Adoption News!!!

Our friends Nate and Catrina Brock (http://travelstocertainty.blogspot.com/) brought their little girl Dania home last week after 4 years of waiting. Thanks to any of you who helped through prayer and calls to your government officials!! Because of the conditions surrounding her homecoming(earthquake in Haiti) their story has become national news which meant a week full of interviews and camera crews.

They decided to allow all of this in order to give glory to God and continue to raise awareness of the needs of Haiti. As a result, we had a film crew and producer from the Rachael Ray show join them for our church service last Sunday. We have been told the story will air February 3rd.

An added blessing, a producer heard some of Aaron's songs during worship and has decided to use two of them as backround music while the story is aired. We signed a license agreement and have asked that they do what they can to promote the CD in order to raise adoption funds.

Our agency has informed us that we are now registered with the Ministry of Justice in Bulgaria as of Jan. 15, 2010. Yay!!! We are now in their system and have been "put in line" for a referral. We are being told this could take 12-18 months. We know that God has this process in His hands and will work everything out perfectly in His time.


We have launched 2 new fundraisers!!


Please check them out and feel free to pass the information along.

First, we will be collecting used ink cartridges and toners for recycling. We found a company that will pay us for the these as well as pay for the shipping for us to return them. The company is http://www.advantagecartridge.com/. We get a $20 credit for anyone who signs up, mentions our name and sends in their 1st qualified shipment. This company recycles laptops, ipods and cell phones as well. Check out their site to see what qualifies. We can get more boxes, so if you know of a business or organization that might be interested in supporting us in this, let us know.

Second, we found a company online that sells t-shirts as an adoption fundraiser. We were able to pick out 4 styles to sell at an online store. Go to www.adoptionbug.com/littlebrother to see our personal page. We will make 26%-43% depending on the size and style of shirt. All we have to do is direct people to their site and the company takes care of payment and shipping. Once we end the fundraiser they will mail us a check for our part.





For those of you who are also adopting from Bulgaria, our favorite design has the words Faith, Hope and Love written in Bulgarian.



We are real excited about these opportunities. We continually pray for creative ideas from God and He has continued to supply us with them.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. We love you all!

One of the families in our church is bringing their daughter home from PA. Here's a PA news story on them. Praise God!!!!!

http://kdka.com/local/parents.adoption.orphans.2.1438966.html

Something else we can do to help the orphans
I have copied the below information from a friends blog. We have 2 families in our church who are adopting from Haiti. One family has a child in the same orphanage that the entry is written about. Please read and send emails to your Senators to help bring these orphans to their families quickly.

"Our daughter and her husband are in the process of adopting two children (Wendy & Josiana--brother and sister) from Haiti. The two children are in an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. Fortunately, no one in the orphanage was hurt in the earthquake, but now they are threatened with a severe lack of drinking water and food.

Beyond for sending money to one of the relief agencies, there is little we can do as individuals to help. EXCEPT...

Like Wendy and Josiana, there are hundreds of Haitian orphans who are awaiting final approval for adoptions to families in the U.S. The building in Haiti where the adoptions are processed was destroyed in the earthquake. It may be years before the processing can resume.However, the U.S. can grant temporary visas to all orphans whose adoptions were pending before the earthquake. With the grant of visas the oprhans could then come to the U.S. to live with their adoptive families, but be classified as "foster care" children until the final paperwork is completed.

In granting the visas, the evacuation of the hundreds of orphans stuck in this limbo will free space in Haitian orphanages for the thousands of new orphans that have been created by this emergency. Please note that under U.S. rules, any family that applies to adopt a foreign child must first be certified as a foster care family, so there is a safe-guard system in place to insure that these oprhans who would come here under this plan will be safe.

PLEASE, PLEASE. Contact your U.S. Senators asking that they put pressure on the United States Citizenship and Immigrantion Service (USCIS) to grant "temporary visas" to all Haitian orphans now in orphanges awaiting the completion of their adoption process.This is a real way to help and it will cost nothing. You can send Emails by going to the website for the United States Senate (http://www.senate.gov/) and finding the links to your two senators' websites.If you have contacts or friends in any agency of the U.S. government who could push this idea with USCIS, please reach out to them to help, too.Thank all of you for your concerns, good thoughts and most of all prayers for my family these past few days. ~Ed "

Feel free to post this on your blogs or facebook and spread the word. In doing this we are helping the orphans be with their forever families.

Thank you!!!

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.