Happy Autumn Friends ~
Michael and I pray that you are all doing fabulously! Summer was extremely busy for us this year and so many amazing things have happened since our last post that I felt it was definitely time for an update, so here goes...
As most of you know, Michael and I moved into a beautiful new townhouse on Memorial Day weekend and we absolutely love it here! It's in a great neighborhood, we have a playground next to our complex and plenty of room for Snickers to run and play! A total Godsend! We'll post some pictures soon! :-)
In June, I started researching and applying for various adoption grants which was definitely more work than I expected, but I was determined to do whatever I could to help bring our kiddos home. Once they were submitted, I left it all in God's hands, but I honestly didn't expect to hear from any of them since I have heard from friends that grants are very hard to come by. On August 3rd, we received a phone call from an organization called Pure Gift of God and were told that we were accepted to receive a grant from them in the amount of $5,000. WHAT!?!?! We were completely blown away!
The next day we received a phone call from our social worker with news that there was a mistake on our case and we had been matched with the twin 9 year old girls that we are currently sponsoring, but what should have been great news wasn't good news at all. The girls' status was a lot more heartbreaking than we had been previously told. They were sexually abused their whole lives and had began acting out in a very serious manner that had everyone concerned. Our social worker felt we could handle one child with this level of special needs, but not two. In fact, our agency has made the decision to remove them from the adoption program until they have more time to heal. As much as our hearts broke for these girls, we both felt that God was saying to us not yet. That He has our children all picked out and we just need to be patient! The good news from all of this is that we discovered we had been given some bad information and that we don't have to have our large invoice paid off before we can be matched, so right now we are at the top of the list and could receive our referral any day! We are beyond excited! Our hope is that we will be matched by the end of the year, so we can travel down to Africa to meet our children! Praise the Lord!!
On August 8th, Michael and I attended a meeting at EBC to learn about an organization called Safe Families and how we could help. Safe Families is an incredible organization that comes alongside local families in crisis and matches them with vetted Christian families that can provide support in a variety of ways! We loved the idea and are in the process of being vetted right now. Our role will be to host children while their parent or grandparent take a respite, search for housing, have surgery, enter rehab, etc. Michael and I have gone through the necessary training and are almost ready for the home visit. Once that is done, then we can start picking up needs that are emailed to us, which is so exciting!
A couple weeks later, I received an email from an organization called Families Outreach stating that we had been selected for a $2,000 grant and the funds were sent directly to us! Normally, grant payments are sent straight to the adoption agency to prevent the funds from being used for something other than an adoption, but this organization was different. The crazy thing about it is that I had been praying that God would bring some extra money in to cover our upcoming immigration fee of $890 as that is a payment that doesn't run through our adoption agency and He totally did it! God is SO good my friends!
So what's next on the adoption front? Good question! We are hoping to finish the immigration form this week and get that off in the mail since it can take a little while to process. Once that is complete, we will send the remaining grant funds to pay down our 2nd invoice and then start our dossier, which I can only describe as a crazy amount of paperwork! From what I understand, it will take us some time to get everything together that we need and to have all the necessary documents notarized, but hopefully that will be the last huge amount of paperwork that we will have to do for the adoption. In the meantime, Michael and I will continue fundraising as well as applying for more grants. We just finished our first garage this past week and raised over $600! Woo Hoo! Our hope is to launch another fundraiser this fall/winter, so keep your eyes open for that! :)
That's it for now!
God Bless,
Michael & Carey
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