So Many Things.

We really have had an incredible few weeks. Since our last post we had the remaining $2,835 gifted to our adoption fund at Small World. This means that as of last Thursday when I posted the Dossier to our agency we are now waiting on a referral from Lesotho. In adoption this is known as the ‘waiting game’ because you really have no idea how long this will take. The ‘referral’ is the actual file of a child/ren available to be adopted. This will be the first photo we will get to see. We have been encouraged by the news from our agency. Mid February we received an email from the director of the Lesotho program who said:

“This has been an exciting week for Small World’s Lesotho program.  This week we received our first referral from Lesotho! There are a few things we learned from this referral process.  First, this family received their referral just over 4 months after their dossier was submitted to Lesotho.  That is a good referral time and encouraging.  We must remember though that the more families that are in a program and the further back in line a family is, the more chance there is for families to wait longer for a referral.  Second, we learned that this match was made by the Lesotho Central Authority in December.  It took almost exactly 2 months to receive the referral documents.  Of course holidays were mixed in that time and could account for some of it.

This has been wonderful news and encouraging about this pioneer program.  We recognize that this is one case and not all cases are the same, but we remain optimistic about this program”.

As you could imagine that email was super encouraging for us. We are so thankful for our wonderful agency and their care for the process.

Many of you are aware that our FB page has been blasted with another shirt/hoodie fundraiser. We did not intend to do another one of these but we had so many people asking for them that we decided to give it a bash. I have even had strangers within our Spring Hill community purchase them. We have been blown away with how much these shirts have helped us. If you have not got yours yet, there is still time. The fund closes on March 4^th. Click on the t-shirt on my (or Cam’s) FB page and you should be directed to the online store. Thank you to all of you who have supported us! We love the idea that people in the United States, Australia, Singapore, England and Colombia will be wearing our shirts. We would love you to take a photo of you in your shirt and post it on our FB page and tell us where you are!

This Friday, we meet with the director of Both Hands to discuss a fundraiser. I love the idea. In short it is an Orphan Care project that raises funds for orphans while serving a widow through home improvement projects. All of the materials are donated and our team of volunteers request sponsorship for their day of work. All the money raised goes toward our adoption. We are hoping to do this in the spring before it gets crazy hot here. Stay tuned…

I have also recently decided that we will do a MEGA-you-won’t-believe-your-eyes Garage Sale. It dawned on me the other week when I was talking with a friend who is trying to sell her house and has loads of stuff that she wanted to give away. I thought ‘hey – I’ll take it off your hands and do a garage sale’. Cam did enjoy the news as I was driving to fill our van up with stuff J. So – if you have things lying around your house and ready for a spring clean-out, let me know and I will be more than happy to take them off your hands for our MEGA-you-won’t-believe-your-eyes Garage Sale. I know you want to be there!

While all this has been happening I have completed seven grant applications. Some grants have a number of deadlines throughout the year so we won’t expect to hear from some for quite a few months. Others wait until you have a ‘referral’ before they make a decision and others are matching grants, which means that they approve to match any gift that someone gives.

It really has been quite a busy period and now that the large amount of paperwork period has passed we keep looking forward to what is before us. We still need to remain focused on raising the remaining $36,000. Please join us in prayer about this. Though we do not know how this will be provided we know the One who does and in this we rest.

                   

Again, thank you to so many of you who are sharing the journey with us. We are so thankful that we are not alone. If you would like to support our adoption, please contact us. We soon may have matching grants available which would be a quicker way to get to the finish line.

Until next time,

Taryn (& Cam)