more annoying than helpful to me personally. But I want to be respectful of it, because it is a facet of God's personality to love being generous, and to delight in giving good gifts.

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.

Fundraising Friday

Oh Fundraising Friday, I HAVE NOT MISSED YOU.

Okay, taking deep breaths through this one, guys. It's always tough when I'm trying to get things rolling. I want to get a lot done and not completely freak myself out with how much money we need in the next 6 months. But. Sometimes it's good to write it all out. So here goes:

What's Left:
Agency fees: $11,485 (and 62 cents)
Immunizations: $350-500 (guesstimate based on previous shots, which aren't covered by our insurance)
Orphanage fees: $1,200
Passports for the boys: $220
1st trip flights: $1,800
1st trip food: $300?
1st trip lodging: $800
1st trip car: $500
2nd trip flights: $4,350
2nd trip food: $900?
2nd trip lodging: $1,800
2nd trip car: $500
Visa fees (our entry into Uganda and the girls' entry to the US): $970
US readoption: $1,200

Total Estimated Amount: $26,525

In 6 months is all. Does that number seem large to you? Some of it is because we're adopting two girls now. Extra agency fees, orphanage fees, visa fees, readoption fees, and I'm sure more. Still, #worthit

Might that number get larger? Oh yes. Nothing goes as quickly and for the amount you want. But we'll see. God's got this. I'll start sharing my ideas like little pebbles down a path, but mostly I'm just praying a lot (sometimes desperately and sometimes peacefully, tbh) that God would show us what to do and how to do it, and that He would bless our fundraising.

Ramping Back Up (and Fundraising Friday)

First of all, praise God for nap time, amiright? I mean, I understand the biological reasons little ones need to nap, but I think it's also the grace of God so we don't hurt them get some productive time. There simply  aren't enough hours in the day [read: ways to distract my child] to do all the things I need to get done.

And I don't mean like keep my house well maintained, or get dinner prep going so the 5 o' clock hour won't be crazy. I mean, I'm sure someone does that. Go them. But no, my house is always a disaster (not a three-toys-on-the-floor "disaster") because I am working in campus ministry and a full-time stay-at-homer and fundraising for a seriously expensive adoption. Praise the Lord I have low homemaking standards.

Speaking of which (the adoption, not the standards), we are moving forward with our adoption of little H. The suspension of exit visas has not been lifted, but we believe that God will move in good time to let us bring her home. Truthfully, I can't not try. We have to do our best for my heart her.

We can't show her face, but trust me, she's adorable.

So. On November 9th, we're hosting a talent show at Brazos Christian School at 7:30pm. There will be singing and dancing and funny videos. There will be free kettle corn and limeade. There will also be hot chocolate for sale, as well as deeeeelicious homemade desserts. There will also also be jewelry, crafts, and art for sale, all made by friends. There is a $5 suggested donation cover charge.

I'm also in the middle of organizing a 5k run in the Spring to benefit our adoption. Whew, it is a TON of work! But mark your calendars for March 22nd - we'll be running* to bring home our daughter.





*I won't be running in the race because I'll be running THE race, and also because nothing deadly will be chasing me. Probably.

Adoption Updates

Well, we got the news on Wednesday that our case will not be grandfathered in (which we expected anyway). Now we really have some questions for the Lord to answer. We just need Him to tell us if H is our daughter or not. NBD, amiright?

Perhaps I am learning perseverance? I'm not sure. This hasn't (yet) rocked my world, and I praise God for that. I'm not sure if perseverance looks like this or something a little cleaner and more smiley. I'm not smiley, but I'm not hopeless. And that's a step I'm assuming is in the right direction.

Although I wish this was an announcement coupled with some significant step (we should've had our homestudy updated by now, but that would come with a $5,500 fee we're not confident of paying yet), but oh well. New items are available in the Etsy shop! I'm desperately in love with a lot of these pieces.

Okay, I've run out of energy. It feels like life is trying to run me over these days, and Stephen and I keep adding to our list of serious, important things we need to spend a lot of time thinking through, talking out, and praying over. Stephen hasn't had 2 days off in a single week for a month. Maybe more. Lord, sustain us, give us grace, and be merciful to us!

