32 days waiting.

32 days down… ??? days left to go.

Yesterday was the one month mark. We have been officially waiting for our match letter for 32 days. I'm not very good at the waiting. I will not pray for patience, I remember someone telling me once that patience is a dangerous thing to pray for. In order to teach patience, we have to made to wait.

Instead I am praying for guidance and strength. We may not be able to do anything to hurry our paperwork along at this point, but we do still have a significant amount of funds to raise. We have been so blessed in our fundraising efforts! This past month we hit some big finical roadblocks, but God has shown himself so faithful in our friends and family and even total strangers!

A month ago we still needed to raise $16,360. And we got hit with nearly $40,000 in home and vehicle repairs, and medical bills that should have been covered by our insurance. Today I am so in awe of His provision! We were so blessed by friends and strangers! Even though we continue to be pummeled with expenses we had not counted on, we have been so blessed with support and encouragement that I can do nothing but praise Him! 

A family donated $3,400 toward our adoption agency fees! $16,360 became $12,960.

A local family that owns an HVAC company donated an AC unit they had taken out of another home and installed it for free! $6,000 in unexpected home repairs gone!

We were put in touch with someone that can help us appeal our insurance decision not to pay for Bash's Life Flight, almost $32,000! Praying that we are able to settle this matter and that the insurance will cover this expense.

We have still not been able to fix our air conditioning in our van, and we have not had any good news about our other vehicle. So that will be something we have to address very soon. 

We also have discovered two water leaks, one in each bathroom upstairs. One of these leaks will require the bathroom be completely demolished. That will need to be done next weekend. Please pray with us that we are able to do this work ourselves. There is no way we can afford to have it done for us.

Just after finding out about our water leaks, we received another amazing blessing! A precious family at our church did a fundraiser for us. They made amazing pallet projects and sold them to raise funds for our adoption! They handed us $930.00 last sunday, along with a beautiful sign to hang in our home!

Adoption expense went from $12,960 to $12,030!

Our T-shirt fundraiser was more successful than I could have imagined! We sold over 100 shirts! We are going to be relaunching it this week! I have not yet shipped the shirts we just got in, but if I have done math correctly after shipping cost we should have raised almost $1000! 

If our T-shirt fundraiser total is accurate, we are $11,030.00 from being fully funded for our adoption! Even with all the financial hurdles we are facing at home, this is HUGE! Jeremiah is working every extra job he can to try and keep up with the home repairs and bills. It has not been easy, and I have been trying to get creative with ways to help us get back on our feet. But even in the middle of so much chaos at home, God has still shown himself faithful in providing for our little girl! I have been so preoccupied with the house and cars falling apart, that I have felt completely inadequate in everything, and yet that is when God has shown up for us! I continue to be humbled by the generosity of our friends and family! 

I attended a LuLaRoe fundraiser last night that a friend hosted for our adoption! We received 137 pairs of shoes yesterday for our shoe drive! We have a music festival being hosted by a family member for our adoption on August 6th! And we are working on planning a 5k run for October that we are hoping we can make an annual event to raise awareness for visual impairment and special needs adoption for years to come!

Our plate is full for sure! So yes, we are in the middle of the longest wait we have so far, but we are also more busy than we have been so far. In a way I think this is His way of getting me through the waiting, by giving more than I can handle without His help. And thats as it should be, I never want to be at a point in my life again were I do not feel I need to rely FULLY on God. If this last month has taught me nothing else it has taught me to always lean on Him!

Please continue to pray for us as we wait on our match letter, and work on our fundraising and our house! We appreciate all the support more than we can say! 

LID!

I have not posted an in depth update on where we are in our process to bring Rori home in quite a while. (never on our blog actually) So here it is! We are LID!

This stands for Logged In Dossier. At this point our Dossier has been translated to Vietnamese and has reached the Vietnam Department of Adoptions. It was officially logged in on June 21st. 

Now we enter possibly the longest period of waiting we have experienced so far. The next step is for the Vietnam Department of adoptions to review our Dossier and officially approve our match. This can take anywhere from 3-12 months. This is where we need all our prayer warriors to jump on board! We are still praying hard that we will travel to bring Rori home before Christmas! That is just 6 months from our LID date! In order for this to happen we need to get our official match letter in just 2-3 months from our LID date!

Here is a breakdown of our next steps:

Official Match Letter 3-12 months

I-800 (Visa application for Rori) 2-3 weeks

Article 5 2-4 weeks

Travel Approval 2-4 weeks

Travel approval to travel 2-3 weeks

As you can see, each of the steps following our match letter can take nearly a month to complete! With only 6 months from our LID date till Christmas we will need to receive our match letter in just 2-3 months so that there will be enough time for all our other steps to be completed!

