Hopkins Family Adoption A Journey of Faith: Be a Part of the Puzzle!

We are now well into Fall here, in Northern Minnesota. The trees have dressed for the the occasion and are now beginning to shed their colors and get ready for a long winters sleep. A chill is in the air, and we may actually get our first flakes of snow later this week. The weather is changing, the seasons are changing. We feel a lot of change happening around us as well, as we move forward with our adoption of our two precious Babies.

These past two months have been difficult, to say the least. But we are still here, and we are still fighting to save these sweet little ones. I am so thankful that I am healing well from my surgery. It will have been five weeks ago tomorrow--how can time pass so quickly? I am feeling great and so thankful to be able to care for my family again. We are so thankful for sweet friends and family who stepped in to help with meals and with our children those first couple of weeks.

Valerie is loving her pre-school three mornings a week. Her highlight is riding the bus. She LOVES the bus. It is too cute. Freddie and I are deep into the adventure of 1st Grade homeschooling this year. Aside from the daily battle over handwriting exercises, it is going really well and we are both enjoying the activities, books and the time spent learning together.

Although Tim and I have traveled to meet our Babies, we still have a long road ahead of us to complete our adoption. Right now we are in the middle of gathering all the documents that we need to submit for court in EE, as well as finishing all the training requirements for our children's Birth Country. We are hoping to have this completed by the end of the month. Then we wait for a court date to be assigned. Honestly, I have no idea how long we will wait for a court date. We will pray and trust that God will provide the date in His perfect timing. Originally we were hoping to have our Babies home by Christmas. While this is still possible, it is looking less likely, as we see how slowly things have been moving in-country.

While we work on documents and wait for court and prepare for our Babies, we still have to work on raising funds for bringing our little ones home. For the last two months we have not seen our RR grant move or our chip-in grow. With travel and surgery I have not had time to do any fundraising at all. And then yesterday, a VERY generous gift from friends of ours to our chip-in. Thank you so very much! Your gift is such a blessing to us and such an encouragement--it not only helps provide much-needed funds for adoption expenses, but it lifts our spirits and helps us feel the support of our community, family and friends. Thank you for being such a blessing to our family!

I have watched several other families do a Puzzle Fundraiser, and I have loved the idea. I bought 2 puzzles a while ago and have been waiting for the right time to launch it. Well, this time seems as good as any to begin! This is how it works. Each puzzle piece is "sold" for $5. When you "purchase" a puzzle piece, we will write your name on the back. When we have sold all the pieces and put the puzzle together, one one side will be a beautiful picture, and on the other side will be even more beautiful--a mosaic of those who came along side us to be part of the puzzle of bringing our Babies home. We will frame the puzzles in a way that both sides will be visible, or perhaps we will photograph the Name Side and hang it next to the photo side of the completed puzzles.

The St. Basil's puzzle has 300 pieces, and the Noah's Ark puzzle has 500 pieces. That is 800 pieces! There are several ways that you can "buy" your puzzle piece. There is the chip-in at the top right of the blog; OR if you want to give a tax-deductible donation, you can do so through the Reece's Rainbow donation give button (with the photos of our babies), a little under the chip-in on the right side of the blog. OR you can just give the donation to me personally and tell me that you want to be part of the puzzle! Please, if you give on RR on chip-in, be sure to let me know, so that I can add your name!

Help us spread the word, and Please consider being Part of the Puzzle to bring our Babies Home!