Buying caviar with a ramen noodle budget

We would like some caviar please, and throw in a bottle of your most expensive wine. This is what I ordered in my dream the other day. Then the bill came, and I tried to pay with the last $1 that I had in my pocket, my weekly ramen noodle food budget. I had to move there to be the dishwasher for the next 12 years.

What a strangely similar analogy to adopting a new child that is way out of your budget. What were we thinking?

Oh yeah, we were thinking that since God made it ABUNDANTLY clear to us that He had adoption in our 'plan' that He would somehow provide a way. Despite my whining and worrying, He's been coming through pretty well so far!

Our $27,000 plan - scrounge, pray, shamelessly ask for help, scrounge some more, pray, cut back, work extra, apply for grants, sell stuff, and then just lift our hands up in desperation and PRAY!  I like challenges.

So now the countdown begins...T minus 6 weeks before we have to have a wad of money to hand over to someone across the sea. Here's a little glimpse into our impossible race to $27,000.

1. Exhausted savings of about $5000. That outta be a good start, right? Too bad we lost that much in our South American endeavor. Start over with $0....
2. Shift some money around, work some extra hours, start socking away extras that come in through odd jobs, strange insurance settlements from years ago that are finally paying out (weird!) - over a year and a half we were able to pay about $7000 of expenses that trickled in.
3. Now before we leave we have to come up with the other $20K...which we obviously don't have. Here's where I asked for help. It took a lot to ask people we know for help, it was a LOT embarrassing to be honest - but if God wants to work through people, and people want to make a difference and let God work through them, we wanted to open up that opportunity. I created a DONATION site...and people actually donated! Praise God for good people. So far $5,355 has been given by my angels, as I think of them.
4. We are adopting from Hungary....when you are Hungry you eat pasta, right? I know, a stretch...but we also started a fundraiser with FunPasta. Cute stuff! Didn't sell as many kitty noodles as I hoped, but $200 will probably be pocketed from that. Every drop in the bucket helps!
5. Let's have a garage sale! We've been holding on to all of our baby boy stuff and clothes for the past 8 years just in case...so now we can get rid of it! Oh, the space in my basement I'm going to have!! Can't wait to go organize....so we've strewn all of our unwanted junk (I mean treasures!) all over our driveway and yard in hopes that "If the people come...they will buy."  It's going on right now, so we'll see how that pans out! ...UPDATE - we made $500 from the garage sale, and our little guy scrounged through his change jar which grampa seeded, and he volunteered on his own to donate $50 to the fund. :)

Are you good at math? So now we're still short $13,900.

I'm going to go pray now.

I do not like being a contestant on The Waiting Game

Hurry up and Wait! That's been our motto for quite some time now....and frankly I'm sick of it. I'm sure learning that nothing happens on "our time"....God orchaestrates things on His time. Which ultimately, in the end, will be for the best I'm sure of it.

We've been waiting for our "official referral" since January 15...during which time we had to do more medical tests, more fingerprints, more paperwork, and mostly sit and wait for someone else to do their part...which they never seem to be in a very big hurry to do.   I guess someone thought I needed to boost my patience threshold. Well, it's been raised to an all time high.

RING RING....the phone rings this morning! It's our agency telling us that WE HAVE RECEIVED OUR FINAL APPROVAL from Hungary! I should shout something, or cry I think. I guess it hasn't sunk in yet. Cool that the call came when hubby and I were together, so at least we hugged. ...now it's really REAL.

We have a daughter now. :)

Why can't I hold her yet? Tell her I love her and that we'll take care of her from now on? OH yeah. ...more waiting. Can't wait!

There are bows & dresses in our house for the first time!

On January 15th, the day after we switched countries to Hungary, our agency called us to tell us they have a little girl we may be interested in!  We looked at the video as a family and prayed about it...and all of us agreed that this was the little girl that God had prepared for us. 

Finally, a REAL PERSON to be excited about! It's not JUST paperwork anymore...which is good because this has been a long and paperwork-y process!

but wait.....now we have to hurry up and prepare! I don't know for sure, but I don't think that girls wear camo and play with legos and superheroes...so all of a sudden we need everything that a little girl wears and plays with. God...help please?? We no have money, this process sucked it all up like a vaccuum.

Enter: Best friends in the whole world KB and JC. They saw a need and like heroes of the day, and threw an "adoption shower" for us....is that what it's called? Whatever it's called, it was a day of blessings for me. We laughed, we cried, and I was blessed beyond what my little brain can comprehend. Thank you to all the wonderful angels who were there.

BONUS: We have decided to name our little girl "Gianna", which is Italian for "God is Gracious". My crafty sister friends topped off the shower with the unveiling of a wooden sign with the letters of her name to hang on her door. LOVE it!!