Kindle Fire Giveaway--10 more days!

Ten more days to enter in the Kindle Fire giveaway! We are hoping that our grant for Joshua will get to the $5,000 mark with this giveaway. We have $550 left to go. Each $10 can add up and make a difference! Please consider this opportunity to help us bring Joshua home, and at the same time, you have a chance at willing some really great prizes! See here for details:

http://hopkinsfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/2012/05/kindle-fire-giveaway.html

So, just the other night, I was adding up what the total cost for the adoption was going to be and--yikes!! Looks like it is going to be quite a bit more than we were expecting. Part of this is because airfare is really high right now, and so hopefully our 2nd and 3rd trips will be more reasonable as far as plane tickets.

We are officially registered and waiting out the 10 day period as the officials in Joshua's country go over all our paperwork and decide if they need any additional information. We are praying that they will be satisfied with what they have and that they would then invite us to travel!

15 Days, Fingerprints and a Llittle Family Fun!

It is 15 days into the month of June. We are 15 days into our Kindle Fire giveaway. 15 days left to join in! So far we have had a couple of generous donations, lots of shares on Facebook, and a couple of blog links. We have a long way to go to make our goal for this fundraiser, but it is so very possible! We are hoping and praying that we will be making plans soon for buying visas and plane tickets to meet our precious boy. Please help our Joshua grant to grow as we move closer to the time that we will be traveling to meet him! Your donation of $10 really can make a big difference! For all the details for the giveaway, please see here:

http://hopkinsfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/2012/05/kindle-fire-giveaway.html

Yesterday morning we had to be in Fargo, ND to be fingerprinted by the FBI for immigration. We have submitted all the paperwork, so now we wait for the approval letter from Homeland Security, allowing us to bring Joshua into our country. We need to have this approval before we have our court date in Joshua's country, but not before our first trip to meet him.

Since we had to be in Fargo bright and early, we drove down the night before (we are about 3 hours away). Our fingerprinting appointment went well and we were in and out of the office quickly. So we took the kids to the Red River Zoo where we spent the rest of the of the beautiful morning. Freddie had so much fun seeing the animals. He especially loved the armadillo, the meercats, and the peacocks with their little chicks. Valerie had fun pushing around her stroller, and they both enjoyed a ride on the carousel.

Kindle Fire Giveaway!!!

I am so excited to announce our Kindle Fire Giveaway fundraiser! It is going to be so much fun! And, I hope and pray that it will move our grant fund for Joshua up, up, up, and bring us that much closer to bringing him HOME. Keep reading for the exciting details!!

Why are we fundraising? Let me tell you--it is hard! It is hard to ask for help from others. It is humbling to admit that we need others to be involved in our lives and in our adoption process. But it is good! And God is good. All the time. God has lead us to pursue this adoption, and we are joyfully walking in obedience to what He has called us. We are stepping out in faith that God will meet all our needs, as He has promised.

"And God will meet all your needs according to His glorious richness which is in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19.

International adoption is very costly. There are agency fees, homestudy fees, country fees, visas, immigration fees, travel expenses for the multiple trips required for Joshua's adoption. We are estimating that the total adoption expenses for Joshua's adoption will be about $40,000. This seems like an impossible mountain to overcome!

"The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the lord of all the earth." Psalm 97:5

We have already been so blessed by the love and generosity that has been poured on us and on our sweet Joshua. We are SO THANKFUL for those who are eagerly waiting with us for Joshua to come home. We are so excited to see how God is going to move and how He is going to provide. We are ready to see some mountains melting!

Now, on the the details of the Giveaway!

The giveaway will run for the month on June, beginning June 1st, and ending on June 30th. The winners will be announced here on the blog on July 2nd.

How to enter the Giveaway:

There are two ways to enter the giveaway--DONATE and SHARE

DONATE:

*** All donations through the Reece's Rainbow grant (on the right) are tax-deductible!

$10 = 1 entry

$25 = 5 entries
$50 = 20 entries
$100 = 50 entries

Share:

Help us spread the word about our giveaway!

Share on Facebook, Twitter, etc. = 1 entry

Blog about our giveaway = 1 entry

PLEASE be sure to leave a comment/send me an email to let me know that you have donated/shared so that I can enter you! Please let me know the amount that you donated so that I can give you the correct amount of entries.

Winners will be randomly selected and will be announced on the blog on July 2nd.

Here are the FABULOUS prizes!!

First Prize = Brand New Kindle Fire!

Second Prize = $25 Target Gift Card

Third Prize = $15 Starbucks Gift Card

Fourth Prize = $15 Cold Stone Creamery Gift Card

Fifth Prize = $15 Bath & Body Works Gift Card

Prizes 6-10 = Handmade Bead Bracelet

Prizes 11-15 = Handmade Coffee Sleeves

Prizes 16-20 = Handmade Key Chains

This will be so much fun! And we will have 20 winners! Please DONATE and share, share, share! We are hoping and praying that this will MELT SOME MOUNTAINS!!!

A New Blog Design!

