Our Trip to Russia - Part Two

As you all should know, we have had many fundraisers since we began the process to adopt Leanna way back in January. From yard sales to puzzle pieces (which are still available for sponsoring, by the way) to yard sales to jars to fill with change and back to yard sales. When we got the news that we were to be in St. Petersburg in a mere 10 days, we went into a bit of panic mode…for just a day. Our first order of business was to apply for our Visas. It just so happened that that week the Russian Consolate had a two-day holiday, which meant they wouldn’t even LOOK at our Visa applications until the following Monday…and we needed them back by Thursday. Which meant that instead of applying for 8-day processing which would have cost $400 for both, we had to apply for 3-day processing…which cost $1,100 for both. Great. Then, of course, we had to arrange our flights. At that time we were looking at around $2,400 for both tickets. Some friends of ours had offered us their buddy passes…which would’ve reduced the cost to about $940 for both tickets. But it also meant we would fly standby. It was a tough decision. We only had so much money in our adoption fund. Do we go the cheaper route and hope we make it there in time for our meeting with the Social Committee? Or do we bite the bullet and pay full price for guaranteed seats? I did what any woman would do. I called a good friend for advice. She agreed it was a tough call. Then I told her that Jon had almost enough Skymiles for one ticket. We were a mere 2,000 miles short. My friend said, “My sister travels all the time. Let me call her and see if she’ll transfer some miles to you.” To make a long story short, after a round of emails my friend’s sister (who I met one time many years ago) had transferred enough miles to us for BOTH tickets. We paid the transfer fee and after all was said and done, we paid $715 for TWO round trip tickets to St. Petersburg.

But wait…the story gets better.

At the end of the week we paid our translator for her WONDERFUL services. Oksana is amazing…we both grew to love her over the week. After we paid her, we realized that we weren’t going to have enough money to pay our driver the next day. We knew when we left that it was going to be close...how much we had in our adoption fund versus how much we would need for the trip. We were short for a few reasons, but we really thought that since this was how much we had, then we would not need any more for the trip. We both figured that God knew how much money we had in our fund and He wouldn't let our need surpass that. Well...it didn't happen that way. We were short. About $400 short. We didn’t really have a choice, so we visited the ATM that night. There’s always the credit card, right? Although I don’t believe it’s God’s plan for us to go into debt to adopt Leanna. It seems like if He has called us to this, then He will also provide everything we need…right? But here we were…$400 short.

Meanwhile, back here in Georgia a few of our friends had been inspired to hold a yard sale and give the proceeds to our adoption fund. That is rather an amazing story in itself. They didn’t plan on having the yard sale for a few more weeks. But it just so happened that everything was ready, so the yard sale happened last Saturday. The very day we handed over $400 that we didn’t really have. Well, I guess it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Their yard sale raised over $400. $458 to be exact. Isn’t that awesome?!

But wait…the story gets EVEN BETTER!

Jon just finished working on our budget and getting everything input and separating everything we spent last week between adoption related and personal spending. Guess how much we have left in our adoption fund after receiving the check for $458? About $57. And guess how much we need right now to get a bit more paperwork done that Oksana told us about…$58. Once again, we have just what we need!! WOO HOO!!

I hope you will join us today in giving thanks to God…on Thanksgiving Day…how appropriate. He has provided our every need throughout this process. And I’m not just talking about financial need. I know He will continue to provide. He has increased our faith over and over. We have over $16,000 due in January and expect to take our second trip at the end of January or early February. I have no idea where all this money will come from. But I am waiting expectantly and eagerly for Him to show me.

Yard Sales

Most of you regular readers know that we had a HUGE yard sale last month as a fundraiser for our adoption. I had been collecting loads of donations for weeks. Our garage was full, almost to the brim. It was really quite ridiculous (just ask those who came to help!). The day before our yard sale was the day that the false report came out that Russia had indeed suspended adoptions. Although the information was false, there was still a real possibility that they would decide to suspend. I had had a sinus infection all week and had no time to see my doctor. I was exhausted physically and emotionally. I did not care about the yard sale or anything else. If cancelling it had been an option, I would have.

As it was, the yard sale was huge. Jon and I got up at 5 am and began setting up at 6. An hour and a half later the yard and driveway were full of tables and they all had items on them, but the garage didn't look like it had been touched. We truly had SO MUCH STUFF! Would a visual help? I took these three pictures just before 8 am.

I wish you could see what the garage looked like at this point. We could walk in it (finally), but there was still so much stuff in there!

We had eight clothes racks completely full...baby girl, baby boy, older girl, older boy, mens, womens...you get the idea. We also had 2 couches, 2 chairs, a dishwasher, a desk, 3 table & chair sets, a coffee table...

Not to mention several bikes, lots of baby and toddler items, strollers, scooters and TONS of books that we set up in the garage.

