In "Waiting, Hoping and Praying" I mentioned our skype with "V" and the unbelievable Easter Eggs he made & showed us....Check these out:
Ukrainian Easter Eggs
Now you know why our American Easter Eggs hung their heads in shame:)
He said he would show us how to do his kind of eggs....next year:)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Progress
$9,500 raised, $20,500 to go! Thanks to ALL who have helped us! Your generosity is astounding! Your prayers are uplifting! Your encouragement brings tears of joy!
We have two Fundraiser Yard Sales scheduled THIS Weekend, April 27&28 and NEXT Weekend May 4&5 in Windermere and Winter Garden. Contact me at: Bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for more info.
"Our soul waits for the LORD;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
Because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us,
Just as we hope in YOU."
Psalm 33:20-22
We have two Fundraiser Yard Sales scheduled THIS Weekend, April 27&28 and NEXT Weekend May 4&5 in Windermere and Winter Garden. Contact me at: Bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for more info.
"Our soul waits for the LORD;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart shall rejoice in Him,
Because we have trusted in His holy name.
Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us,
Just as we hope in YOU."
Psalm 33:20-22
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Best Pancakes Ever
OK, my husband ROCKS! He started cooking at 5 am on Saturday and between 8-10am yesterday fed 80 people. He let us help him serve, but wouldn't let us help in the kitchen while he was cooking. He's a bit of a "Pancake Nazi":) We had great food, lots of great fellowship and made about $400!! We are so thankful to those who made the trek out to Clermont from Windermere and the other side of Orlando for our event! It was great to have surprise visitors from our former life group, too!
To keep it real, in spite of the great turnout and progress made toward bringing V home, today was a very hard day for me. Have you ever awakened with a "cloud" over you? After talking with our friends who are also on a path to adopt yesterday (who were two of the 4 who came WAY out to Clermont:) I realized my expectations as to when we can bring V home have been a little unrealistic. I was hoping that after we submit our dossier (mountain of paperwork) to Ukraine that we'd be able to travel over in a month or so. (OK, I know you who are adopting are rolling on the floor laughing now!:) But after talking to our friends yesterday, they said they were told it would be more like FOUR months. Wow, that hit me really hard. I've already waited 7 years to find the son I felt was missing. V has been waiting almost that long for his family. And now I have to wait MORE?? So even though I was fine yesterday, it just hit me hard today and I just couldn't stop crying. And I'm not a "crying girl"...at all. You can even ask my husband. But I must have filled an entire travel pack of Kleenex throughout the day. Fortunately GOD lifted me up, though. I went to Church (even though I would have rather stayed in bed) and by the end of tonight, His words for me and fellowship & laughter with our Church family have lifted me out of that sad place. I LOVE our Church family- who made up a large part of our Pancake Eaters yesterday- thank you Liberty!
To keep it real, in spite of the great turnout and progress made toward bringing V home, today was a very hard day for me. Have you ever awakened with a "cloud" over you? After talking with our friends who are also on a path to adopt yesterday (who were two of the 4 who came WAY out to Clermont:) I realized my expectations as to when we can bring V home have been a little unrealistic. I was hoping that after we submit our dossier (mountain of paperwork) to Ukraine that we'd be able to travel over in a month or so. (OK, I know you who are adopting are rolling on the floor laughing now!:) But after talking to our friends yesterday, they said they were told it would be more like FOUR months. Wow, that hit me really hard. I've already waited 7 years to find the son I felt was missing. V has been waiting almost that long for his family. And now I have to wait MORE?? So even though I was fine yesterday, it just hit me hard today and I just couldn't stop crying. And I'm not a "crying girl"...at all. You can even ask my husband. But I must have filled an entire travel pack of Kleenex throughout the day. Fortunately GOD lifted me up, though. I went to Church (even though I would have rather stayed in bed) and by the end of tonight, His words for me and fellowship & laughter with our Church family have lifted me out of that sad place. I LOVE our Church family- who made up a large part of our Pancake Eaters yesterday- thank you Liberty!
Monday, April 16, 2012
Waiting, hoping and praying
We received our official final homestudy report on Monday, April 9 and submitted our i600a (the "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition") on Thursday, April 12!!!! It was a very exciting day to get that form on its way as it is a LONG part of this process! Somewhere I remember seeing we could expect it to take 11 weeks...not sure where....but friends got theirs back in only SIX- so praying for that! We can't submit our paperwork to Ukraine until that comes back, so the sooner the better.
OK, I love what friends have done to protect the privacy of their kids by using only their first initial....so our Ukrainian son will be V now!:) Our bio kids are A1, J and A2. Thanks for the idea, P!!:)
We then Skyped with V again on Saturday, the 14th and it was AWESOME! He has learned a lot of English since we skyped last- we were so proud of him! One of my favorite things he said was, "One moment" as he lifted one little finger when he would have to leave the camera to go get something he wanted to show us. We showed him our Easter eggs so he ran to get his eggs to show us. They were ornate and incredible. Our colorful yet plain American Easter eggs hung their heads in shame:) I asked him if he would teach us how to do that and he said, "Yes" So NEXT Easter, expect to see some amazing eggs coming from here! We found out that Ukraine actually celebrated Easter a week behind us, on Sunday April 15. He sang a sweet song for us in Ukrainian and then we decided to sing for him! We sang, "How Great is Our God", since we had just seen this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBYTg2Efaek&feature=youtube_gdata_player And then V SANG WITH US! In English!!! Wow, how did he know that? It was so precious. As we were singing, we could see his mouth moving. I thought he must know the song in Russian or Ukrainian, but when we stopped, he kept going and sang another verse by himself, in English. Wanted to jump through the computer and hug him! He also typed to us...some cute and/or funny symbols and then some sweet words: including "You are my family" to which J replied, "You are our brother" and he replied, "You are my sisters and brother." It was amazing and makes it even harder to WAIT so long to go get him. Wish we could hop on a plane NOW!
