Garage Sale

It’s Garage Sale Time!

Saturday, July 19, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
321 Stewart Springs Dr. in Adelaide Park

Furniture, children’s items, clothing, toys, Christmas items, home décor, electronics, and more.

Thanks to everyone who donated items for our sale! We didn’t have much to begin with, and now we have a garage packed from floor to ceiling.

Hope to see you Saturday!

Update

It's been a little while since we have had time to update and this is my first time updating, this is Chris! I figured I needed to do more than sign where Dawn told me to and sell stuff on Craig'st list! A lot has happened since our last update! We are both now officially FBI cleared. I know some of you thought that might be a close call, but no close calls here. Our home study has now been completed and approved. It makes me feel good that someone else thinks I can be a good father! We are now waiting on our immigration papers to be approved saying we can bring an orphan into the United States. As soon as we get this document the waiting game begins!

Monday Dawn and I leave for camp with our students, Camp Whatever! We were talking last night that this time next year we will be loading our son up and heading to camp! Well maybe not the whole camp but part of it. We have to start him early!

Thanks for keeping up with us! We are so thankful for your support and prayers! Please continue to pray that God protects our son and his birth mother. Pray Dawn doesn't pull her hair out with all the paper work. Pray that God continues to be faithful, as He has been so many times, as we continue to save for our adoption. Pray for me that I don't fly to Africa tomorrow so I can bring my son to camp with me on Monday! :)

We will update again soon.

Tired!

Chris and I just got back from picking up two loads of donations for our garage sale. We've settled on July 26 so we can get past student ministry camp and have time to sort everything. Thanks to everyone who has given us stuff! Because we've only been married for three years, we personally haven't accumulated enough to hold a garage sale of our own. That doesn't stop me from "shopping" our own house, though, to see what I can sell!

Since my last post we've sent in lots of paperwork and completed part of the home study. We should finish our home study this week.

The rest of our paperwork is going well. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks for continuing to read even though we don't have much to share right now!

Paper Progress

Amy H. told me last week how much difference a week can make, and boy is she right! Last week we didn't have any paperwork ready to send off, and this week we're mostly done and have scheduled our home study. Now is the dreaded process of authenticating documents for our foreign dossier. Yeah, I have no idea what that means either. Basically, I think it means following the paper trails for the foreign government to be sure the documents are indeed authentic. There's a former employee from our adoption agency who now helps people with this process for a small fee (relative to the rest of our expenses), and I'm trying to decide whether or not to hire her. My first instinct was that this fee is so small in the grand scheme of things, and it's worth it to be sure everything is done quickly and correctly. Again, a month ago I didn't know about any of this!

Well, I need to work on gathering more family photos so we can show our agency and Ethiopia what kind of life a child in our family would have. Note to self: How on earth do I "label" a picture of all of our students?

It's a Boy!

Leslie surprised me with this adorable babydoll to congratulate us on our adoption. Isn't he too cute?

Chris and I have decided to officially change our preference from no preference to a boy. We've always talked about the baby like it's going to be a boy, and even though we would love any child, we're just stuck on a boy. Now, it's just official.

I've been working nonstop on our paperwork for Gladney (our adoption agency), our home study, and our foreign dossier. I have two sets ready to send, but I'm nervous about the money part! We're in the last group to receive our tax rebate, but thankfully we should receive it on the 16th. A big thanks to Amy H., who has been a huge help with questions and big-picture encouragement.

We're working on some fundraisers, including a garage sale (probably on June 7), a Nintendo Wii raffle, and Girls/Guys Night Out (click the "How You Can Help" page for more info). If you have any great fundraising ideas, please let me know!

We love you all! Thanks for all of your support and encouraging words! In case you missed Chris's blog about our frequently asked questions, you can check it out here.