I am super excited about this lovely new design for our blog! Thank you, Nikki--I love it!

http://www.madebynikki.blogspot.com/

Our Dossier (all the paperwork required by Joshua's country) has arrived in Eastern Europe! It has all been translated! We are expecting the papers to be registered in 2 weeks--so excited for that! I am hoping and praying that we won't be asked for more documents and that we will quickly receive Joshua's official referral. Our first trip to meet Joshua could happen soon--or may still take a little while. It is an exercise of patience, and trusting in God's perfect timing in all things.

We have a super fun and exciting fundraiser giveaway coming really really soon!!! I am so excited to share about it! Stay tuned.........

Our Dossier Is On Its Way!!

Finally, I feel like we are getting somewhere!  It is so exciting to know that our paperwork (Dossier) will be received in Joshua's country sometime this week, and all the documents will then be translated into his country's native language and registered in Joshua's region of that country.  Although it seemed to take forever to bring us to this point, I know that the timing is all in God's hands, and I am choosing to trust Him in all things.  It won't be too long now before we get our dates for our first trip to meet our precious Joshua!

I thought that I would take some time to give you a little peek into this adoption process.  Every country has different rules and requirements, and a different process.  For Joshua's adoption, things are way different than our experience of adopting Valerie from Hong Kong.  But no matter what country, International Adoption is not for the faint of heart!  It is a long, grueling process that is every bit as emotionally draining as it is financially exhausting.

International Adoption involves stacks of paperwork and red tape, multiple finger-printings by the police and the FBI.  We have gotten to know several local notaries on a first-name basis.  We have gone through several interviews with our Social Worker where have discussed basically everything we ever did, said, or thought about!  (At least that is how it feels!)  We have had to make detailed lists of finical assets and liabilities to prove that we can adequately care for an adopted child and that we are financially stable.  The paperwork and forms that need to be filled out seem to be never-ending.  We have to receive 30 hours of training classes, which we are doing on-line.

Sometimes in the middle of all of this, we stop and say, "Why are we doing all this?  It is so inconvenient.  It is so hard.  It is so exhausting.  It is so expensive."  But then when we look at Joshua's sweet face, we know that it will all be worth it, so we press onward toward the prize.  We know that we are following where God is leading us, and we find peace and rest in knowing that we are obeying His calling in our lives. 

So here we are, with our Dossier en route to Joshua's country!  This week we also sent in our I-600A application, which is basically seeking approval for Joshua to immigrate to our country, where he will be a US citizen once the adoption is finalized in his country.  What do we still have to do?

* Our Dossier has to be translated
* Our Dossier will be registered in Joshua's region of his country
* The country may ask for additional documents (pray that they won't!)
* Make our 1st trip to meet Joshua and formally accept his referral
* Get appointment for FBI finger-printing for the I-600A
* Get I-600A approval
* Wait for court date in Joshua's country (usually 2-3 months after 1st trip)
* Make our 2nd trip to Joshua's country for court
* Wait for 30 days after court, for court documents to be released (back in the US)
* Return to Joshua's country after the 30 day wait, get his US passport and visa
* Bring Joshua HOME!

Please pray for us and with us as we work hard toward bringing Joshua home!  And please pray for Joshua, for his health, safety and protection--that he would know that he is loved!

Waiting.....and Working

I wish that I had a real update to give everyone.  I wish that we could be celebrating another step closer to our Sweet Joshua, instead......we are still waiting.  Waiting is hard work.  Waiting is exhausting.  It would be so much easier to be doing something.  Soon, soon I hope we will have news of progress--but for now we wait, and we trust in God and we quietly ache for Joshua who still does not know how he is loved.  Oh,  how he is loved!  I long to snuggle him into me and kiss his precious cheeks and whisper love to him--each day that slips by with out a family is another day too long.  Soon, soon, Darling Boy!

In the mean time, as we wait, we do stay very busy.  We are working hard to be ready for Joshua's arrival.  We are working hard to raise the money that is needed to bring him home.  We had a garage sale last weekend and we did well.  Now we will be having another on May 5th, and we are praying to raise even more adoption funds.  Please let me know if you have items that you can donate to our sale!

We are SO Grateful and so Thankful for those who have lovingly given to our adoption fund!  It is such a blessing and an encouragement to our family!  It is so humbling to see how God is working in our lives and in the lives of many people who we love--and even some people who we don't even know--to supply the needed funds to bring Joshua home.  There is no better way to "store up treasures in heaven!"  We continue to trust God, as we still have a long way to go with funds--but we know that He is ABLE! 

Please keep us in your prayers as we wait!

Garage Sale Fundraiser!

Our community is having a huge indoor craft and garage sale at our local event center.  I have rented space, and now I am needing to fill it!  Please let me know if you have any unwanted items that you would like to donate.  All the proceeds will go directly to help with the expenses of bringing our sweet Joshua home.  It is a craft sale as well as a garage sale, so I will have an area set up with my handmade goodies as well.  It is just one week from tomorrow--yikes!  That is on April 21st.  I have a lot of work to do!  :)  If you are doing some spring cleaning and have some extra things that you were going to get rid of anyway, we would love them for our garage sale!  Let's fill up the space get a little closer to bringing our sweet boy home forever!