We are now gearing up for our Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser on Saturday, April 21! I put an ad in the local paper, so hopefully we'll have a good turnout! Please pray for us as this our first real fundraiser! We are hoping to make it closer to our goal. We now have raised $8,720 toward our $30,000 goal, thanks to all of our amazingly generous donors! Words cannot express our gratitude for helping to unite us with our second son. Although we were hoping to be closer to our goal at this point, God has met every need thus far, so we continue to trust in His provision.
Thanks so much to everyone who is reading this, supporting us and praying for us! You are such a blessing!
OK, I love what friends have done to protect the privacy of their kids by using only their first initial....so our Ukrainian son will be V now!:) Our bio kids are A1, J and A2. Thanks for the idea, P!!:)
We then Skyped with V again on Saturday, the 14th and it was AWESOME! He has learned a lot of English since we skyped last- we were so proud of him! One of my favorite things he said was, "One moment" as he lifted one little finger when he would have to leave the camera to go get something he wanted to show us. We showed him our Easter eggs so he ran to get his eggs to show us. They were ornate and incredible. Our colorful yet plain American Easter eggs hung their heads in shame:) I asked him if he would teach us how to do that and he said, "Yes" So NEXT Easter, expect to see some amazing eggs coming from here! We found out that Ukraine actually celebrated Easter a week behind us, on Sunday April 15. He sang a sweet song for us in Ukrainian and then we decided to sing for him! We sang, "How Great is Our God", since we had just seen this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBYTg2Efaek&feature=youtube_gdata_player And then V SANG WITH US! In English!!! Wow, how did he know that? It was so precious. As we were singing, we could see his mouth moving. I thought he must know the song in Russian or Ukrainian, but when we stopped, he kept going and sang another verse by himself, in English. Wanted to jump through the computer and hug him! He also typed to us...some cute and/or funny symbols and then some sweet words: including "You are my family" to which J replied, "You are our brother" and he replied, "You are my sisters and brother." It was amazing and makes it even harder to WAIT so long to go get him. Wish we could hop on a plane NOW!
We are now gearing up for our Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser on Saturday, April 21! I put an ad in the local paper, so hopefully we'll have a good turnout! Please pray for us as this our first real fundraiser! We are hoping to make it closer to our goal. We now have raised $8,720 toward our $30,000 goal, thanks to all of our amazingly generous donors! Words cannot express our gratitude for helping to unite us with our second son. Although we were hoping to be closer to our goal at this point, God has met every need thus far, so we continue to trust in His provision.
Thanks so much to everyone who is reading this, supporting us and praying for us! You are such a blessing!
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Praising God!
I am praising God for an awesome report from International Concern for Children Foundation! We received $2,650 in donations toward our adoption just this week!!! I think that makes this the best week yet! Thank you cannot express our gratitude for what you have done to support our rescue mission. We are now 27% of the way to our goal!!!
Quite honestly, we had hoped to be closer to our goal by now...but God has continually met our needs as they have arisen so we are very grateful! On the day we met our little guy, my husband got his bonus so we were able to initiate our home study. At the time we needed more money to do our fingerprinting, we got our tax return. Now we are preparing to submit our immigration form "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition", which costs ~$1,000, and we have enough donations to do so. God has met every need along this path so far! So we choose to continue to trust Him. God has given us a promise and is meeting our needs....day by day. Manna from Heaven. Thank you all for your support, encouragement, interest, prayers, etc. etc. etc. This journey would be much, much harder without you!!!!
Also, I want to thank God for what He did for us to provide for OUR ADOPTION into His family!! Our tiny, little concerns are nothing compared to His sacrifice for us. We are SO thankful that He loved us so much!
Quite honestly, we had hoped to be closer to our goal by now...but God has continually met our needs as they have arisen so we are very grateful! On the day we met our little guy, my husband got his bonus so we were able to initiate our home study. At the time we needed more money to do our fingerprinting, we got our tax return. Now we are preparing to submit our immigration form "Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition", which costs ~$1,000, and we have enough donations to do so. God has met every need along this path so far! So we choose to continue to trust Him. God has given us a promise and is meeting our needs....day by day. Manna from Heaven. Thank you all for your support, encouragement, interest, prayers, etc. etc. etc. This journey would be much, much harder without you!!!!
Also, I want to thank God for what He did for us to provide for OUR ADOPTION into His family!! Our tiny, little concerns are nothing compared to His sacrifice for us. We are SO thankful that He loved us so much!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Fundraisers are scheduled!!
Just a quick update:
The Pancake Breakfast is set for April 21, 2012
at Liberty Baptist Church, 11043 True Life Way, Clermont, FL
from 8-10am. $7 per person. Don't miss Weej's "FAMOUS" Saturday pancakes!:)
Please email: bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for more info
And our Benefit Yard Sale is set for April 27 & 28, 2012
at the Davis Home in Windermere, FL
We need donations and shoppers!
Donations will be accepted Thursday night, April 26, 2012
Please email: bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for directions
The Pancake Breakfast is set for April 21, 2012
at Liberty Baptist Church, 11043 True Life Way, Clermont, FL
from 8-10am. $7 per person. Don't miss Weej's "FAMOUS" Saturday pancakes!:)
Please email: bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for more info
And our Benefit Yard Sale is set for April 27 & 28, 2012
at the Davis Home in Windermere, FL
We need donations and shoppers!
Donations will be accepted Thursday night, April 26, 2012
Please email: bringhomelilbro@gmail.com for directions
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