Eight Weeks of Waiting… 

Today is officially eight weeks waiting on our match letter. We have so much going on I don't know how I'm finding time to be impatient…

• Bathroom has been demolished, mold removed and will need to be put back together as the budget permits (hopefully before we travel to Vietnam)
• Both vehicles are mechanically acting up (literally running on prayers)
• We are in the home stretch of our shoe drive, and are still almost 3,000 shoes from our minimum!
• We relaunched our t-shirt fundraiser, now we have another color/font option more for the guys!
• We just attended a music festival our family put on for our adoption, and we will be going to a bluegrass benefit they are hosting in a few weeks!
• We are trying to find time to pull together another yard sale in September.
• We are planning a Fall Festival Fundraiser for October!

We are getting down to the wire! Another family adopting from Vietnam just got their match letter last week after waiting just SEVEN WEEKS! They had their Dossier logged in just one day before ours! This means we could literally get our match letter any day…or we could wait months. Please pray with us that we will get our letter before the end of August! If we do than we can still expect to travel before Christmas!

I can't put in to words how hard it is to wait and how it seems to get harder every day. When I'm holding one of my babies or playing with them on the floor in their room, I can't get away from the fact that someone is missing. I am loving this season in my little one's lives, but I'm always hurting inside for my baby girl that is not home yet. I can't wait to hold her in my arms, rock her to sleep, kiss boo-boo's, read her bedtime stories, find out what foods she likes and dislikes, what makes her laugh, comfort her when she cries. All these things I took for granted before that I have not been able to do for her these first three plus years of her life. With each day we get closer to Rori. We knew this process would include a lot of waiting, but you really cannot prepare for just how hard that waiting is.

Even though 3-4 months feels like an eternity when your waiting to go get your child, its not much time if you consider all that has to done both in travel preparation and fundraising. We are getting so close to our goal, we started out this process needing $30,000.00! We now are just $10,224.00 from being fully funded to bring Rori home!

This is the home stretch for our fundraising efforts! Raising over $10,000 in 3 months sounds a little crazy, but God's got this. He has provided in one way or another throughout this entire process, and I know He will get us there in the end. Would you please pray with us?

If you are willing and able to help here are some ways we need your help:

• We have a t-shirt fundraiser going now, through the end of August. Email alysenford@gmail.com if you would like to order shirts to help bring Rori home! 

• We are collecting shoes for our shoe drive till September 28th! (Extended our deadline) We still need to collect almost 3,000 pair!
  
• We are planning another Yard Sale fundraiser for the end of September, if you need to de clutter just let me know, I will take it all away!
  
• We are planning a Fall Festival Fundraiser for October 22nd. I'm so excited about this, its going to be so much fun! We will need lots of volunteers for this event to help man all the game booths!

• Also if you feel led to give, we have two ways you can donate to our adoption (both allow you to make a tax deductible donation) Our Adopt Together funding page: https://www.adopttogether.org/our-adoption-puzzle  and our Reece Rainbow account: http://reecesrainbow.org/105770/sponsorford

We are so grateful and humbled by everyone that has come alongside us on this journey so far. You all are part of Rori's story and are showing her the love of a family by helping to bring her home. Thank you!