Fundraising Friday!

Okay, I'm hoping to be able to share our final adoption costs breakdown! I know you're excited.

Assets:
Amount in our Lifesong account: $3,782.65
Amount in our adoption checking account: $3,335.97
Amount we're taking out of our home equity (which is all): $8,000
Total amount we have: $15,118.62

Fees and costs:
*Adoption agency, dossier translation, lawyer, and in-country escort fees: $18,600
*Home study update fee: $500
*Dossier authentication fee: $100
*Dossier shipping fee: ~$100
Vaccination costs: $350
Congo plane tickets:  $2,500 (Why so low? because my dad is awesome and has a lot of airline miles)
Lodging in Kinshasa for 10 days: $1,000
Food for 4 for 12 days: $300
Transport in Kinshasa: $500
US Visa for H: $230
Visa medical exam: $100
Congo visas for Stephen, Ezra, and me: $345
Finalizing our adoption in the US: $1,200
Total costs: $25,825

The expenses that are starred are due before our dossier will be sent to the Congo. The total for those is $19,300! So, we need $4,180 to come in before we can move forward with our adoption.

It's a little strange-feeling, because we'll only have $6,525 left to raise after that, and at least 3 months to raise it. We also won't hear back from the grants we've applied for until after we submit our dossier (or I sure hope we'll be able to submit it before, since most grants have at least 6 weeks between). So, it's possible we won't have to fundraise any more after this. But who knows what will happen?

Well, God does. Please join with me in praying that He will guide us as to how to bring in the money for our adoption and that funds will come in according to his good will.

IF you feel God is leading you to give to our adoption, you can give online here. Our family number is 3243. Other than the credit card fee, Lifesong doesn't take one cent from your donation for administrative fees!

Dreams

I don't remember many of my dreams, but usually the ones I do remember are the stress dreams. I had so many when Ezra started walking quickly: he'd be right next to me, and I'd look up to answer someone's question, and look right back to see him jumping off a cliff or into a swimming pool (filled with jellyfish!).

Last night (early this morning, rather) I had a different sort of dream. So, my mom, my brother (Matt), and I were digging in the ground (for some logical reason I've forgotten) kind of near a bank (not the river kind, the fiduciary kind). All of a sudden, we start digging up people's wallets, I mean twenty or thirty wallets. In one wallet, we found a $20,000 bill. Incredulous, we brought the wallets into the bank to turn them in. The teller and the manager went through and discovered that the owners of the wallets were dead, which somehow meant that the cash (it was all bills, no checks or anything) belonged to us now: a total of a little over $30,000. My mom looked at me with a smile and said, "Well, what do you want to do with it?"

And, in the dream, I started crying, because it meant we could adopt now, the way we wanted, and not have to worry about fundraising, or scrimping to save, or getting to a point in the process and not having enough money to go forward, or having to stop because expenses were higher than projected. I felt unburdened, free! We could commit to a specific child, our child, the very next day.

It was a good dream. But not real. But it was a good reminder that I can trust God, even though the money aspect of our adoption is not working the way I'd want it to. I let God control the outcome of my efforts in many other areas, but I haven't surrendered my children enough to be unburdened by the process of bringing one of them home.

I suppose I'll work on that.

New Jewelry! Fundraising Friday!

Check out my friends n my skillz, y'all:

Owlated Necklace

Nacre Moon Earrings

Whirled Peas Earrings

Skipping Stones Necklace

Triple Teal Necklace

Jet Shell Triple Necklace

Dirigible Earrings

Milky Way Necklace

Starry Night Necklace

Black Bean Earrings

Happy Wrap Bracelet

Stone Drop Earrings in Caramel

I mean, come on! For even more (like, so much more), visit Mrs Muenich MADE. There's another sneak peek up today, and everything will be up tomorrow

Fundraising Friday

We got ANOTHER $1,100 donated to Lifesong for Orphans toward our account (#3243)! That brings the total amount down to a little over $8,000!

Our garage sale is April 6th. Please pray that it will bring in at least $1,000. I'm asking the Lord for at least $1,500.

