A grateful heart

I was trying to look back at my May post to see where I left off and realized so much has happened since then! First and foremost we made it through the end of the school year…which isn’t always an easy task. This school year was a little different than years past. The end of the school year closed out 7th grade for Andrew, 5th grade (and elementary all together) for Addison and 1st grade for Ian, but the biggest change to this school year was that after 12 years with Rockford Public Schools I submitted my resignation to begin a new chapter of “stay at home mom” moving forward. This decision, although well thought out and difficult, was made with no regret and a grateful heart. I look forward to this new chapter, as it presents new opportunities for me and my family as we transition into a family of 6! I look forward to welcoming Ellie with unlimited time at home and being more available to our other 3 as well. I know this is not forever, as I do desire to get back out there when the time is right but for now, it’s an amazing blessing!

And, you guys…..we got video of Ellie!! The sweetest 1 1/2 minute video of her WALKING (yes she is walking now), chatting with and imitating her caregiver and engaging with a little baby from the orphanage who is also placed with her. She smiled, giggled and moved around with a mighty voice. And our hearts were overwhelmed by her sweet presence in that video. We have two opportunities to request updates, one when we get preliminary acceptance and one after we get official acceptance. Our hearts want more but we will have to wait. But until then we will look over her updates, figure out how to make food familiar to the ones she enjoys (Congee) and watch her sweet little face in those videos and be thankful for what we do have. We also hope to send her a care package, but have to wait until after we get our official acceptance.

Fundraising has been completely amazing! We are constantly in awe by the goodness and generosity of others. The kids decided back in May they would do a lemonade and cookie stand with all money going towards our adoption. We were so proud of them as they planned, purchased items and made posters. Never underestimate the power of children! They raised $800! There were several amazing things that occurred from this experience. One was the stories others would share as they visited. So many stories of adoption. Another was the shear delight our kiddos experienced as a total stranger would hand them $20 and not even take a cup of lemonade. Each time they would run up the hill amazed at the kindness of strangers and the power of what they were doing. Our hearts were so full watching them experience first hand how good people are and how selfless so many are willing to be. Another amazing thing was that at the same time they were doing the stand our paperwork (dossier) was being submitted to Washington DC and in order to do so we had to pay a fee to get it mailed out. They were able to raise enough money plus a little more to make that happen. It was so great for them to understand how they had contributed to getting their sister home, a part of something so much bigger then themselves.

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In our “pay as we go” approach we have chosen to chip away at our fees, paying what is absolutely necessary to keep the process going. When we get more donations we pay more. I will admit each time I have looked at the amounts and felt a bit overwhelmed. But so many times, like with the lemonade stand, my doubt has been for nothing. As much as I tell myself that this is God’s plan for our family and that he is directing and leading us right to Ellie, I still find myself questioning each step. We were provided another example of this recently when our paperwork (dossier) was submitted to DC for what we were told would take about 2-3 weeks to process. However, just as most things seem to go with this, it took closer to 5 weeks. So frustrating! However, in the midst of this someone reached out to us with items to donate to do a fundraiser garage sale. Now, I have never done a garage sale and when beginning this journey said “I will never do that!” Well, God apparently had other plans, which seems to be a theme for us. We accepted the donated items and purged our home and continued to get items…..so many items! I’m not going to lie, it was overwhelming and emotional and may have led me to lose my cool a time or two (or three) but we had such an amazing crew of family and friends helping every single step of the way. They unpacked items, set up, priced items, ran the table, brought baked goods, volunteered so much of their free time for us, for Ellie because time and time again they show us how much they love us and our family. Once again we had a fundraising event were the kindness and generosity of others blessed us tremendously. Not only were people giving but again, we were filled with stories of adoption, some thinking of adopting, some in process, some having adopted or been adopted themselves. We saw pictures of adopted children, met them and just talked and listened to them. It was pretty amazing! And remember how I said our dossier got held up in DC (I’ve rambled a lot since then so you may have forgotten!)? Well, had it not been held up we wouldn’t have had this sale prior to it returning. And if we hadn’t of had this sale we wouldn’t have raised $2600 and if we hadn’t of raised $2600 we wouldn’t have been able to pay off the amount owed to now move our dossier to China this week! Along with this amount raised we also were blessed with several donations that came in this week, which allowed us to pay our fees worry free. Obviously we didn’t know God’s plan when our Dossier specialist contacted us to tell us our paperwork was being held up but we do now and it’s just another example of God constantly reminding us and showing us that he is in control and we need only trust and believe his plan for us.

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So, what’s next……our dossier specialist says our dossier should be at the Bethany office June 24th. It takes her about 48 hours to prepare it for China and then it’s on it’s way! This is a huge step that we have been waiting for since we started the dossier back in February when we were matched with Ellie. It was a labor of love and we trust that they will receive it and provide us our official letter so we can start to talk travel. It’s still a lengthy process, with it still likely being 6 months until we travel, but it’s a step forward and we can pray it moves quicker;)

We are still doing fundraising, as once we get our letter of acceptance we will have more funds to raise. We are partnering with Clara’s Cookies for the entire month of July where we will earn $10 towards our adoption for boxes of cookies sold. Check out their yummy cookies at https://www.claracookies.com/. We are also looking at having a table to sale more funky socks from We Help Two, https://go.wehelptwo.com/campaign/?campaignid=1835, at the Cookie 5K on July 20th at Robinette’s Apple Haus in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Check out this awesome event at http://www.teamorphans.com/5k/.

We have also applied for a grant through Show Hope and should hear back from them in July and have also applied for a grant through Lifesong, which offers a matching grant program and a service project called Both Hands were we not only raise funds for our adoption but also get to help someone else. We have been told we will also get a grant through Bethany Christian Services once we get our letter of acceptance due to us adoption a waiting child with special needs and have or will be applying for several other grants along the way. It’s a tedious process between paperwork related to the adoption and paperwork related to grants so we go through cycles of working through the piles of applications and taking breaks to enjoy family and some down time. We are hoping the next update we provide will be news of grants provided and paperwork in China and moving along.

We continue to appreciate all the support, whether it is through prayers, donations, helping at our fundraisers, attending a fundraising activity, offering kind words, asking about Ellie, etc. Our hearts and faith have grown through this process and we can’t wait to see how much more it grows as we move forward in this process. We pray daily for our little girl and pray that she feels our love from afar. We also pray and think often of the transitions she will endure through this process and how to be compassionate and understanding through it all.