One week away!

Well, here we are one week away from flying out to go meet our son! He has no idea what is about to happen, or how his life is going to change for the better! It is so hard to stay focused on work, and daily life here for this last week. My mind is already over there and gone! When I even stop and think about coming back home, I get very sad and feel my heart wanting to stay in Ukraine!  I can say I have ever felt that way about anywhere, or anything. Don’t know why I have these feelings for Ukraine, but I do.

As I sit here and pack my baby’s clothes, I am really missing her already. You see she will have to stay in Ukraine with my husband because of many different reasons, but this is what is going to work best for our family. Trust me I have tried to make it work to where she would be coming home with me, but it will be nice for her to be with Rich and be able to bond with her brother also while over there. Keep us all in your prayers for this, because I can tell you it won’t be easy, but it will BE worth it once we are all together in the end!

Thank you for following our journey and supporting us on this road. We look forward to posting updates and pictures of our journey to Tucker and looking forward to the day we meet him!

Let the 6 day count down begin!!!!!

God moves mountains!!

Wow, what a week we have had! We can now say we have enough money to fly over to our son’s country and get him. Thanks to an anonymous donor who stepped up  to help us! I know my God is able, he is mighty and he moves mountains! If he has called you to it, he will equip you. Sometimes it is a struggle and I wouldn’t have had it any differently because I think that with the struggles it helps you embrace the JOY that comes from those struggles.  I am rejoicing in the SON right now, preparing our home, and our travel plans and counting down the days to go meet my son. I can not wait to look into his eyes and say WE ARE HERE FOR YOU! You are loved, you are wanted, you will never be alone again! You are our son! Just to embrace him in a hug, give him a kiss and just show him love , is going to be the best experience each visit we have with him! Thank you for following our journey and stay tuned for our travels. We fly out on May 26th and  we will get to see Isabella’s grandmothers for a few days too.

Thank you for your prayers, and support. We could not have made it this far without all of you! God bless you!!

God is GOOD ALL THE TIME!

On our adoption journey I have been getting the same message over and over, Stop with self-reliance and trust HIM. Has it been easy? Oh far, far from it, so I being the type A personality that I am, always pick it back up and try it again. Well God, just keep letting me get knocked down, over and over, until I had to rely completely on him and lean not on my own understanding. Sometimes, I know it would be so much easier to just stop picking it up and rely on him, but that is just not me. Once I have turned it all over on him and not know where to go, what to do, how it was going to be done, but said “Ok God, I know you have this” Then and only then did I see him move on our behalf.

This week was one year my sweet dear nephew Isaac passed away. What a life he led, a legacy he left behind, a child who never spoke one word, but changed many lives. Our hearts hurt so much missing him and long to hold and kiss him, but we also know he now has his complete healing and is whole and in Jesus’ arms.  You see, one of the things he did was open the door for Rich and I to even consider a special needs adoption. We saw what it entailed when Isaac was born, it didn’t scare us, or make us weary. We knew what love Isaac has brought to our family, the smiles, trials, and joys he was. That is when we knew Hey we can do this! He opened the door for Isabella to have a family, not to live her life out in a cold dark, dreary orphanage with no one to hold her. God had a plan, a purpose and divine appointment for us to meet Isabella and make her our daughter.

Now here we are, on our way to bring home Tucker (not his name by the way), a child with a heart defect. If anyone who knows me, was kind of shocked I was willing to take a child with a heart defect. But God lead us to Tucker and he will be our son no matter what the future holds. We think that his heart defect is not to severe, but there is no way of knowing until we get him home and have him checked out by a cardiologist. What ever it may be, we are prepared as a family to love him, and help him live the best healthy life he possibly can. You see, when God formed Isabella and Tucker in their mother’s womb, he did not intend for them to be left alone with no family, no hope and no future, he intended them to have a family. When we saw the need of these two children we answered a call, and said YES, we will be the family for this child and we   will love them just as you have loved us. See we adopt not to be the rescuers, we help the orphans because WE are the ones who were rescued !

