My sweet baby girl

To my sweet baby girl who isn't even born yet,

I haven't seen your face and I don't know your name, but I love you already.  I can't wait to kiss your sweet little face and hold you so close.  I'm so sad for your situation you're going to go through with your birth parents and all that you'll encounter in your first few months of life.  I won't be there to hold you and tell you everything is going to be okay.  But I promise I will be there as soon as God will allow it and I will always be there for you to make everything all better.  You have 5 big brothers and 1 big sister waiting to meet you and play with you.  We are so excited for you to be here with us and part of our family.  You are going to love your daddy.  He is so sweet and loving towards your brothers and sister.  I'm sure you will have him wrapped around your little finger very shortly after you arrive.
I pray daily for your birth parents and everything that they are going to go through that brings them to the point of you being up for adoption.  Things that are happening in their lives right now is setting all of this in motion for you to one day be here with us.  When I come to pick you up, I will get to see your village that you come from.  I may have the opportunity to meet some of your family and maybe even your birth parents.  I will take lots of pictures for you to see where you came from.  I promise to learn as much as I can about your culture and teach you about all of it.
You are going to experience a lot before you are in my arms, but just know that I love you and I am coming for you!  Until then, God is with you and He will take care of you.  No love is stronger than God's love for His children.
"I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb, Before you were born I set you apart." Jeremiah 1:5

Adoption Break Down

We are getting really excited about our upcoming garage sale.  We have had many items donated. We are hoping to get close to our first goal.  We know adoption is expensive and some wonder why it costs so much.  Here is a break down of the cost.  Our first goal to reach towards our adoption is to pay the first set of fees.  This consists of the following:
International Program Application Fee-  $400
Online Case Management-   $175
Agency Fee Part 1-   $2550
Home Study-   $1800
Home Study Review-  $250
Pre- Adoptive Education-  $150

This brings our first total to $5325. Once we complete our homestudy, then we start working on our dossier (the collection of paperwork used in an international adoption that has been properly authenticated and translated).
The second set of fees that are due for this consist of:
USCIS-  $720
Fingerprinting-   $170
Dossier Notary/Authentication-   $500
Agency Fee Part 2-   $1275
International Program Fee Part 1-   $3720
Dossier Translation-  $685

This brings our second total to $7070.  Once this has all been completed and paid for, this puts us on the official waiting list to receive a referral for a child.

Once we receive a referral for a child (which will be 12-15 months once on waiting list) more fees are due.  This consists of:
Agency Fee Part 3-  $1275
International Program Fee Part 2-  $2700
Humanitarian Aid-  $3300
Child's Visa-  $230
Post Adoption Services-  2700
Travel- Airline, hotels, food-  $12000

This brings our last total including airline tickets for 2 trips to Ethiopia to $22,205.  This makes our grand total around $34,600.  We will be working hard to fundraise as much as we can and work extra to put money into our savings account.  We would really appreciate prayers for our adoption and our upcoming fundraiser, which is July 4, 5, &6! 

Blessed with Donations

We have been so busy this past weekend collecting donations for our adoption fundraiser.  I feel so blessed by all the donations we have received.  I have been handing out flyer's to people having garage sales on Saturday explaining our fundraiser we are doing.  Many of them were very happy to donate the rest of what they had to us for our garage sale.  They were excited to help us with our adoption!  We have filled up our garage and now we are filling a storage unit that we rented.  We have also had some donations from friends.  We are getting very excited for the garage sale.  It is going to be on July 4, 5, & 6.  That will be Thursday- Saturday.  We will be accepting cash & credit cards.  I hope to see everyone come by and check out what we are selling!!  At least come and say hi!
Here are some pictures of our 10 x 20 storage unit filling from nine people donating in one day.

 

My handsome husband lifting and moving all the stuff we collected.

We still have about 2 more weeks of accepting donations and then it will be time for our garage sale!!  Thank you so very much to everyone who has donated!!

We are in need of some tables if anyone has any that we can borrow for those 3 days. 
I also was able to finally go and open our savings account for our adoption!!!!