Grant Money

Some very exciting news: On Monday of this week we received a letter in the mail from Show Hope. The letter informed us that we had been awarded an adoption grant in the amount of $4,000!! As you can imagine we are very excited and once again amazed at our Heavenly Father's provision. We still have more to go, but we are encouraged that to date we have raised over $20,000. He is faithfully directing our every step throughout this entire journey.

Our status for now is that our dossier has been received in Bulgaria and we are waiting to be registered with the Ministry of Justice sometime in January.

The holidays are keeping us busy for now. LOTS of family time, preparation, and fun. Occasionally we stop to ask the kids what they think "Little Brother" would make of all this noise, food and activity. It's sort of a family game. (i.e. "Do you think Little Brother will like fried turkey?") I think it helps with getting us all ready for his arrival by making us consider what he'll be going through.

After the New Year we plan to get out our Bulgarian language CD again. It's been fun practicing the phrases we've learned so far with our children. We try and speak Bulgarian in as many everyday situations as we can.

We'll also be praying for more creative fundraisers. We have a couple ideas that we need to look into more to see how practical they really are. But for now we are content to enjoy this season and reflect on its true meaning.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Eventful Weekend

We got an email on Friday from our agency informing us that our dossier has been mailed off to Bulgaria. If we weren't waiting already, now we really are waiting. It first has to get translated and then the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria has to accept us and then we get registered. From what we have been told and have read, this process may take about 2 months. Once registered we wait for Bulgaria to send us a referral. As of now, we are being told that takes anywhere from 12-18 months.

In other news, the fundraising is going well. We spent the weekend at The Harvest Festival here in our town selling homemade baked goods and crafts. On Saturday, Aaron and a few members of the worship team played a few of his songs on the main stage.

We sold 10 loaves of bread, 12 or more dozen cookies, 2 huge loaves of pumpkin bread, 1 huge loaf of apple bread, and several dozen cupcakes all made with fresh ground whole wheat. We also sold a big batch of baklava made from a real live Greek. We also sold a handful of homemade greeting cards, a couple hand painted ornaments and a few of Aaron's CDs.

We had many other crafts donated for us to sell;however, people were more interested in the food. We tried selling homemade dress up capes and had the kids be advertisement. They walked around in their capes with a sign on their backs (thanks to their father) that read "Dress Up Capes for Sale $5 (kids not included)". Our advertisement was great, but still no capes were sold. Our 9 year old was a great salesperson. She smiled brightly, packaged cookies and then would figure the money. She was a huge help.

We had family and friends constantly hanging out with us at our booth and had tons of fun. It was such an encouragement to us. Throughout the weekend we had numerous opportunities to meet and talk with many local people who have adopted or who were adopted. These conversations were also an encouragement.

Thanks to all the friends and family who helped by donating items to sell, setting up and tearing down the booth, lending us a canopy, buying our stuff, hanging out with us and supporting us in so many ways. We appreciate you all. Because of God's provision and all your help we were able to raise $558. Thank you, Jesus!!!

USCIS Approved!!!

We received our first USCIS(U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) fingerprint appointment for Oct. 2 which unfortunately fell right in the midst of our vacation. We hesitantly rescheduled expecting this to set us back 3+ weeks. We were pleasantly surprised when our new appointment was set for Oct. 12. Only a 10 day difference.

Our appointment was set for 11 am. We arrived 30 minutes early. We went in to make sure we were in the right place (it didn't look very official) and they took us in immediately. We were finished 20 minutes later, 10 minutes before our appointment was scheduled. Cool! So we went on a lunch date!

We were expecting another 3 weeks before approval would come, but to our amazement we received our approval notice today!! Just 10 days after our appointment.

In Sept. we held a Pampered Chef catalog fund raiser. This time we received a $96 check for the adoption fund. A week later we received $100 cash from a friend. This past week we held a jewelry show combined with a gold purchaser. Between the two we received $132. Not to mention that one woman offered to host a show provided that the proceeds would go to our adoption fund! What an encouragement and blessing to have someone else promote our cause.