Fundraising Friday

Hey y'all. Look at me! Two weeks in a row. So proud of myself.

So far, our Lifesong for Orphans account is at $2,432.65! So great. Also (as I mentioned earlier this week), Stephen's songs have brought in $30.67 (after fees)! So wonderful and special of our friends.

So just this week, we are almost $200 closer to our goal! Only $9,287 to go!

Fundraising Friday

What can I say? God's people are awesome. This week we had another $890 come in at Lifesong on our behalf. Some people have given extravagantly. We've had a couple give almost $1000! And a very small business donate $500! And one of my close friends gave us $250 for her birthday (I mean, I don't think it technically was for her birthday, but it was on her birthday, so I'm counting it). We've had family give, and people we barely know give. What a salve to my gifts-loving heart.

Sooooo, $10,375 - $890 = ... $9,485! We're in the thousands (not ten-thousands? the four-digits? quarter-digits? How does that work?)!!!!!

We're nailing down dates to have our next garage sale AND our big exciting craft / art bazaar this weekend. Man, April will be just as busy as the rest of the semester! It's nice, honestly, to have to fundraise, even apart from all the good things it does for my heart, just to give me something to do. My hope is so flimsy and feeble; I do struggle with having two months of being the same number on the waiting list. Stupid #13. Wanting to ask again, "Lord, is this the right path? Did we err?" Watching Ezra enjoy playing with other toddlers and waiting for a sibling for him. Holding a friend's baby and wondering if anyone is holding mine. Man. I don't like it! But I believe my heart can be guarded by the peace that passes understanding, as I present these fears and requests and hopes and disappointments and yearnings to Him. In the meantime, we'll just keep chipping away at that number up there!

YAWL!!! Fundraising Friday Edition

Exciting news to report! As of 2/25, people have donated $1,375 to Lifesong for Orphans on behalf of our adoption!

I have to confess, I've started a post a couple of times to address my fundraising fears. It's one thing to do things like garage sales and bake sales (where you provide a good or service). I doubt anyone reasonable would have a problem with fundraising those ways. But outright fundraising? Another story.

There are people whom I love and respect (and whose respect I'd enjoy having) who do not think it's right to fundraise for an adoption. And I understand a lot of the reasons behind it. I feel especially vulnerable giving letters to people I care about and not knowing if they'll think less of me for having done so. It's painfully clear to me that I don't have $12,000 laying around to pay for our adoption ourselves. It's also clear to me that, due to the nature of our job, it's probably not wise to take out a loan to repay that sum over time (besides, my husband reacts to debt as if he has a fatal allergy; I know there would be no way to convince him it was wise to borrow money for pretty much anything except our house). So, although we will do whatever needs to be done to raise the amount we need to bring home our child, here I am, little envelopes in hand, a bundle of nerves.

So, as you can see, at least some people aren't offended by our letters! Yay! It's so... humbling. and overwhelming. Honestly. Here's my train of thought. I know what kind of mom I am: a normal one. I do some things well; I struggle in other areas. No supermom in this house! But to have people who know me believe in our ability to parent a child well enough to give money entrusted to them by God in order to make that happen? Crazy. Crazy. Srsly.

Also, generosity. My heart is whelmed. As my friend Macie says, "melty heart!" I have melty heart for my friends' sacrificial giving to make our dream come true.

So, $11,750 - $1,375 = $10,375! So close to being in the single thousands! ...the not-ten-thousands? the four-digits? Ah, you get it.

Welp.

Well, we didn't get the matching grant we were hoping for. We haven't received any outright grants or matching grants. We still have two left to apply for (once we have accepted the referral of our child).

I just got the news an hour ago, so I'm still a little discouraged, but I know it'll be okay. I'm glad that there are so many people adopting that there aren't enough grants to go around, you know?

Anyway, we'll still be fundraising through Lifesong for Orphans; they're great because they don't take out any administrative fees (except for credit card fees). That means every dollar you give will go towards an adoption (so, even on the off-chance more than the amount we need is raised, they will put it towards other adoption funding).

