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!