We are still $5,500 short and we need those funds in our account a week before we leave so we can have it when we travel. Please pray for us, share our   need with family, friends and anyone you can! You never know who hear our need and can help us. We need your help, and so does one little boy half way around the world sitting there wondering where is my mommy?   As he watches children leave with other families. Thank you for your support in our journey! God is GOOD ALL THE TIME!

We need HELP!

Easter 2013

It is kind of hard to believe that we have been home 6 months with Isabealla who is now 17 months old.  It seems like yesterday, but then again, it feels like she has always been with us too! Never would I have even thought I would be starting over with a baby, and here I am going back for another little one. God just has a way of leading us down a path we never would have dreamed of, and once you get there you are blown away about how “right” it is! I can’t even begin to describe the JOY of being able to be a little one’s mother who had no one before.  My two oldest daughters never thought they would have a little sister to love and cherish, but now they do.

This time going back, it is my heart’s desire to be able to show others what it is like over there. What it is like in the orphanages and how the children must be feeling so for others to get a better understanding.  I want to break down some walls and some misconceptions others may have about these poor children just laying there and just plain ol EXISTING and not really living.

We need your help! We leave in 26 days  from today and we still need $7,098 before we can even travel! I have been worried about even booking our airline tickets. Please consider helping us out. We are doing back to back adoptions and it is NOT easy! I have done multiple fundraisers and you can look through this blog to see most of them! I HAVE BEEN DOING ALL I CAN AND  KNOW TO DO! Pray for us we need your prayers!

 

We have travel dates!!

We got a call on Friday with our travel dates! We will leave on May 27th and we will get to meet our son the same week! Hang on sweet boy, mommy and daddy are coming!  We are very excited to go get Tucker and meet him and tell him he is loved, wanted and he has a purpose in this world! Our daughters Tiffany and Brianna are very excited also, along with Isabella, even though she might not have a clue what is going on.

Please keep us in your prayers, and please help us with raising our funds! We committed to Tucker in Feb and here we are traveling in May. Not only is that fast, but we are doing back to back adoptions! We have gone from having two children to 4 children in less than a years time! But the very best part is, two of those children had NO ONE, no family, no one to tell them they are loved, valued, and worth so much in life! We are helping transform and change lives, helping change a destiny of an orphan is such a powerful thing!

Keep us in your prayers about what God will have us do while we are there too, how we can help the others who are still waiting and still have No Hope for their futures. I want to be used by God to help as much as I can, and to help another child who is waiting! Whether it be as simple as buying diapers, diaper cream, or stroking the head of a child laying there in silence, I want to be used by God for his purpose!

Thank you for following us on our journey and supporting us through it all!

We need our FSP to read $13,500 before we can even travel! Please consider helping us!

USBORNE book Fundraiser

Who loves books for their children? A friend has graciously agreed to donate her commission check to our adoption fund on all sales we get until next Friday April 26th.  If you home school you don’t want to miss this opportunity with all the great books they offer, and if you aren’t to familiar with USBORNE books, please take a look. There is literally something for everyone! Take a look and let me know if you have questions! Thanks for helping us get Tucker home!!

https://w3170.myubam.com/19422

We have a matching grant that has to be met by this weekend!! Why We choose to adopt over seas

We are in such desperate need of funds and someone has stepped up and given us a $250 matching grant that has to be met by this weekend! Our FSP needs to read $5,034.81 in order to get the grant! Please, Please help us get this grant!!

I have tried to stay really positive and keep pushing through, but I think I am starting to wear down now. Even after the grant we still need a little over $8,000 to be able to go get Tucker. We are supposed to be getting travel dates next week and I don’t know how this is all going to play out. I know what the answer is if we don’t have the money, I know the terrible end to that and I don’t want my mouth to say it.

As far as fundraising, I know we have worked very hard, we have had a gift card giveaway, a kindle fire giveaway, sold kids adoption T-shirts, sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts, had 2 online auctions, a yard sale and a matching grant. If we dont’ make it, it certainly won’t be from the lack of trying….. .

