Kindle Fire Fundraiser Raffle

We have been on the wait list to adopt a little girl from Ethiopia since October of 2010.  We started at #93 on the list and today we are #8!  That means that any day soon we will receive a referral and we will finally see the beautiful face of our daughter!  With that referral comes the cost of flying to Ethiopia twice!

So, we are hosting a Kindle Fire HD 7" tablet Raffle to raise funds for our adoption!  Each ticket costs $5 and you can purchase them through Paypal through the link over there to the right OR you can buy them in person from me or Brian!  The raffle will end on November 9th and I will let random.org choose us a winner and I will announce it on Saturday morning, November 10th.  Then, I will order the Kindle Fire HD and have it shipped directly to the winner.

I didn't mention before but if you donate, then you can get one free entry for sharing this!  Just leave a comment below with a link to show that you have shared it after you make your donation!

 ALSO, there will be a runner up as well!  The runner up will be announced the day after and they will win a $20 gift card to Target!  Who doesn't want to win a reason to go wander around Target??

Thanks you all!!  We can't wait for the day we can share the news of a referral with you all!!  

It's my Birthday Giveaway!!

So today is my birthday!  Yep, today I turned 32 years old.  32 was much easier than 30 and I actually really like my age.  I'm about to head out the door for a date night with my sweet husband but I wanted to go ahead and post about this raffle we are doing to raise funds for our adoption.

As you know we are super super close to getting a referral.  This weekend we are wrapping up our home study update and then we just wait for the papers to be finalized.  After we are "paper ready" again then we will be able to accept a referral for a sweet little girl!  I know that it will be soon because we are officially number 8 and I'm pretty positive that we are number 1 for our age parameters (0-4 years).  So, we need to be able to pay for those expensive plane tickets to go to Ethiopia twice and pay for the referral fee.  We have some saved up but we still need to raise quite a bit.  So....we thought a raffle might be a fun way to do it!

So we are going to give away a 16GB Kindle Fire HD with a 7" display, exclusive Dolby audio, and Dual-Band, Dual-Antenna Wi-Fi.  It's super cool and you can do ALL kinds of fun things with it.  Watch movies, tv shows, read books & magazines, use apps and play games & music, catch up on Pinterest and Facebook, check your email, basically whatever you want to do. :)  Oh, and it would make an awesome Christmas present!!

Here is how you can win it and support our adoption at the same time!!
Buy a ticket for $5 through PayPal over there to the right!  Or buy 2 tickets for $10 or 5 tickets for $25 or however many you would like.  Each ticket is another entry to win the Kindle Fire!  Also, if you are local and would rather just pay for your tickets in person, that is totally fine as well!  We will be sure to include ALL ENTRIES.  The raffle will end on November 9th and I will let random.org choose us a winner and I will announce it on Saturday morning, November 10th.  Then, I will order the Kindle Fire and have it shipped directly to the winner.

We would love for you to share this raffle with people that you know via Twitter and Facebook!
Thank you for supporting our adoption!!!  One day soon we will see our daughter's face!!

September Number

 Our family's September number is:

{Leo Reynolds photo}

We are officially number 8 this month but I am pretty positive that we are number 1 for our age parameters.  The problem is that we cannot accept a referral until our paperwork is all up to date.  We are currently waiting on our social worker to call us back (it has been two weeks) and waiting on Texas to return some criminal background check stuff.  This would have all been updated earlier but Brian had applied for a position at a church back in August and things were going really well with the process and it would have involved us moving.  So, we waited to update the actual home visit and some other paperwork.  Brian was nominated by the Boards at the church for the position but after a week or so we found out some things that we did not feel very comfortable with so we prayed and prayed and ask for some counsel from good friends and the Lord confirmed to us through His Word that Brian should not take this position.  We know this was the right decision for our family but we are disappointed.  We had hoped things would go much differently.  And now we are seeing that it is affecting our adoption process too.  We can't understand God's timing and we may never but we are going to trust Him.  He knows who our daughter will be and He is much more able to orchestrate every detail even when it looks impossible.  It is all somewhat disappointing though so if you would please continue to pray for all of our hearts, for our daughter in Ethiopia, and for all the details to come together.  I do have some good news too though.

God has been so good to give us encouragement from His Word and with His Spirit.  On Friday I readMatthew 19:26 that says "Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.”  We have been especially concerned about our updates because our US_CIS approval was set to expire in a couple weeks.  As you can imagine we were freaking out and trying to get everything complete.  Well, on Friday we received a really surprising phone call from our case manager at US_CIS.  She was so kind and encouraging and said not to worry about anything.  She set our minds at ease and even though this is not how we imagined the timing of everything going....we know that God is with us and He is in charge.

This verse has been our prayer:

"Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you.  Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you.  Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.  May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing." -Psalm 143: 8&10

Thank you for praying for our family. 

♥