An important note: since we also raise our GCM support for work, we are not allowed to fundraise to supporters for our adoption (as in it's illegal!). So, if you support us financially through GCM, we cannot contact you. I will have a link to the Lifesong Paypal account when our support letter is approved, and you can also email me at [myname]@gmail.com if you'd like to receive a letter.

We will have other ways to support our adoption, but some people like to just give money (or receive a tax benefit from donating), while others like to buy things in support. We definitely have a few more things up our sleeves in that respect: our craft fair/silent auction, which will happen later in the Spring, and Stephen's finishing up a couple of songs he's written and recorded to sell for our adoption.

Stay tuned!

Sundraising (that's fundraising on a Sunday)

Financially, things are looking good: we have $3,333 in the bank for our adoption and should be hearing soon about a matching grant opportunity - hopefully next week!  Big shout-out to Stephen and Ray for a partial roofing job that brought in $500! David and Ben helped out too (they definitely shaved at least a whole day off the job). Roofing a house during your winter break is an obvious sign of love and devotion. We have good family.

My mother and I have started working on something that should become a craft fair/silent auction of sorts, so if you have something to contribute, give me a shout! We'll also be doing another garage sale around the beginning of March. :-)

Another good bit of news is that the adoption tax credit has been made permanent. It's not a refundable credit, so you essentially stop paying taxes from your paychecks, and the amount you owe the government at tax-time is subtracted from the credit. Oddly, I feel better about this way of "getting something" from the government, as we're not receiving a pre-allotted amount of money -- we're just not paying taxes during the year we adopt. It also frees us to put that money towards our adoption at the time the costs are incurred, rather than paying it all and being "reimbursed" during the next tax year. We won't use the full credit, just for the expenses we cover out of our own pocket. Sound fair?

I have an overdeveloped need for fairness. I was, indeed repeatedly, told that life isn't fair. But oh well. We will continue to pay our regular tax amount for the next few months to get a better grasp on how likely we are to adopt this year.

Also some greatly-needed news is that my father will most likely have enough frequent flier miles to get all of us to Uganda and back!!! Talk about a load off! Apparently tickets to Uganda are not many more "miles" than tickets to Chicago... ? Companies are so weird. I've still included a one-way ticket for baby A, since we may or may not need to buy it - you don't always get a nice, long amount of time between when you receive your court date and when your court date actually is, which greatly affects the number of miles needed per ticket.

So here's where we stand:

Agency fees left: $3,500
Lawyer and court fee: $2,500
Orphanage services/humanitarian aid: $2,250
Baby A's visa: $230 (the Department of State lowered this fee by $174!)
In-country medical exam (required for visa): $100
Document mailing US-Uganda-US-Uganda, etc: $300
Immunizations: $400 (only a couple are expensive, but boy are they!)
Airfare estimate: $1,500 (one way for baby A)
Ugandan visas for 3: $150
Lodging for 30 days: $1,800 (we'll be there 3-5 weeks)
Food estimate: $300
Car service estimate: $1,000 (seems crazy expensive! but what are you gonna do with two little ones?)
Court report for re-adoption in the US: $500
Citizenship certificate: $550

Less our $3,330, we have $11,750 left to raise! [for reference; just 5 months ago, we had over $19,000 left to raise!!!] And remember, we still don't need any money until we receive the referral of our child (except for immunizations, which we obviously have the funds to cover). So nothing is terribly urgent; we're just slowly building up the pile, since, once we need it, we will use the whole $11,000 in just a couple of months' time! I CAN'T WAAAAIIIIIT! :D

Happy New Year!

Howdy howdy howdy! [yes, we watched Toy Story today. Stephen's out of town and E woke up at 5:45, so today was about survival.]

It's 2013! I think this will be a doozy [really? "doozy" isn't a word?] of a year. Hopefully we'll bring home baby A this year! I admit, I had a hard time over Christmas, thinking it could very well be another Christmas before we have our child in our arms. And just missing our next child and feeling helpless to speed up the process. And the news of Russia legislating an abrupt end to adoptions from the US... my little, flimsy hope was faltering. But, just as I was starting to freefall, the Lord scooped me up and puffed some life back into my piddly hope. What a weak thing it is! But ever growing - you have to work something out for it to get stronger; I'm glad I'll end this year with better hoping muscles.