Today we just received news that Aaron would be performing at our local yearly harvest festival. This usually brings out the whole town so there is great potential for selling his CD. Also we will be manning a table of home made food and crafts. Some of which Jen will be making and other items friends and family have donated. Every bit we make will go directly to bringing our son home.

We have applied for the Show Hope grant and will receive notice in December as to whether or not we qualify.

All the rest of our dossier has been completed so it is just a matter of mailing our approval to our agency. They will handle getting all documents authenticated with apostilles (certification of the notary, this stuff is riveting, I know). Once our agency receives all these authenticated documents, they will forward them to Bulgaria for translation.

So for now we are done with paperwork and the waiting begins. We are continuing to raise the remainder of the funds necessary to bring our son home. For those of you interested we still have plenty of CDs available . . . and cookies make a delightful addition to any holiday gathering!!

Thank you all for your continued support. We deeply appreciate it!!

Pampered Chef Fundraiser and other news

The day after our last post, we found out that the other couple who requested the same boy as we did got their dossier to Bulgaria before us and they are in the process of adopting the little boy. We are told by our agency that Bulgaria is a first come first serve country. You get put in line according to the age and gender of child you are requesting. In our case we were requesting a "special needs" child and so we could get out of order. However, as we understand it, when 2 couples request the same "special needs" child, the couple who has their dossier in Bulgaria first is able to adopt the child. It was a bit hard, but we are thankful that this little guy now has a family and we wait to see which little boy God wants to bring into our family.

So for now we hurry up and wait. We are waiting on the USCIS to give us dates for biometrics fingerprinting and then their approval. Plus we are waiting on our FBI fingerprint clearance. It’s just a matter of weeks before they’re back and then the dossier can be complete. We have finished all other paperwork for it.

It has seemed so far in our journey that our adventure has carried us on a pendulum swing from chaos to quiet. It appears that we are now once again in another season of quiet. In the past we have found it easy to lose faith in these moments. Now we have learned to seize them and draw near to our heavenly Father knowing that He has something amazing right around the corner.

So in the meantime we busy ourselves with other important activities. Currently Aaron has the month off from leading worship at our church. We have been intentional about making sure we use this time to focus our energy on family and strengthening our relationships with those God has brought into our lives.

We have received the Phrases For Children CD with Bulgarian phrases on it and really enjoy it. We have learned a few words and phrases already. Our kids giggle when we talk about bringing little "brat" home(phonetic sp.). We do recommend it. It won't teach you the whole language, but just some helpful words and phrases to help communication with our adopted child. Plus it is fairly inexpensive. I believe it was around $20 with shipping.

We are still selling Aaron’s worship CD and Jen’s cookies and bread online. For anyone who would like to sample some of Aaron’s CD before purchasing we've added a link at the top of the blog.

We have had a Pampered Chef Fundraiser and did real well. Since then we have had a few people ask if we would do another Pampered Chef fundraiser because they had things to order and wanted us to benefit from their order. So, here we are again. This time we are doing a catalog show. This basically means you can order Pampered Chef items and do not have to take another night out of your hectic schedules to go to a demonstration. You can go straight to the website and order online or you can see Jen and look through a catalog here in Toccoa. We know it’s a little early to think about it, but Christmas is not too far away.

If you are interested in ordering Pampered Chef online go to www.pamperedchef.biz/jackieturk. Once at the website click on “Shop online” at the bottom left hand corner of the page. It will ask you if you’ve been invited to a show and what the hosts name is. Type in “Jennifer” in the first box and “Santor” in the second box. Then click on “Jennifer Santor” on the search result page. You’ll be brought to the catalog online page and can order. As long as you see “Jennifer Santor” in the top right hand corner of the page, your order will benefit our adoption. Order by September 30, that’s the close of the catalog show. Also, during this month of September, stoneware is 20% off.

HOME STUDY IS FINISHED !!!!

On Monday August 3rd, we received an email from An Open Door Adoption Agency. At the very beginning we had been considering adopting from Latvia and Open Door was an agency with a program in that country. However, God had other plans and directed us elsewhere for the time being.

