Here is the link to follow and purchse your shirts:
www.adoptionbug.com/BurdenedForAdoption
Here are your shirt options chosen by us (The Bulgarian one is my favorite!):
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Shirts of Hope
Our "Shirts of Hope" fundraiser is up and running! 45% of the profits of all shirts sold will go towards our adoption. Please help spread the word about adoption by wearing your shirts proudly. You will also be helping to bring our children home and we will be forever grateful!
Here is the link to follow and purchse your shirts:
www.adoptionbug.com/BurdenedForAdoption
Here are your shirt options chosen by us (The Bulgarian one is my favorite!):
Here is the link to follow and purchse your shirts:
www.adoptionbug.com/BurdenedForAdoption
Here are your shirt options chosen by us (The Bulgarian one is my favorite!):
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Homestudy...Check
It has been a while since my last blog. I have felt like nothing is happening, we were still working on the same thing and not getting anywhere... until now!
We started working on our homestudy 4 months ago. We had our interviews back in January. Since then, we have been gathering tons of paperwork, and doing loads of adoption education. Finally on Tuesday, April 3 our homestudy was approved and finalized!!! This is a huge accomplishment. We are getting so close. The next process is the NBC approval and finishing the dossier. The NBC approval is basically the government giving us permission to bring our foreign child/ren into the country. This can take up to 3 months. We are also starting to get our paperwork translated so it can go to Bulgaria. This can take from 4-6 weeks, but it is being worked on at the same time as the NBC approval. So hopefully within the next few months our dossier (all the paperwork) will be sent to Bulgaria and they will start deciding who our children will be! Basically, after all this waiting, we are just a few months away from the "waiting stage".
In the meantime, we are applying for adoption grants. We have applied for HelpUsAdopt.org, they give grants between $500 and $15,000. We are also getting our documents together to apply for the Show Hope grant and the Lifesong grant. Lifesong will give us the opportunity to receive donations which will be tax deductible. My previous blog explains the fundraiser that we are also applying for with LifeSong, "Both Hands". We are doing a fundraiser with Show Hope and Adoption Bug starting next week, Shirts of Hope. We will have our own online store where you can purchase adoption t-shirts and 45% of the proceeds with go towards our adoption. A small portion also goes to Show Hope and helps other families adopt as well. You can wear your shirt proudly, promoting adoption and knowing that you helped bring our children home. (We will share the site address as soon as we get it.) We will be working on some other fundraisers as well. The next fees we will have to pay will be very large (about $10,000), and this is not counting our travel to Bulgaria twice. {I have posted links to all of these grants and fundraisers on the bottom of the blog.}
One of the most amazing things that we have been blessed with was meeting a family who is also adopting from Bulgaria. A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of meeting a family that lives just 5 minutes away. Amazingly enough, they have been working with the same adoption agency and adopting from the same country for the last 4 years. they are a lot further along in the process than we are, in fact they have already travelled to Bulgaria once and met their son. It was such a blessing to meet them, they can answer every question we have about the entire process and even the country where our children are. God works in wonderful ways! When we moved here in January 2011, we didn't have any plans to start the adoption process, but God knew that we would and He knew that we would need help and encouragement. I have no doubt that He put us this close for a reason. How cool will it be, when we finally get our kids home, that they will have a friend just down the road who shares the same home country with them? We have also been in contact with a family about 40 minutes away that are also adopting from Bulgaria. There are about 5-6 families in our area who have finished the process or are still in the process of adopting from Bulgaria. We will be able to have wonderful get-togethers, where our children can interact with other children all from Bulgaria... it's just too amazing for words!
Thank you for all of your support and encouragement! We love encouragement, we can't get enough of it. Please don't hesitate to send us a quick note letting us know that you are thinking about us and/or praying for us. We would also be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Please continue to pray for us! Please pray that the NBC approval will be a quick process. And pray that we can raise and save all the funds that are quickly coming due, pray for the grants as well. Of course, continue to pray that God will grant us the patience to continue in this long process. We have both gained so much trust and faith in God, but pray that we will continue to strengthen our faith and our relationships with our Saviour.