Our agency has also told us they've began to seek the Lord about partnering with another orphanage baby's home in Kampala. Please pray God would make it clear what His will is (of course, we'd love for it to end up being His will so more kids would be adopted in the same amount of time, AND we would bring home our kiddo faster!).

I think that's all the news for now! Tomorrow will bring a fundraising update. Your favorite, I know!

Oh my goodness! I forgot to tell you: we're #14 on the waiting list! So 10/1 was #18; 1/1 #14 (there were numbers in between; I just like that it's at the start of the month. Nice and clean.]

Fundraising... oh whatever. Fundraising Update!

So!

Let's see. We did a bake sale a SCW which raised a little over $250! YAY!

My awesome, hard-workin mother-in-law Tammy catered a wedding and gave us $500! YAYYAY!

That gives us $3,000 in our adoption account. :D That's a good chunk of money!

I feel like I should share more, but we're in the middle of making a decision this week that may affect our adoption process. We're totally still adopting, but it may be sooner than we thought. Any prayers you want to send for clarity in decision-making on our behalf would be greatly appreciated.

In the meantime, I'm working on the last two grants we can apply for before we receive our referral (at which point we can apply for one more). Please be praying we receive a grant (or two!) because it would make the fundraising process much less arduous (as far as essentially working on top of our jobs in order to raise funds).

Thanks all!

Fundraising Sunday

Because Friday is for PLAYING!

Anyway, so with the sale of $50 worth of jewelry (!!!) (including my first sale to a stranger, wahooo), and with a little we put in from my last paycheck, our next fee is paid for again! YAY! Now all we're waiting on is our danged 171H (our USCIS approval) to come. I BEEEELIEEEEVE it will come this week or I WILL have a hissy fit. I'm just being up-front about it.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the time to go over the rest of our fees, just to give you an idea of what the process is like and where the money goes. All in all I'd say we have over $19,500 left to raise (which makes people's eyes bug out, myself included). As you'll see, that's mostly travel costs.

Money we've put in so far: ~$4200 (I can only approximate because I wasn't super-organized about things like gas money, stamps, printing costs, and the like. Maybe next time? Probably not; it's just hard for me to be that organized)

Our next fee (that I so hope we can pay by this weekend!): $3,000

Expenses down the road:

Agency fees left: $3,500
Lawyer and court fee: $2,500
Orphanage services/humanitarian aid: $2,250
Baby A's visa: $230 (the Department of State lowered this fee by $174!)
In-country medical exam (required for visa): $100
Document mailing US-Uganda-US-Uganda, etc: $300
Immunizations: $400 (only a couple are expensive, but boy are they!)
Airfare estimate: $6,000 (round trip for us 3 + one way for baby A)
Ugandan visas for 3: $150
Lodging for 30 days: $1,800 (we'll be there 3-5 weeks)
Food estimate: $300
Car service estimate: $1,000 (seems crazy expensive! but what are you gonna do with two little ones?)
Court report for re-adoption in the US: $500
Citizenship certificate: $550

GRAND TOTAL left: $19,580

Holey moley that's a lot of money. But you know what? God has all the money in the world (literally He's in control of it all). If He wanted to plop it in our laps tomorrow, it wouldn't be difficult for Him. I think He won't, but if there's one thing I've learned in the last seven years, it's that God loves for His will to be accomplished through His people. And God loves adoption.

As I know there's been a bit of confusion (totally my fault): we won't close our His Kids, Too! grant until we have our 171H because we can't. I wish I could and send it to our agency so it was taken care of and done, but we can't until we have a bill from the agency, and they can't send that until we have our USCIS approval.

[also, you may notice that the airfare is a huge amount of the cost. I have no idea how airline miles work, but if you wanted to donate those to us, I'll try real hard to use them! ;)]

Fundraising Fri... Saturday :/

Whoops! With the first week of school come a crazy amount of work. Sorry for the silence! Our semester is starting up well, with 17 people actively interested in our small group. Yay! But that's not the point of today's post.

