His Goodness

One week was all it took to raise the $500 it took to get that thermometer over the $20000 mark! How amazing is our God and the people He moves to help!

 

That's $10000 raised and saved since February when I started this blog.  Just six months!

 

I'm blown away by His goodness.

 

So depending on travel I just need about another $9946.  Maybe more, maybe less.  I won't know for sure until I have to book my travel.

 

I have to tell you, I like that nice, small four digit number!

 

The more I think about Garreth (see previous post) the more I want to get my son home fast.

 

Sadly, agencies and governments don't feel the same urgency as we do.  I've checked my email countless times this week hoping for an update.  Nothing yet.

 

Maybe tomorrow!

 

I want to share something with you that I read tonight.

 

Mental institutions are not a great place to be.

 

Pretty terrible....no, downright nightmarish.

 

Especially for people with Down syndrome.

 

They're smaller and weaker than the others.

 

Sometimes it's not the caregivers you have to look out for.

 

It's the other inmates.

 

Read what happened to Sergey.

 

Please pray for my son even though we don't know who he is yet.

 

Pray that paperwork would move quickly and that my son will never know the horror of a mental institution.

 

Pray that the funds will be there when they're needed and that there will be no delays because of lack of money.

 

Consider buying a puzzle piece and getting entered into draws for prizes.  Just 27 more to go before the next draw! I've got three rows of the puzzle already filled with names and it's looking great!  :)

 

 

Coming soon: a break down on fees and costs and why adoption costs so much.

 

 

 

"Garreth"

Last night I learned that this sweet boy passed away.

 

He was from the same country in Eastern Europe that I'm adopting from.

 

He was 4 years old and he had just been transferred from the baby home to a mental institution.

 

And he died.

 

This boy is also 4 years old.

 

He's been staying at Auntie's house for a few days.

 

In half an hour we'll be enjoying the rodeo parade.

 

"Garreth" will never get a chance to see a parade.

 

He'll never ride on the Ferris wheel.

 

Or eat cotton candy.

 

All because he was born with Down Syndrome.

 

And because of that he was abandoned and imprisoned.

 

This just makes what the Lord has told us to do in James 1:27 all the more urgent.

 

We're supposed to take care of these orphans and we're letting them die.

 

One way you can help do that is by supporting the adoptions of these special needs children.

 

Please donate any little bit you can using the "Give Now" button on the side of this blog.

 

Every dollar helps.

 

It won't get my little boy home any faster. The process will still have to happen in it's agonizingly slow way.  But it will insure that the money will be there when the fees are due and when I need to pay for travel.

 

Because 4 years old in a mental institution is just wrong.

 

Garreth's life could have been so much more.

 

See you in heaven, little guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drawing For The First and Second Prizes

If you don't know what this is all about, click on "Puzzle Fundraiser" tab at the top!

 

There have now been 111 pieces of the puzzle bought!  I put the first 50 names in a bucket and drew a winner for Mr. Sock Monkey.

 

 

Linda Carpentier is the winner!

I may have pronounced her name wrong on the video but I'm sure she won't mind.

 

  If all 1000 pieces sell I'll be doing 20 draws. So that was the first of up to 20 prizes.

 

Then I added the next 50 names to the bucket.

 

And Mark Russell won Mrs. Sock Monkey!

 

We're 39 names away from making another draw.

Donations of $1 or more will buy a piece of the puzzle.

If you donate $5 you can give me one name or up to five names.

I just don't want to write the same name on five different pieces. 

That way when the puzzle is finished there will be 1000 different names on it.

 

Perhaps a rather ambitious goal.

 

But you can help by sharing my blog with all your friends!

Feel free to talk about me over a cup of coffee at the coffee shop.

The more people that know about special needs orphans and their care or (lack of it) the better.

 

Let's bring my boy home!

 

 

Blog All the Things!!

So much to blog about.  Let's start with the yard sale.

 

The sale was advertised on the radio.  My supervisor at my part time job knows someone there and said he'd get us some more air time.  I don't know for sure if he did because I certainly didn't have time to sit and listen!

 

I hung posters on Thursday and Friday morning.

 

A mystery helper was hanging posters too.   Someone came because they saw the poster at the arena.  I did not hang that poster.  So THANK YOU mystery helper!!

 

I made a double sided sign.  It was a work of art I tell ya.

I really think I should have another sale just so I can use this sign again.

 

The sale was technically supposed to start at 4 pm on Friday but people started showing up at 2:30.  We got mobbed y'all.  Insanity reigned for several hours then it died down.

Saturday was a bit slower.  People were less frenzied but there was a fairly steady flow of shoppers.

The bake sale did well.  I decided to do some more baking Friday night at work. I brought my own ingredients and did some late night baking.  Pizza cookies.  I hope they were good! They sold before I even got a taste!

 

I had my puzzle fundraiser out next to the cash box both days and we got 77 more names put on the puzzle for a new total of 111 pieces sold!

 

Just 889 more to go.....

 

 

I couldn't do this without my helpers.  It was a lot of work and these friends sacrificed their weekend to help bring my son home.  I can hardly tell you how much that means to me.  Such selflessness! Just like Christ wants us to be and I wonder if I'm there yet. I get so focused on this adoption and fundraising that I fear I may be getting too focused on myself and less on helping those around me. Something to think about for sure.

 

But I know you're all waiting to hear how much was raised this weekend.

 

So here it is......

 

The grand total of yard sale, bake sale and donations was....

 

$1193.45

 

 Praise the Lord! That really moved the thermometer up!

I've set a goal to have it over $20,000 by the end of July.

