Our first fundraiser outcome

I held a Mary Kay party to help my friend jumpstart her business and also to earn money for our adoption. I didn't want any products as a hostess so she is just giving me what I would've earned in product...as cash :) I'm happy to report that we made about $40 in profit to go towards bringing Selah home! I'm hoping to do more fundraising to raise these funds considering that this is not a cheap route. We've already dumped about $3,000 into the adoption, and that has been the past 2 weeks! It can be a little worrisome not knowing where all the money will come from as it is due, but I take comfort in believing that God will provide as this is His calling for us....we are His servants, obeying Him to do His will. And what a precious calling it is to love one of the least of these children as our own!!

Fingerprints and Passport filed!

So I got my fingerprints and passport filed for our homestudy. Frank will have to get his done immediately when he returns from Afghanistan. Apparently these two forms take the longest to process. I'm still hoping that it will come back quickly for Frank as he will return the beginning of March and we are moving the middle of June. We need to have our homestudy completed by then! I'm sure it will fall into place, but it can be nerve racking nevertheless.

Just Love Coffee--fundraiser!

We have now set up a "store front" to sell coffee as a fundraiser for our adoption through Just Love Coffee. Let me tell you a little about Just Love Coffee Roasters. The owner, Rob Webb is in the family business of roasting coffee. When he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia, he developed a vision for using his expertise to help others. Since all of their coffee is fair trade, the poor farmers all over the world are helped by his business. A portion of all of their proceeds goes to help orphans in Ethiopia. And they offer fundraising opportunities for adopting families, like us. So if people make purchases from our “store” on their website, we get a large portion of the proceeds–mailed directly to us monthly. Talk about a wonderful company!! We think it’s so fitting, too, to raise funds this way for our Ethiopian adoption since Ethiopia is the birthplace for coffee and a huge part of their culture.

Please take a moment to check out our "store" website and consider supporting our family and this amazing company. Pretty awesome to drink great coffee (or give it as a gift for the non-coffee drinkers out there!) and help bring an orphan home at the same time! http://www.justlovecoffee.com/carrfamilyadoption

Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork!

We have officially started the process with sending in a check for a big amount of money for the homestudy and now working on paperwork. There is a lot of paperwork involved along with gathering certain documents, getting passports and fingerprints, etc. I will be spending tomorrow working on adoption paperwork. We are somewhat rushed to complete things faster here so we can finish the homestudy before we move. Everything should work out in the end, I believe it will. I also have to send another check very soon for $435 for adoption education. Both Frank and I have to take certain hours of classes regarding adoption in general, international adoption, adopting older kids, adopting transracial, and adopting special needs. We will have 2 days of classes in April in Denver and it happens to fall during Frank's block leave so that works out great! I just now have to figure out childcare for my other sweet kiddos and we'll be all set! We will be announcing some fundraising ideas soon that we plan to try to use to help raise the fees. Check back!