Since I'm already a day late on this, I'll keep it short. We're going to be closing our His Kids, Too! grant next Friday, September 7th. It will take a little bit of time for them to send it to our agency, and we want to have it ready to go when we get our advance orphan processing approval from USCIS.

So, if you want to support our adoption in a tax-deductible manner, just go here!

I didn't submit a grant application this week - just working too much. But hopefully I can get one out next week!

The only other thing is that I sold some oreo cookie balls at our church's office and made $5. I think maybe I should've made them a little smaller (and not at the beginning of the semester, when people are trying to work out and be healthy). Lesson learned! Still, $5 is $5 more than we had. Onward!

Fundraising Friday

Hey all! There are only 2 things I want to mention today. Oh never mind, 3 things.

Thing #1: If you happen to go to Fellowship Church, there are Oreo cookie balls in the fridge you can buy to support our adoption. They are super-duper-paratrooper good.

Thing #2: I finished another grant application! Everyone pat me on the back, because I definitely spent a lot of time wishing I was doing something else. Luckily, I made copies of the things we'll need for future grants (and will be able to reuse the letters of reference we're getting), so they should be less painful the next go-around.

Thing #3: Since we should hopefully have our USCIS approval soon, we'll be closing our His Kids, Too! grant to pay for our last fee until we match with our child. So, if you would still like to give and have it be tax-deductible, your window will close in a couple of weeks and not reopen for several months.

Fundraising Friday

I didn't share last week because we were out planning for the ministry year. It's kind of a strange time for us, because we've got all these goals and plans and hopes laid out, but we aren't quite able to do anything about them yet. It's kind of nice, since E's been a bit of a drama prince in readjusting to normal life.

That being said, there are exciting things to report!

Here's our current tally:
Amount already invested into adoption: $3575
Next fee due: $3000 (due in 3-12 weeks, depending on USCIS)
Amount in adoption acct: $750
Amount in adoption grant acct: $1840 (+$40)
Amount raised this week from Etsy: $10 (goodbye, cute pair of earrings! I can't wait to see you on the lobes of a friend!)
Amount given in cash gifts: $510!
Amount needed for next fee: $0!!!
Est amount needed total: ~$15,000

We have enough to pay our next fee! We won't need any more $ until we accept the referral of our child! SO CRAZY! Of course, at that moment we'll need $5500, and the rest of the $ just weeks after that, but still! No more fees until we've seen our child's face! Best. The very best.

That $40 in our grant account is actually from May, but we weren't updated on its appearance until last week... ??? But thank you, person who donated $60! I only put $40 because I took out the amount that is taken from the gifts to pay Paypal/credit card companies. A large gift was given via Paypal as well, so that's why there's such a difference. We'll be closing that grant when we get our I-171H, so if you want to give that way, there's only weeks left to do so! ;-)

We had a friend give us $500 towards our adoption; so generous and helpful! The grant fundraising is really great to help people give and have it be tax deductible, but with grants, you have to submit receipts for things you've already paid to get them to reimburse them (like plane tickets), so having cash is really helpful (since we don't often have $4000 laying around).

We also had a couple give us a piggy bank intended to help us raise funds (which came with $ too!), and that was sweet and so heart-warming for me. Just like in GCM support-raising, large donations help so much, but it's the heart of people that blesses us the most.

Grants applied for: 0
Grants left to apply for: 6
Acceptance/Denial: none

I know I should have done more this week with our grants! Our financial situation is pretty tight right now, so I'm holding off applying until we look like we're not flat broke. I know we will be able to afford to care for baby A, but people who don't know us may not think so! Our plan is to sell one of our vehicles. Now, we're going to sell our second vehicle and then buy a reliable car with the combined money, but it'll be nice to look like we have savings, even though we won't be building up actual savings for at least one more month. Is that dishonest?

I'm not sure I care. We're not in debt; we work our numbers to make sure our kid is taken care of; we are blessed with an amazing community around us who love us and support us so we don't feel alone during lean times. They even pooled some money so Stephen and I can get glasses that we desperately need. My life is full, even if our savings account is empty! Know what I mean?