Links to all of the grants and fundraisers:
http://www.showhope.org/AdoptionAid/AdoptionGrants.aspx
http://lifesongfororphans.org/adGrantLoans.html
http://www.adoptionbug.com/shirtsofhope/?ref=SoH
We started working on our homestudy 4 months ago. We had our interviews back in January. Since then, we have been gathering tons of paperwork, and doing loads of adoption education. Finally on Tuesday, April 3 our homestudy was approved and finalized!!! This is a huge accomplishment. We are getting so close. The next process is the NBC approval and finishing the dossier. The NBC approval is basically the government giving us permission to bring our foreign child/ren into the country. This can take up to 3 months. We are also starting to get our paperwork translated so it can go to Bulgaria. This can take from 4-6 weeks, but it is being worked on at the same time as the NBC approval. So hopefully within the next few months our dossier (all the paperwork) will be sent to Bulgaria and they will start deciding who our children will be! Basically, after all this waiting, we are just a few months away from the "waiting stage".
In the meantime, we are applying for adoption grants. We have applied for HelpUsAdopt.org, they give grants between $500 and $15,000. We are also getting our documents together to apply for the Show Hope grant and the Lifesong grant. Lifesong will give us the opportunity to receive donations which will be tax deductible. My previous blog explains the fundraiser that we are also applying for with LifeSong, "Both Hands". We are doing a fundraiser with Show Hope and Adoption Bug starting next week, Shirts of Hope. We will have our own online store where you can purchase adoption t-shirts and 45% of the proceeds with go towards our adoption. A small portion also goes to Show Hope and helps other families adopt as well. You can wear your shirt proudly, promoting adoption and knowing that you helped bring our children home. (We will share the site address as soon as we get it.) We will be working on some other fundraisers as well. The next fees we will have to pay will be very large (about $10,000), and this is not counting our travel to Bulgaria twice. {I have posted links to all of these grants and fundraisers on the bottom of the blog.}
One of the most amazing things that we have been blessed with was meeting a family who is also adopting from Bulgaria. A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of meeting a family that lives just 5 minutes away. Amazingly enough, they have been working with the same adoption agency and adopting from the same country for the last 4 years. they are a lot further along in the process than we are, in fact they have already travelled to Bulgaria once and met their son. It was such a blessing to meet them, they can answer every question we have about the entire process and even the country where our children are. God works in wonderful ways! When we moved here in January 2011, we didn't have any plans to start the adoption process, but God knew that we would and He knew that we would need help and encouragement. I have no doubt that He put us this close for a reason. How cool will it be, when we finally get our kids home, that they will have a friend just down the road who shares the same home country with them? We have also been in contact with a family about 40 minutes away that are also adopting from Bulgaria. There are about 5-6 families in our area who have finished the process or are still in the process of adopting from Bulgaria. We will be able to have wonderful get-togethers, where our children can interact with other children all from Bulgaria... it's just too amazing for words!
Thank you for all of your support and encouragement! We love encouragement, we can't get enough of it. Please don't hesitate to send us a quick note letting us know that you are thinking about us and/or praying for us. We would also be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Please continue to pray for us! Please pray that the NBC approval will be a quick process. And pray that we can raise and save all the funds that are quickly coming due, pray for the grants as well. Of course, continue to pray that God will grant us the patience to continue in this long process. We have both gained so much trust and faith in God, but pray that we will continue to strengthen our faith and our relationships with our Saviour.
Links to all of the grants and fundraisers:
http://www.showhope.org/AdoptionAid/AdoptionGrants.aspx
http://lifesongfororphans.org/adGrantLoans.html
http://www.adoptionbug.com/shirtsofhope/?ref=SoH
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