It was quite a spectacle. My yard looked like a consignment store. We had lots of shoppers on Friday. Saturday was pretty slow since we were competing with a neighborhood yard sale not far from us. But it was still a very successful yard sale...to the tune of...

$1,800!!

Our friends adopting from Ethiopia were advised to bump up all their fundraisers since they had received their referral and will soon be traveling. They had also been collecting donations for a yard sale fundraiser. Their yard sale wound up being the weekend following ours. A friend of theirs offered to host the yard sale at her home since her very large neighborhood was having a huge yard sale that weekend. Rain had been in the forecast all week, but we were still praying it would hold off. We set everything up the night before the sale and covered it all with tarps. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, it started raining. I woke up to rain. I prayed that God would bless the yard sale anyway and that He would send shoppers. When I arrived at the yard sale shortly after 7 am, I could not believe my eyes...everything was soaking wet!

And. There. Were. Shoppers!

People had been shopping since 6:45 am in the pouring down rain! I'm not talking about a light drizzle here...there was thunder and lightning and solid DOWNPOUR!!! And we had people shopping until early afternoon! It was simply amazing!

We had a short break from the rain so I ran out and snapped some pictures before it started again. By the time I took these, we had already sold SO MUCH STUFF!!

Caleb, Jenna, Abbi and Carrington ran the baked goods table.

They did a fabulous job!

Even with the rain, the yard sale raised $1,300!

Praise be to God Almighty

who repeatedly exceeds our expectations!

Progress

Well, it's been two weeks since my last adoption post, so I thought I'd give an update on our progress so far. First, I guess you can all see that we've already sold 172 puzzle pieces! Praise the Lord, we are so excited about that! We also have many other promises to buy, so we're not off to a bad start. The kids and I have had a good time putting the puzzle together. As you can see, the edges are complete and we've started filling in one of the corners. We also have about 70 pieces that are just waiting to be attached. But we can't attach them until they are 'bought', so if you've been meaning to purchase any, now is the time! We're not attaching the pieces until they're bought so we can write the names on the back of each piece. I will say, this puzzle is so hard! What were we thinking?! I won't tell you what the picture is...I want your anticipation to be high so you check back regularly to see what we chose for Leanna.

We've also made lots of progress with our homestudy. Jon and I got our FBI and GBI fingerprinting done and sent it off. Now we wait to get our clearances back. It looks like the average time to get the FBI clearance back right now is about 3 months. In the meantime, we'll finish up with all the other paperwork and get the miscellaneous things accomplished...have the septic tank pumped, get the pets vaccination records, etc. I'm about halfway done with the Self Study and feel good about that. Jon spoke with his supervisor and filled him in about what's going on. Jon let him know that our travel dates will likely be given with very short notice and Jon will have to drop everything when we get those dates. His supervisor was very understanding and said okay. All 5 of us have had our first physicals...the kids are all up to date on their immunizations and Jon and I both had our TB tests done. Last week I sent off for certified copies of our birth certificates and marriage certificate ($101 later). We'll need these for our dossier later on. Jon will have to send off for his birth certificate though...since he was born in Japan, he has to go a different route. I'm so glad that we both already have passports and we won't be waiting for those.

Our home visit was yesterday. I had talked to Tonya at Options 4 Adoption several times on the phone, but yesterday was the first time I met her face to face. She was just as wonderful in person as she is on the phone. Options 4 Adoption is taking care of our homestudy and then we'll contract with our adoption agency. I'm looking forward to getting to that point. Anyway, we gave her all the paperwork we've finished so far...I was suprised how many things we were able to check off the list. Very encouraging! She interviewed Jon and I (we had to give 3 adjectives that described our personality, our mother's personality and our father's personality...it was suprisingly difficult!) and she also interviewed the kids. Then the kids gave her a tour of the house. We'll see her again in two weeks, hopefully with the rest of the paperwork completed. That's our goal anyway. She has 2 adopted kids...one from Russia and one from Ukraine. She asked us how much we anticipate spending on this adoption and we told her probably around $35,000 according to all of the expenses we know of right now. She said it will be more like $48,000 to $50,000. She shared many little tidbits about Russia with us. She apologized at the end and said she hoped she hadn't discouraged us. Quite the contrary! I just kept thinking, "Wow, Lord, I can't wait to see how You pull this all together!" I don't know what was going through Jon's mind, but discouragement never crossed mine. As I think back to all she shared last night, I'm really a bit surprised that there's not a hint of discouragement. Just anticipation. Let's get this done and bring Leanna home!

Some people with New Horizons left last week to go to Russia, Ukraine and Latvia to interview children for the summer hosting program. They offered to take things to our children for a small fee. We prepared a package for Leanna and sent that off. Now I'm working on getting the information to call her. It's unbelievable that she's only been gone 2 1/2 weeks. It seems more like 2 or 3 months.

