Fundraising Miracles

Exciting updates!!!

We had a second jewelry fundraiser that ended right after Thanksgiving and raised a grand total of $225!!!  Thank you sooo much to everyone who went shopping, and a big thank you to Allison who was willing to host the fundraiser and give all of her profit to our adoption.  We are so very thankful!

You may remember that we planned to end our puzzle fundraiser on Thanksgiving Day.  When we announced at the end of September that we would be ending the puzzle fundraiser, only 327 out of 1008 pieces had been sponsored.  Over the next two months, many people sent us their support and claimed pieces of the puzzle.  By the day after Thanksgiving, 784 pieces had been sponsored!!  We were waiting on a few more gifts that we knew were in the mail, so we didn't close up shop yet.  What's crazy is that over the next month, donations continued to trickle in!  We thought the puzzle was finished with 75 pieces remaining about two weeks ago, and we were THRILLED!  We planned to use the remaining pieces to write the names of families that had supported us before this fundraiser.  Well, God had other plans.  On Christmas Eve, a Christmas gift for our little one arrived that filled those last 75 pieces, and then some!  And here is the funny thing about how God works:  The pieces were $3 each, right???  So math tells you we should have raised $3,024 from this fundraiser.  Want to know how much we actually received?

$4,432.65

Haha, don't you think God might be laughing at us a little?  We worry about things not going our way, or the way we expected, we worry that we won't have enough, we worry, worry, worry.  We settle for the puzzle not really being finished. Meanwhile, he is providing over $1,000 more than we were hoping for.  So many of you gave an extra dollar, or two...some of you really cheated and gave a certain amount of money and then only wanted a few pieces.  Then there was the two of you who left $100 on our kitchen table sticking out from under the puzzle after Bible Study one night...but never told us who you were :P

We feel so very blessed.  I wish I could come up with some magical words to express how totally thankful we are!  The way you have all come along side us to help fund this adoption is overwhelming.  What really blows our minds is that some of you are truly struggling financially, and yet you gave.  You sacrificed out of your own needs to give to our little one.  How loved he or she is and has yet to meet even one of you!  And the gifts have come from all over--from our past and present.  Middle school small group leader, high school friends, high school friends' parents, college friends, coworkers, friends, family...I could go on and on.  I feel like the Grinch at the end of the book...as I counted up the total my heart must have grown three sizes!  The puzzle will be hanging on the wall as soon as I buy some puzzle glue and write the names of those of you who gave before this fundraiser around the edges of the frame.  Really--I could go on and on, but I'll end with this:  Thank.you.so.much!

By the way, Kyle and I have decided to stop the fundraising for the foreseeable future.  We want to wait until we get a referral to get a better idea of exactly how much more we will need.  God works in crazy awesome ways, so for all we know he will come up with a way to make the money we have go all the way, or provide more in an unexpected way!

Stay tuned in the next week or so for an update about where we are in the process!!