I won't cry if that goal isn't met but it will be something to reach for. :)

 

Dossier Progress

 

All of the money in the world won't get my son home unless there is progress with the dossier.

I'd been wondering how it was going.

I signed it a month ago and the next step was for the facilitating agency to okay it.

 

They did. :)

 

It's perfect.

 

Now my documents are on the way to Manitoba Family Services for the approval letter. We should get that this week.

 

Tomorrow I will be sending off colour copies of my passport to the agency.

 

And then everything gets sent to Elena at Loving Heart Adoptions and she'll get it ready to send to the country I'm adopting from.

 

So amazing.

 

One small step at a time is bringing a little boy closer and closer to having a mommy.  I'm so thankful to God for putting this on my heart and for giving me a burden for orphans.

 

Thank you for being a part of this journey.

 



Catch up post

Last time on the You Are Worth More blog I was just finished the first yard sale and I was preparing  a presentation for a Ladies group and looking forward to travelling to the city for the education component of the adoption.

And apparently it's been a month since I last blogged.

Opps.

The presentation for the ladies group went great! I was hardly nervous at all but I did miss talking about a few things and I went way over on my allotted time.  I wish I had emphasised the conditions that orphans are living in a bit more.

I had my table set up of my etsy store products and I made quite a few sales and received some donations.  The ladies were so supportive of what I'm doing and I left feeling very blessed and encouraged.  God's people rock!

So that was June 20th.

On the 21st after work I travelled to the city and stayed the night with my brother's family.  I got to spend an hour in the morning with my niece and nephew.  An hour is never enough to spend with those sweeties.  It was soooo hard to tear myself away.  I ended up being a few minutes late for the education seminar!

Sunglasses for breakfast just because he's cool like that.

 

It was so nice to be with a group of people who were all in various stages of adoption.  I wish we would have had more time to talk but there was learnin' to be done!  We talked about attachment for quite a lot of the morning.  I was given a binder of reading material to take home with me.  I'm sure I'll consult that more than once!

One of the highlights of the day was meeting an online friend and her husband.  Hi Cathy!

But the biggest highlight of the day was.......

 

Signing the finished home study!!!!!!!!!

 

Someone who's job it is to determine so thinks I'm capable of parenting!

So cool to see that in writing!

 

 

I didn't even know that the social worker had finished writing it up! So I was quite pleased with having that step done.  The next step is sending the home study to my facilitating agency in ON for their approval.  The director of that agency is on holidays until the 16th so hopefully that can happen next week.



 

After the seminar I rushed the 5 hours home to make it back to work on time for 9pm.  Way too quick of a trip.

 

And then a couple days later my sister-in-law had a baby girl!  I just missed Tabitha Marie's entrance by a couple days! I hope to travel back to the city to see her and her siblings soon.

 

So June ended in a bit of a whirl wind and here we are half way through July already.  Slow down summer!

 

Yard Sale #2

 

I will be having another yard sale next weekend.  This time I'm going to try having it on Friday and Saturday and see how that goes.  Once again I'm asking for donations of yard sale items.  You can drop them off at my house or give me a shout and I'll come pick them up.  Any donation will be very appreciated. Someone donated a box full of baby girl clothes.  They're soooo sweet.  Girls get all the nice clothes. ;o)



Puzzle Fundraiser

Coming soon!   Like tonight....or tomorrow.

I thought things would slow down....

Check out that thermometer!

Last weeks yard sale was success I'd say.  It raised $436 which is pretty good considering 98% of the stuff I had was priced $3 and under.  We sold a lot of stuff!  We had 14 8 ft long tables piled high!  There wasn't a time from 8:30-2 that there wasn't at least one person shopping. 

And the rains held off until we were packing up.  Tuesday before the sale there was a 90% chance of rain all day for Saturday.  By Friday it had been downgraded to 40% of afternoon thundershowers.  And that's exactly what we got.  I know there were many people praying with me for the rain to hold off.  :o)

I couldn't have pulled the yard sale off on my own though so I owe a big thank you to Cindy, Mom, Dad, Mike, Byron, Darlene and Reta!  And thank you to all of you that donated items as well!

I would like to have another sale in mid-July.  I'm thinking of doing a bake sale along side the yard sale.

I thought things would slow down once I got the yard sale over with and it did...for about an hour!  I've been working quite a few extra hours at my "weekend" job.  I picked up an extra 11 hrs on top of my regular 17hrs this weekend.  That should make the thermometer move even higher!

On June 20th at 7pm at Living Word Church I've been asked to do a 20 min. presentation on adoption and orphan care to the ladies group.  I'm not nervous about this at all. haha  I'll also have my Etsy shop set up there that night so it will be a bit of a fundraiser as well.  This is open to any female member of the community. I'm so honoured to be chosen to be one of the speakers that night!  Pray that God gives me the words to say and that many hearts will be stirred towards helping orphans.

As far as adoption updates go, I'm still waiting for the social worker to finish typing up the homestudy.  She said she'd have it done two weeks ago so I hope she gets it done soon!  Next week I'll be going to Winnipeg to take the education seminar that's required for adoption.  I'll be learning about general adoption issues, transracial/cross-cultural adoption, nature vs nurture, and bonding and attachment.  Hopefully I retain lots of useful information!

One more praise item - I took my car into the shop today for an oil change and inspection and nothing showed up on the inspection! With a car that's 16 yrs old you never know when the mechanic is going to tell you that it shouldn't be on the road so I was a bit nervous of that happening.  I just need it to hold out for another year!

And now I must dash off to work for the weekend!