Blessings of Encouragement

This week has been a great one for David and me. We had Easter break so we had Monday off from school, and then I had a field trip with my class, and both shortened our school days considerably. Having so much free time has left a wide opening in our lives to research, think about and plan for our adoption. We’ve had a big jump in the people that are following us on Facebook and on this blog which is totally exciting, and just a little bit scary. We’ve had so many people asking questions about our adoption, but even more than that have felt totally supported! I have experienced students that have such kind hearts and their parents that stand behind them or are being the paradigm of examples of kindness.

Last week, I wrote about a lady who bought two jars of the cookie mixes at the VERY last minute of the Easter Brunch. On Wednesday I found out that she is a close friend of the family of my student Joon, whom I also tutor. She gave one of the jars she bought to Joon’s mom, who made them for a snack for him during tutoring. We shared the snack, and after tutoring Joon’s mom bought another jar of mix!  I was so blown away by the kindness of these sweet people; God must have orchestrated all this to encourage our hearts, and it definitely did! There was also another student who had bought the mix Saturday with his own money, then he brought the cookies into school to share with the other students! His mom showed me her bracelet, so proudly, and told me how it totally suits her! Man, I love my class! I love the students and the parents who raise them!

On a more logistic note, we think we have decided on the agency we would like to apply to; MLJ Adoptions, INC. They work with expats, they have experience with adopting from Bulgaria, they respond quickly, they have a great, detailed website, and overall didn’t make me feel bad for being young. The person who works with parents adopting from Bulgaria has a blog and has actually adopted herself! Her name is Lydia Tarr, which makes her feel like family! They told us we could start the process of applying 6 months in advance of me turning 25, but I don’t think we will apply until a little closer to the New Year (2015). That should give us time to get the money together for the home study, and hopefully money for after that. Once we get started on this process, things will start happening rapidly. Since we want to adopt a sibling group, and we’re open to ages 0-10 chances are we will have a referral pretty quickly (as I was informed by the agency I contacted). We’re looking at expenses anywhere from $27,000-34,000, most of which we will have to scrape together in a two year period, starting now. We’re starting to sell the cookie mixes, and I think the interest has been peaked for the foreign community. I have also begun selling some sketches and my hemp creations! Our adoption fund is up to almost $800!

Our next fundraiser is going to be… 

Drumroll please! 

One of the quilt squares - Choose a Color triangle if you want!

Quilt Squares! Ok… this is how it works: I have a bunch of quilt squares from fabric I bought and cut in the USA. Each triangle will cost $5, and you will be able to either write a message yourself, tell me what message you would like on it and I will make it for you, or choose to leave it blank. I will then use the squares to make two blankets for our children. I will also buy more fabric, up to the amount of fabric requested by you! I will make more blankets, and I will leave any extra blankets made at the orphanage when we go to meet/pick-up our kids! You get to help orphans all across the board! I’m so excited about this fundraiser! All you have to do to buy one is get to one of our Adoption representatives! 

Easter Fundraiser Pictures!

This was our cookie assembly line!

A set of cookie mix jars without labels yet.

 This is what the cookie dough looks like with all the ingredients! Yum!

 Stephanie W. being one of my best-est friends and helping label jars.

 David is helping cut out business cards he made with my 

phone number, WeChat, and blog information.

 The cookie jar chaos.

 A look at what the jars vs. the mixed bags look like.

 Our production table. Recognize the background of our cover page?

 Stephanie helping with labels.

 Stephanie and me working on labeling and such.

 We're having so much fun!

 We're so happy with the finished products!

David and I, ready to sell them all to the world!

David at our fully set-up booth!

The jar set-up. I seriously can't believe that frame was thrown away!

 The hemp-side of the table with the pricing and our story.

I'm already to start selling my crafts!

Oh, look! A minion visited our booth! 

David's reaction to the minion is not quite as excited as mine!

There it is again!

My sweet student dropped by with his sister and they each bought a hemp creation, and he spent his own money on a jar of cookie mix. His mom also ordered a bracelet! Then, they proceeded to give me bread they bought from another booth AND the first toy for our adopted children! 

Seriously trying not to cry!

She wanted to see what it looked like on, so I took a picture and showed her. This is Wind.

I'm hard at work making more hemp creations to sell.

This little boy wanted to show David the Easter Egg he painted! He was adorable!

Panoramic of the surrounding area.

The crowd that was around us in the Easter Brunch festivities. 

David is fanning himself because it is SO hot inside this room!

My cousin Melissa at her booth, you can see our booth all the way down at the end.

Melissa at her booth.

My student came and visited for a while!

Our booth at the end of the day. Not as organized as when we first arrived!

David is sneaking the cookie we had out as display! I caught him!

Still caught, my love.

Oh, ok. He was just posing!

