I have been selected!!!

My embroidered denium bicycle purse is being featured on the weekly blog listing Treasury Tuesday. Each week, Inspired Mama chooses a theme and finds handmade arts and crafts that fit into that theme. She hopes that by running this weekly blog post she can help promote the handmade marketplace and the artists that make it possible.

It is such an honor to have an item from my etsy shop chosen for the theme, "I Want to Ride My Bicycle." Selling items from etsy is currently the main source of funding for our international adoption. All the proceeds from my sales go to support our adoption.

Please consider visiting Inspired Mama and leaving a comment for her about her site. I know she would love to hear from you!

Linking etsy with our adoption

Sometime before the holiday season I decided to link my etsy account directly to our adoption account. Now all the proceeds from my sewing sales will go to support funding our adoption.

To date, my sales on etsy have earned $225.00 towards our adoption. We are hoping that etsy sales will significantly contribute to our fundraising efforts.

You can visit my etsy shop by clicking on the banner above or clicking this link: Modest Mama Creations.

Check back often as I am continously adding new items.

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. Our adoption is far from being complete, but we still enjoy hearing adoption success stories. Since this is also the month of Thanksgiving, we would like to mention a couple adoption-related things that we are grateful for:

Continued prayers and encouragement from friends, family, and even some strangers!

A new Ethiopia program director to work with! We didn't seem to hit it off with our last director, but our new director seems the perfect match for our family. Jennifer is an adopted mom herself and knows first-hand the emotional and financial strain that adoptive families feel. She understands how confusing the process can be and doesn't mind my questions and need for endless "hand-holding" as we navigate this amazing journey together.

My four beautiful biological children who never forget to pray for their baby sister.

"It is with sincere regret...

...that we are unable to offer financial assistance for this adoption."

Our first grant rejection. It is hard not to take it personally. Or to be bitter. Especially since so many grants are have limiting qualifications such as specifying "Christian" families. Although we are a Christian family, we are also a Catholic family. But to many of these organizations you can't be their type of Christian if you are Catholic.

Does any of this really matter when you are talking about an orphaned child? We are willing to open our hearts and our home to an orphan. We are willing to become financially and emotionally responsible for this child for the rest of our lives. I would like to ask these orphaned children if these labels matter to them.

So, as I said, our first rejection. And it is hard not to take it personally or to be bitter. It is only the first, and I am sure there will be other rejections. Our faith in God will provide us with our adopted daughter. And it may not be next year or the year after. It won't be on our terms at all. It will be on His terms. And how can one take that personally?

Paperwork Nightmare

Everyone is always wondering how our adoption is coming. My answer is usually the same: slow. Not only are we constantly discouraged by the financial aspect of funding the process, but the paperwork involved is beginning to resemble a monster that is consumming our house. On top of fundraising and paperwork, we also have four children to raise and homeschool, as well as regular life to live.

I have begun to dread opening emails from the adoption agency. They usually read something like this: "Dear Jessica, Please find attached a new form required by the Ethiopian government. Please fill out the form, notarize it, have it state certified, supply new fingerprints, and return it to me with a money order for $670." Yikes. Not only is that a fee we weren't anticipating, but that sort of process can easily take us six months. And fingerprints cost $80 a person.

Through all this we know that God has a plan for our family. He is guiding this adoption and it will work out on His time, not ours.

The Wait and See Method

Now that we have a written homestudy report (only 3 months late and very poorly written), we have decided to see if we can finance the Ethiopian adoption through adoption grants. And donations are still arriving from our envelope campaign. We returned home from the Pacific Northwest to find an annoymous donation of $100 awaiting us!

So for now we are going to continue to pursue the international adoption, despite the overwhelming cost and emotional labor it requires. Sometimes I feel I am on a teeter-totter with this adoption.

A Special Thank yoU!

I wanted to give a special thank you to my friend Sue who donated some unused homeschool curriculum to us. She allowed us to sell the curriculum and keep the money for the adoption. Those ebay sales earned us over $300! Thank you for your generosity Sue!