We got home from the beach last Saturday and were so excited to find our letters from The Department of Homeland Security waiting on us. They scheduled our appointments for fingerprinting for Thursday morning so we traveled to Charleston, West Virginia to have our finger prints taken for immigration approval and that is the last thing we have to do right now! I absolutely loved checking this item off of my list! This appointment came a few weeks earlier that we had anticipated so I know that God is getting us there as quickly as possible...His child is waiting!
The next thing on my list is coming up with the money to bring our child home. God has provided in AMAZING ways over the last month and I want to give you just a couple of examples...
A couple of months ago, Adam needed to take a few things to the dump and so he drove our Jetta over to his parents house and picked up their truck to use for the evening. He left our Jetta parked in their driveway and unbeknownst to us, there was a hail storm while our car was there. Adam went back and dropped the truck off and picked up our car and we never even noticed that there was any damage. A couple of weeks later, a family member (who lives in the same neighborhood as Adam's parents) asked us if we had any damage to our car. I had no idea what they were talking about but soon found out that there had been a hail storm while our car was parked there so we went outside and looked at our car and sure enough...there were little hail dings on our car. Well...we thought about calling our insurance company but we looked into what our deductible was and since we are trying to come up with money right now instead of spending it, we decided we wouldn't worry about it...it's just a car anyways. Well a couple of months went by and someone had mentioned to me in a conversation that they had hail damage to their car so they turned it into their insurance and were given a check to have their car fixed. So the wheels started turning in my head. I thought, "well, even if it is only a few hundred dollars, we could put that money towards our adoption." So I googled whether it was illegal to collect money from your insurance company if you were not going to fix the vehicle and since I found many sites that confirmed there was nothing illegal about this (believe me, I did come across a lot of sites saying that this was a really stupid thing to do because the value of your car has dropped significantly), I called Adam and asked him, "do you think we should get an estimate on the hail damage on the car?" So Adam agreed we should look into it and he took the car for an estimate a couple of days later and I could not believe how much money they gave us! Are you ready... $3,600! It just so happens that small pieces of hail hit every panel of our car :-) A few years ago, if someone asked me if they should do this...take the money they should take to repair their car and use it for something else, I would have said, "absolutely NOT!" But I thought this over and prayed about it and I came to the conclusion that God cares more about our child than he does about what my car looks like! I am sure that Eva will be a little sad when she gets this car at the age of 16 to drive and it has little dents all over it but I hope once we tell her this story, she will love her God for his provision :-)
A few weeks ago, I was at Bible study one evening and I had a conversation with a friend (and family member) about fundraising. She is raising money to go on The World Race which is an eleven month long mission trip she is going on in January...you can read about it here http://alisonstultz.theworldrace.org/ . She was asking me what fundraising events we had planned so far so that she could make sure she didn't do anything on the same date (we both go to the same church and are in the same family so we really don't want to do one on the same day!) I told her that we had a Pampered Chef, Silpada, Scentsy, Thirty-One party coming up in October and we had an Applebee's pancake breakfast in November (believe me, you will be hearing more about these soon!) After our conversation, we sat down to watch the video and I really felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me to give her half of the money from both of our upcoming events. And for about 5 seconds, I am not proud to admit this, but I thought, "God, we still need $10,000, are you sure we should give half to her?" So for the rest of the video I was partly paying attention and partly praying about this and I knew what I needed to do. I told her right after the video was over that we wanted to give her half of the fundraising for these two events and she was really excited! I went home that night and as soon as I walked in the door I told Adam what I did and he was really excited too...I confessed to Adam that I struggled for a few minutes on whether to do this and he told me what we always tell each other...be obedient and He will handle the rest. Well...the next morning, I prayed about this and told God how sorry I was for doubting him and for being selfish and then I went on about my day. We had a lot planned that day and after I took the kids to the library for story time, we went over to someones house for lunch. After lunch, right before we were leaving, they handed me a very large check. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness and for the confirmation from God at the exact time that I needed it....He is going to provide for this and I don't need to worry about how He is going to do it. I hope that you do not read this story as me bragging about giving some of the money away but that you will see that I am selfish and God still loves me! That He calls us to be obedient, even when it doesn't make sense to us and He will reward you for your obedience...it might not be here on earth but you will be rewarded :-)
He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." Luke 11:28
So now our total fundraising is at $20,355.52! We have raised $20,355.52 since June (and when I say "we", I in no way think I had anything to do with this!)! We give praise and glory to God for every dollar we have been given so far and trust that he will provide the almost $10,000 more that we need!
Keep praying for our child :-) I can't wait for you to meet them!
Seems like 2012 was a really memorable year for you – both for the good and the bad. It's a good thing you guys were able to raise funds, but at the same time, your car being damaged by the hail was also a minor setback. I just hope you guys were able to bring it to the shop for the much-needed repairs!
ReplyDeleteMartha Brady @ Indianapolis Dent Company