Please pray friends! We want so badly to hold our little girl and don't want her to spend another Christmas alone!

My shortcomings and His faithfulness.

I must embrace the fact that I am inadequate before I can ever hope to be the wife my husband can depend on or the mom my children need me to be. I know I have said so many times that I am leaning on my Heavenly Father in this process. I have said it again and again, "We could not do this without God." I have said it, but I have not always lived it. In fact I most often find myself despairing and feeling overwhelmed to the point of panic before I hit my knees and remember that He is God.

Pride cometh before a fall. 

About a month ago we sent off our Dossier to be submitted to Vietnam's Department of Adoptions. We had just wrapped up an online auction to raise the rest of the  $3,500 US processing fee that we needed to pay to send our Dossier. At that point it meant we were $16,360.00 from being FULLY FUNDED to bring our daughter home! We were (and still are) praying hard that we will be able to travel to bring Rori home before Christmas of this year. And we had a handful of fundraisers being planned for the next six months that I felt pretty darn confident would be able to get us to our goal and have us fully funded by December! 

Basically, I had come to a point that I was feeling less stressed about raising an enormous amount of money in a short time, and I dare say I had begun to feel a bit CONFIDENT in MY ability to advocate for our daughter and our family in the fundraising department, rather than in my own heart really acknowledging that this was all God!

John 15:5 "….apart from me you can do nothing."

A few weeks ago I was reminded that I am small, and despite my greatest efforts I cannot do this in my own strength.

Back in January I had a fall while holding our 6 month old son and he had to be Life Flighted to a children's hospital. A few weeks ago we received notice that over $31,000 was not going to be covered by our insurance and we had to start paying on it right away. Also a dozen smaller bills from the same incident for hospital services.

At the same time our refrigerator, home air conditioning unit, and van air conditioner all went out. Total cost of about $8,000.00.

To recap….A month ago I was feeling CONFIDENT. We had about 6 months to raise $16,360.00. (A huge amount but it was about half what we started out needing in January so I could see it happening.)

Fast forward to today, we are about $40,000.00 deeper in debt than we were a month ago, and need to come up with lots of cash fast to fix our air conditioning situation, we had just about tapped out our credit already with unexpected home renovations from the previous year, and we still need to raise our remaining adoption expenses.

I'm not gonna lie. I panicked. At first when our air first went out, I though…"This is gonna be ok, we will get through this." Then everything else snowballed and I fell apart. I forgot who I lean on for a moment. I forgot the King of kings is my Father. 

And then God. 

I have never in my life experienced God showing up in my life like He has throughout this process. It just shows me how much He loves His children, and especially how much He loves our little girl. 

Our friends and family showed up, complete strangers showed up, God showed up.

Two families stepped in and loaned us window units so our babies would not have to suffer in our almost 90 degree house.

Our church family started launching fundraisers for us to help us come up with money for our Air conditioning. 

A coworker of Jeremiah's GAVE us an AC unit so that we will only have to pay for the labor! We have not had a new quote yet, but I imagine this will knock off as much as half the cost! (we will still need lots of duct work and electrical done, as our old unit was OLD and the new units need completely different setups.)

Another coworker has offered to look at our van and try to fix it for us!

And a family we do not know stepped forward and donated HALF our remaining $6,360.00 in agency fees! They donated $3,400.00!

A local shop donated Scones that were sold for our family at church sunday.

Another family is making handmade items and selling them to help us.

Our T-shirt fundraiser has sold over 100 shirts! we will make about $1000.00 if I have added everything up correctly!

We have a meeting tomorrow to discuss appeals for our medical bills, praying that we can get some relief on this front.

I don't believe God gives you only as much as you can handle. I don't believe that I am capable of being the person I need to be without leaning fully on my heavenly Father. A few weeks ago I felt as though a jet plane had crashed into our life. I was despairing, I was falling apart. 

I can breath now. We still have so far to go, but I can breath now because I am not relying on my strength. 

I can breath now, but I had nothing to do with it. I did not find some awesome solution to our money crisis. I COULDN'T DO IT. GOD DID. He has been so faithful, and I know he will continue to be. All I need to do is remember that this is not my doing. 

I read something anther adoptive mama said a while back. "Work like its all up to you, but pray like its all up to Him." Because in the end it is. I can drive myself into the ground and exhaust every option I have, but no matter how hard I try the unexpected can happen, and if I am not leaning ONLY on Him I am going to fall.

Please keep us in your prayers as we pick up and push forward! I will post separately to update everyone on our adoption process. Thank you for your prayers and support!

#BringinghomeRori #loveblind