-After weeks of collecting your unwanted items- THANK YOU to all our amazing friends who cleaned out their closets (and encouraged others in their lives to do the same, some of you encouraging your families to clean out their entire house!)...
-After a week of Craig's List postings, passing along the Facebook event to everyone you ever met and a few of you even risking your jobs to print off signs and banners for the sale (sight dramatization)...
-After a VERY early set up morning that YOU showed up for (its scary to know that you can actually function that early in the morning, isnt it?)...
-After 2 long days of carrying boxes outside, explaining snippets of our story to strangers, moving heavy furniture and packing up the leftovers in the rain...
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... how many periods do you think I can put in one post?...oh, sorry, back to the point... more drum role please...
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You helped us raise over $2200 in 2 days!!! ...huge drum solo finish!
But seriously, we were emotional as we counted it all up. It was incredibly humbling to be reminded in such a clear way that God is with us. Especially for me, who constantly thinks about the how's and when's - I, immaturely, needed that reassurance....again. We truly received so much more than the money though. If I could give a shout out to every person who helped us in every way, I would (is there a character limit on this thing?). Some of you got up early- on a work day, some of you drove from far away, some of you donated items you could have sold, some of you committed to the long day, even though you felt old (see what I did there?). :)
But you know who you are and we rest assured that God knows who you are, and we are thrilled that one little guy who may be sitting in his crib somewhere in Ghana right now, waiting, will know who you are too.
Ok, now I'm getting emotional again. Whew...
We met so many of our neighbors and we talked to countless people about their own stories of adoption. I have never felt so empowered and supported by so many complete strangers. This truly was an amazing experience in so many ways. Below are a few pics of all the fun we had!
So what now?! Yesterday we received the final, notarized copy of our home study. Chad directly went from picking it up at our agency to the UPS store to overnight our USCIS packet. This included our Petition for an Orphan Visa which gets the ball rolling for "little guy" to both enter the country and become an American citizen. As we wait for approval and an invitation to be fingerprinted, we are wrapping up all the documents for our dossier. We should have everything within the next week or so, and once approved by our agency this LARGE packet of documents will make its way to Ghana. At which point we wait for a referral.
Timeline Update: If things continue to move at the rate they are currently, we could make our first trip to Ghana before December and potentially have him by the end of the year!!! WHAT?!?!?!
Thanks again to all of you who are praying for this process to be go smoothly and for "little guy's" safety while he waits for us. Please keep them coming!
Folding endless amounts of clothes
The Aunties modeling some of our finer items :)
The "Chad's"
Bird's eye view