Total cost of an adoption from start to finish is around $25,000.00. Many people have asked us, “Why Eastern Europe and not America?”  I will tell you why we feel the pull to Eastern Europe. When we found out that if you are born with any disability over there the parents are told at birth by Doctors, to give their child to the orphanage that there is nothing they can do for the child. No government assistance exists over there, so if they do choose to keep their child, there is not wheelchair ramps, not elevators in many of the apartment buildings and no physical therapy, no occupational therapy, and they are pretty much shunned from society. If they go to school kids are ruthless and make fun of the disabled because many of the parents feel the same way. It is no life to be born with a disability in Eastern Europe.  I am not against adoption in America and feel EVERY child deserves a family no matter where they are born. We just felt the pull to Eastern Europe and once we visited the orphanages and heard first hand from the families of disabled children the stories, we knew we made the right choice!  That is why we are going back to save another child, I wish we could save them all. I know God is calling us to go back and rescue Tucker and give him a family. We are doing back to back adoptions and it is very difficult to put it lightly. I have learned TOTAL faith and TOTAL reliance on God through this adoption! We need your help and your prayers! You can start by helping us meet our grant that we have to meet by this weekend. Thank you for your support and prayers! That is what has sustained us through all of it!

 

Walking in the dark with no flash light

Who can think of a time you were forced to walk in the total darkness. I’m talking about pitch black, can’t see in front of your face dark! You put your hands out in front of you, and try to feel your way and stumble over things trying not to get hurt, but you know if you just stand there Nothing is going to change or happen. You are making your way to a light switch, flashlight or out into the sunlight so you can see once again!

Well, that is where we and I am at right now! I can not go into details just yet, but I know I needed to put this out there so when we do hit SONshine, or LIGHT, I can say, That is what FAITH can do!  Our lights have been turned off, we can not see our hands in front of our faces right now. We are stumbling around trying to make it out to the SONshine and make it to where we can see! I have faith that God can see the light he is leading me to, I have faith that God is holding me and guiding me in this total pitch black darkness. He is GOD and I am not, and I will hold on to what I know to be true! God is always faithful and even when I can’t see the full picture or understand WHY, it does not change the fact he is working on my behalf. I know I have said this a lot lately, but We really need your prayers, because we are going through this hard time. Just keep us on your prayer list daily and pray God’s will for us!

Thank you for keeping us in prayer!

Dawn

WE met our Grant!!!! Thank you!!

Saying thank you, always seems so little to me when I see how people help us! We made our Grant and I can’t thank everyone enough!  Today has been another rough day and I know I keep saying that, but it is true. To watch our grant just jump and jump was like a little message to me from God and him saying “I got this Dawn, and I have everything in my hands!”  It was like a big message from God to me to let me know,HE is in control, not me!  SO thank you! Thank you, for allowing God to use you to help us, and also to send our family a much needed message today!

We have a Matching Grant!!!!

We have a matching grant!!! WOOHOO!! We have a generous $500 matching grant that needs to be met by next Friday 4/12/13. Our FSP needs to read $3768.84 before we can be given that grant. We really need this grant and your help, so will you please donate, share and ask others to help us too?

Tonight I was reminded once again of why we are doing this. To some it may seem like we are “just adopting” and in a way yes that is true, but in many other ways it is not. Once home we are picking up broken pieces of a child and gently trying to put them together. In some other ways, we are giving them pieces they never had. I went to put Isabella to bed tonight and all she kept doing as I would place her down in her crib is cry out ” Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama” Over and over again. I had to pick her back up and say “yes, mama is here, mama is here..shhhhh.” She needed to know I was there and she was crying out for me. You see when she would cry out since birth NO ONE would come to her, she would lay there for I am sure hours at a time crying and no one ever came! Going back to basics that is what infants learn, if I cry someone comes and picks me up, feeds me or changes me, well not in her case or of the many other orphan cases. I am putting a child back together and building her back up so she can feel loved, safe, secure and let her know she MATTERS TO ME and MATTERS SO SOMEONE!  You see, we will be doing the same with Tucker who has lived in a orphange for almost 3 years now, so we will have a little more work to do with him. We are ready for the challenge and offering him a family is way better than what he has now. We know it might not be an easy road, but oh are these precious children so worth it and more~!  I always often think this must be how the Father feels about us many times, if we just give him a chance he is there and can put our pieces back together.

Please help us, so we can help Tucker grow into the man he is destined to be! WE want to equip and give Tucker all he needs and teach him about God and how he is loved!