CPC

Okay, I know some of you who know us personally are beginning to think "For real? When is that girl gonna thank her church family?"

Well, today is the day!

Honestly, I just had no idea how to write about the experience.  Still don't.

Let's just see where this leads, shall we?

Truthfully I want to thank everyone of you individually. 

But the folks at Connecting Point Church have been such an example of the working, unified Body of Christ that it also seems essential to address them corporately.

I can hardly begin to explain what they have meant, and continue to mean, to us throughout this process.

Prayer?  They've provided it.  Serious laying-on-of-hands kind of prayer.  Silent, miraculous someone-must-be-praying-for-us kind of prayer.  And specific, right-out-loud-get-down-to-business prayer.

Encouragement?  They specialize in it.  If anyone disagrees with what we are doing (and I am sure there has to be someone) they haven't told us. (Thank you!) Have they had questions?  You bet.  We have been happy to answer them all.  Have they had concerns?  Sure.  But they have been addressed with so much love that I can only put them here, under the "Encouragement" category.

Money? (Let's not pull any punches people, adoption is SPENDY.) It is rare to see a whole congregation put their money where their mouth is, but these people have done it and then some.  Their generosity has brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

Dear Lord, I can never repay these people for being your living, breathing Body to us.
Father, store up treasures in your kingdom for them. 
Pile them high.
And add this little tag, please?

"With love, from The Daughtons"

Peggy

Today, I want to thank Peggy.

When you begin an international special needs adoption, you sort of have an idea of how you will raise the money, or where your major support will come from and who will be your biggest encouragers.  At least we did.  Or thought we did.

But the truth is, we can never foresee the things that God will do, or the people He will use in our lives.
One of our biggest supporters, cheerleaders, and encouragers on this journey is a woman I have never even met, or spoken to, or even chatted with online.

She is an acquaintance of my husband's through work.

They don't even work in the same building, or the same state for that matter!

But when Tim posted our first big fundraiser on his Facebook page, she flew into action.  She enthusiastically bid on, and won several auction items.  I shipped them off with a thank you card and thought no more of it.

Until Tim forwarded me this photo:

Do you know what those are?  Those are the spiced nuts that Peggy took the time to make (in the middle of the Holiday season) and sell from her desk at work to help fund our adoption.  Yes, you read that correctly.  This woman organized her own fundraiser for us.  Remember, I have never met her. 

Guess what?

She wasn't finished.

She continued to rally for us and shared our grant fund with others. 
She solicited a large tax deductible donation from one of her clients. 
(I mean large.  Think international airfare folks.)

She repeatedly, unselfishly stuck herself right out there on Nadia's behalf.

And I haven't even met her...yet.

Just the Facts

If you are reading this, you are probably following our adoption story and may be wondering where we are at in the process.
So...

We FINALLY have our homestudy in hand. 
Yay!
I'll say it again.
Yay!

So...

We were able to submit our i800a to the USCIS.
Huh?
Sounds painful doesn't it?
Well, sort of.
It means that we sent a large check to the federal government and now we are waiting for them to tell us when we can go get fingerprinted (again).

So...

Pray with us...
as we wait..
again..

One Big Foodie Family

We have friends who are "foodies".  The whole family.
I know this because their daughter, who was 6 at the time, once said to me "Yeah, because we are total foodies."
And because they know a lot about food.
They photograph food.
They read about food.
They bake.
They talk about food.
They research food.
They bake.

They are also fantastic people.
We love them.  Love.  Love.  Love.
They are adopting domestically through foster care.
Their adoption was supposed to have been completed before Christmas.  Then maybe in January.  Now maybe March, or April, or...Aaaaaaargh!
The mother is the only person who gets more teary-eyed than I do when I talk about our adoption.
They were one of the first to know of our intentions to adopt Nadia.
They have prayed with us and encouraged us, even in the midst of their own adoption journey.
But do you want to know how I am sure they are REALLY behind us, that they are 100% willing to do anything to support us even as they wait patiently for their own adoption to be final?

They bought their Christmas pies from ME! 

You know who you are

I have a friend.
I only see her at church on Sunday.
We live an hour away from one another, she has a full time job and we are each busy raising boys.
She has made it her personal responsibility to see that none of my fundraising items go unsold!
I will not give her name - but if this adoption does not hurry along, she will either go broke or need serious marriage counseling. Ha!

But the biggest thank you goes out to this dear woman because of this:

I have been joking all along about "selling anything that isn't nailed down",  but it really isn't far from the truth.  So when we had our first online auction, I included the earrings I had worn in my daughters wedding.  I quipped something like "I love these earrings, but I love that little girl more."
I noticed that my dear friend was bidding on them and I was so happy for her to have them.
Except that when the auction was over, I got a phone call from her saying that she was happy to pay for those earrings, but she had purchased them for ME.  So that I would be able to wear them again, to another daughter's wedding someday.

How do you even begin to say "Thank you." for something like that?

Krista

I live in a house with 4 men.
Okay.  Two men and two boys.
Okay.  One man, one young man and two boys.
You get the picture.
I am the only girl.  Me.  By myself.
I don't mind.  I love raising boys.  So much crazy (dangerous!) fun.
But when our daughter (our oldest) got married I was left alone in the Testosterone Zone.

Something else to know about me in order to really appreciate this post, is that I try not to get too optimistic about stuff. 
I am the worst case scenario type of gal.

You should also know we had an adoption fall through two years ago. Talk about worst case scenario.

So, when we announced our current adoption to the congregation at church I was a nervous mess.  I wasn't sure what people would think after the first adoption had "failed".  I was not sure how we were going to raise the money - we had wiped out our savings in the previous attempt.  I was really not even sure I wanted to go "public" at all.  I was really trying not to think about it much at all and just get through the paperwork/fundraising at hand.

There is a beautiful young woman who attends church with us.  She is thoughtful and sweet and she made a beeline to me right after that service.  Here is what she said:
"If it is okay with you, I would like to purchase a basket and keep it in my room and start to fill it up with the things you will need for your girl. I just feel like God has laid this on my heart to do for her. I would like to start buying some small things like maybe hair ties and nail polish and lotion or bubble bath. And please let me know as soon as you know what size she will wear."

I was dumbfounded.

"Things we will need for our GIRL."

Until that very moment I had not given one single thought to "girl stuff".  I was so buried in the NOW that I hadn't even stopped to imagine the FUTURE.

This young lady listened to what God told her to give.  She thought she was giving me toe-nail polish.  But she was giving me an anchor.  Tangible evidence of this thing that God is doing. 

She has filled that basket already and delivered it to me!

It is in Nadia's bedroom.  I go in there and peek at it sometimes and let myself get just a tiny bit excited about my GIRL.

Gratitude

I have been wanting to get on here and blog for quite some time.
But honestly it is so very hard to write what I know our future daughter might one day read. 
Will it embarrass her?  Will she feel like the object of our pity*?  I just don't know. 
One thing I do know.  I know that I want her to understand how much she was loved before she even came into our home.  I want her to see what the Body of Christ can accomplish if it is united.  I want her to understand the power of Community.
And so let this platform be one of gratitude to the many who have loved our girl without knowing her, who have taught us that money is only one of the things that we have needed to make this adoption happen, to those who have sacrificed on our behalf and loved us unconditionally.
Let the Thank You's begin!


*I edited this post based on the comment left by a sweet friend.
She is 100% correct.  My use of the word "charity" held negative connotations. 
She made me stop and think about that. 
So I changed things and wrote what I actually meant to say.