I'm speechless!

God is so good. I'm continually blown away by His faithfulness. Just last weeks I posted about being short $700 for our post placement fees. In the past 2 weeks we've received a $180 worth of tshirt orders and $20 donation from a blog buddy (Thank you so much) That left us $500 short. Today Sean went into work and sitting on his desk was an envelope with "Ethiopia Adoption Project ~ God Bless You!!" written on it. Guess what was inside? $500!!! How Awesome is that!! I'm still in shock right now. I have no idea who gave us this money but Thank you so much! Thank you for not only investing in us but investing into "M's" future.

Isn't God so amazing!!!

Thanks & help again

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who left me a comment or emailed me after my "money woes" post. As scary and unpredictable as this whole process is the one constant is that God IS Faithful. I know that....that may be all I know right now but that I know!! Thank you guys for being such an amazing support during the down times. I love how the body of Christ comes together to lift each others arms in time of stress and grief. We ARE family!

Next, I need help again from all you BTDT (been there done that) adoptive parents. I'm working on sending in for my FBI clearance letter. I've wrote the letter to FBI and DH and I both have our fingerprints. On the fingerprint cards, do I fill it out completely like I did for our first set of prints or do I just add name, dob, place of birth like the Ethiopia manual suggests? Also, I set up a Fed Ex account but how the heck do I prepare a prepaid overnight envelope? Do I need to just go to the Fed Ex place and have them help me? So, in the packet to the FBI I'm putting in: the letter (signed by DH and myself) the fingerprint cards, the $36 money order to the Treasury of the United States, and a prepaid envelope for them to mail it back to me. I know this stuff sounds simple but I just don't want to mess this up. Just reasure me that I'm doing this right and I'll stick it in the mail today.

just sharin'......

I was listening to podcasts this morning and came across this one and wanted to share with my adoption blog buddies. This is pretty awesome. It's the Dennis Rainey speaking about God's heart for adoption. He also adresses alot of the myths within adoption.

Listen here

money woes

This post is hard for me to write because I don't like being this transparent but the purpose of this blog is to share with my friends and family the good AND the bad of this adoption journey.

Today I got a bill in the mail for the homestudy. Not just any bill but one that we can't move forward to the next step without paying. So far, every single expense that has come up God has provided at just the right time and just the right amount. I have no doubt that He will take care this as well. I've been paying for things as they come up and putting money back knowing that I'd have to pay $1,850 soon for the homestudy. Well, what I didn't prepare for was that I have to pay for all the post visits up front. I'm sure somewhere along the way I was told but I just haven't been planning for that. That's an extra $705. This could set us back another month or two.

Could I just pay for this with a credit card or take out a loan...sure. But I told God when we started this if HE would provide all the money we have to pay Gladney and the homestudy agency that we would take out loans (and apply for grants) for the rest. He has held up His end of the deal so far and I'm not going to start doubting Him now.

On a positive note, we've turned in EVERYTHING to Villa Hope for our homestudy but the money so as soon as we come up with it all we can schedule our home visit. WOO HOO!!

If you would please begin to believe with us that God is going to provide for us every step of the way.

PS. We got the insurance issue fixed! Praise God!

Insurance companies....GRRRRRR!!!

So, for the past 6 weeks I've been fighting with my insurance company (Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware) for a letter stating what my adoption benefits are. Doesn't sound like it should be that difficult to get, right? WRONG! I've called daily for the past 6 weeks. They've sent me 2 letters over the past 6 weeks and they've both been wrong. Either not what I need at all or not completely what I need. I've talked to just about everyone in the company at one time or another. You'd think that they would just give a contact...someone who knows my story and what I need so I don't have to start over every time I call but nooooo. That would make things way to easy. I've tried aproaching this from every angle. I've tried to be sweet and Christ like, i've tried to play the poor pitiful me I'm adopting a baby and need your help card and I've just been plain out nasty. None of it got me anywhere. I even went as far as to tell the lady that I hoped the cries of my daughter in an orphange longing for her mother kept her up at night. Dramatic much? :) She was completely unfazed. Yesterday I got the letter in the mail but once again it wasn't complete. I specifically told them it needed to be notarized and of course it wasn't. I called back today to tell them that I needed it notarized and she very RUDELY told me that she couldn't and wouldn't norarize it. She told me that from this point on I would need to take it up with my human resources dept. at my work. I was livid but thought I'd go talk to the ladies in HR. As soon as I started trying to explain what I needed I lost it. Yep, I was a crying, babbling mess. I don't no what happened because I'm usually good at keeping it all together. The HR lady was a little freaked out because she's never seen me fall apart like that in the 14 years that I've worked there. Thank God she was a Christian and gave me a little Jesus pep rally. :) It didn't solve the problem but crying sure made me feel better. So, we're back to square one with the insurance company. ugh!!!

pray for Jocelyn

My blogger buddie Jocelyn got some completely devestating news yesterday. Her daughters parents decided not to give her up for adoption. Jocelyn's court date was coming up on the 15th. This is just absolutely heart breaking. I can't even begin to imagine how she's feeling right now. I haven't been able to think about anything else but her and sweet Peyton since I read her post. Pray that God would wrap her in His unfailing love today.

Heavenly Father, I come to you right now broken for my friend Jocelyn. I pray that You, God would be her soft place to fall today. I cant even imagine how much her heart is aching right now God but YOU know. I pray that you would be her comfort and her deliverer. That would clothe her in peace right now....the peace that only YOU can give Father. God, I lift sweet Payton up to you and I pray that you would protect her all the days of her life. God, I pray that she will know how much she is loved not only by Jocelyn but by YOU. God, even when things seem so completely messed up, we trust You! WE TRUST YOU!! In Jesus Name, Amen.

coffee anyone?

Today while reading another blog I found this coffee company Saint's Coffee. This company invest 1/3 of net profits from every sale into leading orphan care organizations. With every pound of coffee that you buy you will be feeding an orphan for a month. They even have an Ethiopian Sidamo blend available. I just ordered some for myself.


Also, I was looking at Amy's blog today and she posted about this AMAZING necklace. I just ordered mine. All the proceeds from the sale of these necklaces go towards the Dunn's Ethiopian adoption.

update

Well, today we mailed off all the paperwork that had to be turned in for our homestudy. YAY!! Now we're just waiting on them to call to schedule or home visit. I'm also going to get started on our dossier. I'm still trying to decide if I want to attempt our dossier myself or if I want to use Kate with KBS Dossier to help. I'm a little overwhelmed at the thought of all the paperwork but do I really want to spend the extra money? I'd love to hear from some of you that have done this already? Did you do your dossier yourself or did you use a company to help you?