The email stated that there were two special needs boys available for adoption from Eastern Europe. We noticed one of their birthdays was only a few months after our son's. So we took a closer look. The boy was from Bulgaria! We immediately responded asking for more information. Everything we've read on him so far has been exactly what we've been looking and praying for. We called Open Door to request him and found out we weren't the only ones. However, this is not a closed door yet and there are many things that come into play in the decision as to where he is placed.

So for now we are content to trust the Lord and leave everything in his hands. God knows who our son is and will be faithful to bring him to us. In the mean time we are pursuing this child which has meant switching agencies. If he is ours we are working to make sure everything is ready as soon as we hear. If not then we will at least be that much closer to being registered in Bulgaria.

As it turns out we were at the best point to switch agencies and were able to do so with minimal expense or trouble. In fact, without realizing it, our home study was completed on Aug. 14, the exact same day we submitted our official request for this boy. As of the 19th we were officially accepted by An Open Door Adoption Agency.

On the 22nd we received our home study in the mail and immediately applied for four grants. ( I guess we're kind of intense. ) On the 24th we mailed out our I-800A application and had most of our dossier papers notarized.

Lately it had seemed that funds had slowed, but in the middle of discovering this little boy we were overwhelmed with etsy orders ( http://www.wickedgoodeats.etsy.com ), From the Depths of the Earth CD orders, and unexpected donations. All of which totalled well over $1,000 during the week Aug. 12th - 19th. We have now raised 1/3 of the total needed. Thank you everyone! Thank you Father, you are always so faithful!!

During this time we also found out about 2 different children's books about boys adopted from Bulgaria. One we just got off ebay is called Just Waiting For My Family by Terry M. Mandeville and the other we are about to order is called The Mom with the Red Lipstick: An Adoption Memory of a Little Bulgarian Boy by Lydia Kordalewski.

We also have been wanting to order a Bulgarian language study, but couldn't decide which one. We just want to learn enough to help our boy adjust and all the language studies seemed like too much and too complicated. However, we came across a book and CD that is for parents adopting from Bulgaria. It's simple phrases like "We are going on a plane now. I'm your daddy forever. Are you hungry? I love you forever. Do you need to pee?" It's called Phrases For Children by Fred Des Chenes. Here's the link for that http://www.phrasesforchildren.com. We haven't actually received it yet, but it has been shipped and we are looking forward to it.

Looks like we get to rest now and wait.

Psalm 27:14 "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Psalm 38:15 "I wait for You, O Lord; You will answer, O Lord my God."

CT clearance came!

Just a quick update for everyone. We just found out this morning that Aaron's CT CPS clearance came through. So, now we have all we need for the homestudy and are waiting for approval. Hopefully, this won't take long. We're planning on trying to apply for a couple of grants which most seem to release funds in September. We should get our applications in on time if all goes well.

Next step will be immigration stuff and paperwork for the Bulgarian dossier.

Thank you all for prayers and support!

An Amazing Day

We discovered that we had miscalculated how much we would need to pay for the finished homestudy. It was actually $1400 instead of the $1000 that we had previously written. No big deal. We'll just need to sell a few extra CDs. However they were not scheduled to arrive until August 17th/18th, which did not leave us a lot of time. So once again we commited to prayer.



Yesterday morning we received an email that the CDs would be arriving today!! We were so excited! 2 1/2 weeks early!! This would give us more time to raise the remaining funds. That night at our small group bible study, we mentioned that the CDs were on their way, but asked for prayer that God would provide the remaining amount needed. One member prayed that the money would come the very next day. Jen also had been praying for some time that the money would come before the CDs arrived. At 12:03 a.m. we received the full $1400!!! The CDs arrived this afternoon. God is alive, He is good, and apparently he still has a sense of humor!



Now we are praying and waiting for Aaron's CPS backround check from CT to be cleared.



The cost is $15. You can either click the Paypal button on the side of the page, or send us a check and we'll ship it out ASAP. Aaron and the team have been working hard since October to get this CD ready. We've been eager to have it knowing that it is our biggest fund raiser for our adoption. So, order now, not only will you get a worship CD, you'll help bring "Little Brother" home. All but some change will go directly to our adoption fund.