I must confess, I am getting rather impatient. I just want everything to be done so we can go get Leanna and bring her home. I know there's a process. I understand that. I know we have to get checked out inside and out. And I understand why. What I don't understand is why it needs to take so long. What's interesting to me is how God is using so many things to teach me about patience these days. Last week, every one of my daily devotions was about patience. The other day, the author quoted Hebrews 6:15, which says, "Having patiently waited, Abraham obtained the promise." Do you know what that promise was? In Genesis 12, God promised Abraham He would make him into a great nation. God promised Abraham offspring. Abraham was 75 years old when God promised him this. 15 years later God confirmed His promise and told Abraham he would be the father of many nations. God promised him that he would be fruitful and have many descendants. 10 years after that, at the age of 100, 25 years after God promised him children, Abraham and his wife Sarah had their son, Isaac. Sarah was 90. She laughed when she overheard the Lord tell Abraham she would have a son. Can anyone blame her? She was well past child-bearing years after all. But my point is, Abraham waited patiently for the promised son. For 25 years. Romans 4 says that Abraham's faith did not weaken even though his body was as good as dead and Sarah's womb was too. Verses 20 & 21 say that Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He promised. Wow! I hope I come through this experience with just a fraction of Abraham's faith...and his patience.

I don't read Beth Moore's blog everyday, but I do try to keep up with it regularly. Well, a few days ago I was really struggling with my impatience. I just want to go get Leanna. Why must I wait? She's almost 14. I'm losing precious time with her. These are the days that she needs a momma to talk to and cry to and ask questions as she navigates through puberty. Anyway, I was on Beth's blog and read a post that I hadn't yet because, frankly, it was a long one and I hadn't taken the time to read it. But God's timing is wonderful, as usual. The post is titled 'That's Not What I'm Doing' in case any of you want to go read it. The link to Beth's blog is on my blogroll to the right (The LPM Blog). It started out as one of her funny family posts and moved into a story about her and her grandson building with some new blocks. It's a really sweet story and I won't share the whole thing with you. Just the part that spoke to me...

"Often, we just don't know what God is doing. So often we think we do but, the truth is, we just don't. Thankfully, He does. He really does. He doesn't need our help. Our brilliant ideas. Or our last ditch efforts because He ignored our first ten suggestions. He just wants our cooperation. He is constructing something beyond our human rationale. He knows in advance every piece - past, present, and future - that will be required for the finished work. He has all the patience in the universe to put it together. We see one little part and one little moment. He, the One who is, who was, and is to come, sees beyond the singular piece to every generation and condition He means to effect. Meanwhile, He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. The one thing may not be good at all by itself. In fact, it may be horrendous. Criminal. It's when He weaves it with all that comes before it and all that will come around and behind it that something good, something beneficial, emerges. Never let Romans 8:28 become so familiar that you subconsciously fold it into your spiritual fairy tale file. It is as true today as it was the moment the Apostle dripped the letters on the parchment. Don't blow them dry. Maybe it's not that God isn't listening. Maybe it's just that what we keep suggesting is not exactly what He's doing. And, if that's so, what He's doing can only be better and more effectual than what we think we'd do in His place.

John 13:7 says something that keeps ringing in my ears.

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

Later.

LATER.

L.A.T.E.R.

We WILL understand. "

And THAT is the promise I will cling to for however long it takes to bring Leanna home.

Puzzle Piece Fundraiser

I am SUPER excited to announce our first fundraiser to help bring Leanna home! I believe and hope this is one that everyone can participate in and will have fun with. Here is how it will work:

The kids and I went out yesterday to find a 1,000 piece puzzle for Leanna. We dug around the shelves for a few minutes and then we found 'the one.' We all said, "Now THAT looks like a Leanna puzzle!" So, we will raise money by 'selling' the puzzle pieces. Everyone has the option to sponsor a puzzle piece (or pieces if you want. There is no limit!) for $10. Every time someone 'purchases' a puzzle piece, we will write their name on the back of a puzzle piece and begin to put the puzzle together. I will frequently take pictures of the puzzle coming together and post them here so everyone can see the progress of it being built! When the puzzle is complete, we will glue it together and hang it in Leanna's room. She'll be able to take the puzzle down and look at the back and she'll always be reminded of each of you who cared and contributed to bringing her home.

If you would like to become a puzzle piece sponsor, you can either use the “Donate” button in the top right corner, or you can contact me for other arrangements. And please spread the word! I will be sending this out via email to every email address I have as well as all my Facebook friends. You may receive this announcement more than once, and for that I apologize. Please feel free to forward this to anyone and everyone you know. You just never know who will want to help us bring Leanna home.