Sunday, April 19, 2009

Update on fundraisers, the boys and more...

Our story on the local radio station came off great! It was actually played nearly every hour throughout the day. I'm sure that we've yet to see what God has in store for us through this opportunity.

Orders continue to come in from our
Etsy store. Most Mondays, Jen is baking and shipping. We have had many orders from local friends which are not counted on the site. Our friends http://www.redpajamas.etsy.com has sold quite a few raffle tickets for a Sweet Tunic to help raise funds for us. We will also get 20% of her sales and so far she has sold several items. Soon, Jen's sister Jessie will be opening an etsy shop selling handmade greeting cards and all proceeds will go to our adoption. Etsy is definitely working for us.

There is a local market here in town open on the second Saturday of every month. Starting in May we plan on selling some of our baked goods and homemade gifts made by Jen and other family members. We'll see what comes of this Sage Street Market for us this summer.

The Pampered Chef show closed last week and the product is already coming in. We had a $1447 show, which is completely amazing for around here. An average show that we've done here is about $200-$300. Thank You, Jesus! We get 15%, plus Jackie Turk, our Pampered Chef consultant donates 2.5% out of her own pocket after the show reaches $1,000. So, we now have $256 more towards our adoption fund.

Aaron is in the final stages of recording his CD. We can see the finish line. At this point all the work is out of our hands and so we're spending our time working out the details of copyright and duplicating for distribution.

We heard back from our case worker stating that the little boy on the waiting child list is actually matched up with another family. We then did some research on the other little boy, who looked like Tobin and in the process got in touch with 3 other families who have adopted, or are in the process, or have been to the orphanages over in Albania. We also have been somewhat introduced to an organization called Hope for the World based close by in
McDonough, GA. They actually run several orphanages over in Albania and help with sponsoring children there. Anyway, through some of our contacts and this organization we were able to find out that the little boy is not adoptable. We are happy to hear that he is healthy and has a single mom who plans on getting him back hopefully soon. One of our contacts showed us a picture of another boy who turned 3 while she was there in February. He is also dark headed with brown eyes like our oldest and youngest. She wasn't sure if he is adoptable or not, so she is having her contacts look into his status also. Who knows. I just think it is so neat how God has connected us with all these different people. It's just wonderful support. We figured that if none of these boys are adoptable then God had other reasons for us connecting with so many new people. We'll see what that is all about.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

WNEG 630 AM

We sent cookies out to 3 radio stations. One of which is WNEG 630 AM, our local station here in Stephens and Franklin County. I did not recognize an email last Tuesday that had in the subject box, "interview request". With all the hustle and bustle of getting word out and baking cookies, I totally forgot to ask Aaron about the email. After posting the last blog entry this past Saturday night we cleaned out our inbox. Aaron came across the mystery email and opened it, only to discover it was a request to interview us about the adoption from the news director at WNEG. So, this morning Aaron went in and they recorded an interview. Charlie Bauder, the news director, told us it will be on air tomorrow at 8 A.M. and 12 P.M. and possibly other times throughout the day. We are so excited how God is making our story known. We are so encouraged by all the support we are getting. God is good. He is our Provider.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Recent Pictures of Our Amazing Children




Here are some recent pictures of our kids.









What A Week!!

Our last post talked about all that happened on Monday. My sister gave us the idea to mail some of our cookies to local radio stations as a means of getting the word out and generating some orders. So Monday morning we sent a sample of our cookies to three different stations and waited to see if anything would come of it.

Wednesday morning Mike Shelley, morning announcer at 90.9 WRAF announced our cookies as the official(for that day anyway) cookies of the morning show. He also wrote about it in his blog http://mikesshownotes.blogspot.com telling a little bit about us and posting a picture of the cookies, or what was left of them. WRAF is the flagship station for Toccoa Falls College and actually broadcasts into several states in the southeast as well as over the internet. Unrelated to this event, we received another cookie order that same day.

Thursday morning, Kevin and Taylor, morning show announcers for Atlanta's 104.7 WFSH, shared our adoption story on the air commenting on our cookies, Aaron's CD to come and our fundraisers. Amazingly, Taylor commented that she had actually worked for Bethany Christian Services at some point in the past. They said they would post a link to us on their site. Within hours, a listener and fellow etsy shop owner had contacted us to say that she would be posting a link on her blog and had just twittered her 100+ followers.

After hearing all this on the radio we went to check our email and sites. We had another etsy order from a family member who also made a $250.00 donation through this blog. Jen immediately got to baking. As she was driving the kids to an appointment, she got another order for 2 batches of cookies and 2 loaves of bread. She came home to bake those and upon checking the mail found a check from another family member for $500.00

Friday Jen finally got a break from baking and was able to spend some time catching up on other things that needed to be done. That afternoon she got a call from a family member saying that they would be sending a check for $100.00

This morning while I was out working on the CD, Jen was home baking again. This time she was filling an etsy order for a friend who lives here in Toccoa. When she got home, she found two letters in the mail each with a $50.00 check. Earlier this evening we received an email discussing the details of an order for 4 batches (96!) of cookies to be shipped in the coming weeks.

I heard a sermon recently where the speaker shared how too often we simply ask God to bless whatever it is we're doing when what we should be praying is "Lord what are you doing?, I want to join with you and be a part of it." Then the blessing flows in abundance.

The book that has had the greatest impact on our prayer life as a family has been George Mueller's biography. Our whole family has been faithFULLy praying for months asking our Father to provide the funds necessary to bring our son(a.k.a. Little Brother) home. At some point during the past week, one of our daughters exclaimed "I've been wanting to see a miracle with money like this!!" With every order and donation they yell out "Thank you Jesus!!" without any prompting from us. We are mindful to thank Him for every blessing and to continue to persevere in faith that He will provide exactly what we need when we need it.

Psalm 92:4 "For you make me glad by your deeds, O Lord; I sing for joy at the works of your hands."