Step One - Check!

So our formal application for adoption has been mailed! WooHoo!!! (Feel free to do a happy dance since that’s what I’ve been doing since yesterday!) It feels so amazing/awesome/exciting/terrifying to be taking this first step towards our adoption dreams.

I was just a tad OCD with the actual mailing of the envelope though. Since there were a lot of pages to mail and I only had a regular sized envelope I taped it... very well…. then it seemed heavey so I put extra stamps on it. Since it was raining that morning I did not want to leave it in our mailbox so I decided to take it to work and mail it on my lunch break. Instead of leaving it in the car or in my purse I left it on my desk… so I could keep a close eye on it – in case it ran away or something??? (This was after parading it around the office and showing it off to co-workers “in the know”) As I was driving to the post office it occurred to me that I should probably make sure that it got there especially since there was a check inside. I filled out one of those little green return receipt cards and waited in line. The nice post lady had me fill out another little green sticker for the front. Then she stamped the front and added more postage. With the large green card now taped to the back my nice neat little envelope was starting to look well secured and a little cluttered. Oh well, at least I would know that it made it there. (Which it did – I know this because I looked it up online on the USPS website this afternoon!) My only concern now is that they will take one look at the envelope and instantly decide that they have no desire to work with “those kind of people”.

Now we sit and wait for the giant stack of paperwork to come in the mail. In it will be all kinds of fun stuff like background checks, fingerprinting instructions and an extremely in depth personal study. As I wait for that to come in the mail and for our agency assigned social worker to call, I have begun to address the next hurdle….money. We took this first step towards adoption trusting that as God has called us to adopt that He will also provide the funds needed. Since I’m fairly sure He isn’t going to just drop a wad of cash in our mailbox, we need to get cracking on some serious fund-raising.

**This is where I need your help**

My previous knowledge of fund-raising involves a seriously failed lemonade stand, an equally failed home car wash and of course the infamous Entertainment books. Since this isn’t a “normal” fund raiser we need to think outside of the box. I have already enlisted the help of a BFF who has awesome fund-raising skills but we need some out-of-the-box ideas to help out.
Any ideas or suggestions that you guys have would be vastly appreciated.

The one idea that we are running with initially is a fund-raising garage sale. If you have any items that you would like to get rid of and are willing to donate please let me know. I’m hoping to have everything ready for the weekend of October 23^rd. Also, if you’d like to volunteer to come keep me company that day you are welcome to do that as well :-)

Thank you to everyone that has supported us and prayed for us. It is greatly appreciated!

~Jeny