This week has been full of many fabulous ups and one not so fantastic down. The I800A not only got approved, but I received it Friday. I had it in my greasy little hands for about 1 hour before I rushed to the post office and overnighted it to Alison, the lady in charge on Hong Kong adoptions. Before you ask, yes, I made a copy of it before I mailed it off.
On Tuesday I found out that we were accepted for the Promise 686 Grant. If you aren't familiar with Promise 686 I'll give you a quick tutorial. Perimeter Church in Atlanta ( a Presbyterian PCA church like us) backs this grant. It is a matching grant of up to $8000. Meaning they match dollar per dollar up to $4000. You have to live within the greater Atlanta area to qualify.
I cannot tell you how thrilled we were! And the crazy part is that we already have people giving us money. I'm trying desperately trying to figure out how to set everything up. What an amazing problem to have!!
I have to tell you, I'm not a very eloquent prayer. It usually sounds something like, "Please, please Lord let so and so happen ", or " Please, please Lord heal my kid, save my kid, help him/her find a Godly spouse". See, not very original. But one of my best friends, Allison (who happens to be a wonderful Godly woman), had told me that she prayed for open or closed doors ( in a situation they were dealing with). So that is what I did. And guess what? He has blown the doors off the hinges for us!
We did not have the money to do this adoption. We were in a doing ok financially only because God had led us to Dave Ramsey. We had become debt free in October '10. But we were still working on our emergency fund when we started considering adoption. Money was probably the biggest hindrance to adopting. How were we going to come up with the estimated $20,000 it would take to pay for this adoption? I spoke to some ladies at my church who had adopted multiple times and asked where the money came from? They said that it just comes. What?? How in the name of Sam Hill does that happen? We were about to find out.
For some reason, we decided for forge ahead without a check for $20K sitting in front of us. The first thing we did was have a garage sale. I've blogged about that. It was AMAZING! So to date, we've paid $8700 to the adoption agency and probably $2000 in miscellaneous bills related to the adoption ( passports, I800A, doctor visits etc.) So where did we get the money? We made about $4500 with the yard sale. The rest was just bizzaro. We got a tax refund, and somehow we had the rest of the money in the bank. Crazy, huh? Not crazy, but God. David and I didn't do anything fantastic but trust that God would provide. I can't explain the amount of peace I have had with the "money" issue. I just trusted it would be there. If you know me, you know this is SOOOOO not my personality. I'm a worrier and I especially freak out when it comes to money. God is providing in more than one way.
We still have about $10K to raise. But as crazy as this may sound, I'm looking forward to raising it. This adoption process and helped strengthen my faith. If we are doing His will, He will provide. That has been shown to us over and over again.
So, as for the bad part of the week, I think I'll wait and see if that situation sorts itself out. It could look pretty bad for a company and for their employee. I'm not into bashing them publicly on the internet. Not saying I wasn't ticked, but I've had time to calm down. David and I made a decision together to turn the problem over to our pastor and elders (if it is not handled properly). I am much more at peace knowing I don't have to go after Goliath by myself.
Ahhhhh! I already feel better ;0)
Hopefully Alison will mail out the dossier to Hong Kong on either Monday or Tuesday. Then we get to wait for Hong Kong to give us a referral. After that we travel!!! Please pray for an expedited referral. The little boy we are adopting is turning 3 in July. We'd really love to have him in our arms to celebrate his birth.
One last thing I forgot to mention about praying. David and I had about an hour long discussion with our pastor a few weeks ago. It was and interview for a grant that requires your pastor to ask you some questions about salvation etc. It turned into a "mini" counseling session. It was fantastic. One of the little gems I picked up while there was another way to pray. My pastor said that a way to ask God to expedite our plans, and help with funding would be to make our case to God. Basically list the reasons why we want to hurry up an get to Hong Kong. List the reasons we need the money to make this trip possible. I am so grateful for this advice. David and I are truly blessed to have such a wise and Godly man as our pastor.
That is all for now. Hopefully we'll have that referral soon!