Hope you enjoyed these pictures as much as I did!

First Official Fundraiser!

Blog Post 4-19-2014

This past week has been a fantastic week, with just a dose of misery. David got sick first, then I did, but then after that passed, it was GREAT! David received “Teacher of the Quarter” which was awesome because he needed to feel appreciated, and I definitely think he does now! He puts in a lot of hard work teaching ESL and I feel it was well-deserved.

          Then at school on Friday, my cousin Melissa told me about a possible fundraising opportunity. There is an Easter Brunch every year and charities get a free table! So I talked it over with David and we decided we could probably throw something together in a week’s time, so when we saw Aaron on Sunday we told him we would have a booth there! I had several evenings that I knew I could work on it this past week, so I planned on getting a whole lot done. HA! That night I got the flu, the next day I called out sick from work. I thought, “You know, I could still get a lot done here since I’ve already called out sick.” Ya… that did not work either! I slept most of the day and was not productive at all!

Thankfully, the rest of the week was a little better! We had to gather all the ingredients and design all the labels and signs, but somehow we managed to get it all done! Friday (the day before the event!) we were able to get the most done, with the help of a good friend! Stephanie helped make the mixes and put the labels on all the jars! I am so thankful for her help! We had such a fun time working on this project together.

Right before the event I decided to glue a piece of wood to a picture frame I found in the trash in my neighborhood. I propped it up and used it to display the jars of cookie mix. David thought I was insane, but when he saw it all set up today, he changed his tune! We had some people think the mixes were candles and some that were just SO confused. The Chinese people did not understand the concept of cookie mixes and so many of them just wanted me to explain what it was, how to make it, or to just take a picture! Seriously, if I had charged for pictures I would have raised so much more money!! We had one Chinese lady who bought two (buy one, get one half off) and told me she would call and ask if she got confused! I may have laughed a little inside!

We sold quite a few of my hemp creations, a lot more than we had anticipated. A few people even placed orders for headbands and bracelets, and I even made one in 15 minutes on the spot. As I sat and sold other pieces, I made more, and sold most of what I made. I even had a Chinese girl named “Wind” who was from another charity booth, watch over my shoulder for a good part of the day. She even recorded me braiding a hemp cross with her phone. The culture is so different here! I sold the hemp pieces much cheaper than I would have liked, but I realized we’re not in the USA and most people are used to getting stuff like this fairly cheap.

Even with reducing the prices, we still made $257 at the end of the day (1,570RMB)! And this means we're up to a total of $739 for our adoption savings! We sold all but 4 of the jars of cookie mix and even made an after-the-last-minute sale! We had already packed up and were loading the stuff in the TLC van, when we were told a lady upstairs wanted to buy a jar of cookie mix!  We ran back upstairs and looked around, even though we had no clue who we were looking for! By some miracle we did find her! We offered her a deal for two, but she decided on just one. When the elevator doors opened to let us out to the first floor again, she was rushing towards us! She decided on the other jar as well!

We also got some great advice and came up with ideas to make our next fundraiser better. First of all, we’re going to put an ad in the local foreigner’s magazine the HERE! Dongguan, to sell more pre-made cookie mixes. We’re hoping to set up some sort of ordering system and that people (especially foreigners) will continue to want to buy them!  We’re going to start looking for a place to get t-shirts and stickers made with our very own logo. One made by my fabulous brother Jonathan! He took the basic sketch I shared on here, and graciously transformed it into a true work of art! I’m so excited to be able to share it soon, but he’s putting a few details in still. If anyone in DG knows of a good, reliable place to get tees and stickers made, please advise us! We will also start selling cookies individually at fundraisers, as people usually want something they can have right now. We will also label our booth better, so our cookies will not be mistaken as candles!

What do you think of our first fundraiser? If you have done a fundraiser, what have you found that is most successful? Has anyone used websites, like Paypal or Kickstart Adoption, and if so, would you recommend it? Any suggestions on other fundraisers we might be able to do later? Anybody want to throw a fundraiser in the future on our behalf in the USA? Comment on Facebook, on the blog, or on my Google+ account!

Lately, I can’t get our kids off my mind.

         I have not updated in a while. It's not about us changing our minds, or feeling insecure, we’ve just been super busy. We have picked up several tutoring jobs to make some extra money. One great thing this has done for us is be able to set money aside for our home study, savings, and even money to help get our house in order. This month we finally had enough money to buy some art to spruce the place up! We even bought these cute pieces that will go in our upstairs play room area. We’ve also had some time to reorganize parts of our house and refine certain aspects. Hopefully next month we can do a deep clean (maybe over Easter) and replace some of the things that are still broken around here.

Sketch of the Willow I drew.

       I've also been working on a sketch to work on for t-shirts or stickers or something. Any advice on what I should put it on? Or how to? Right now I'm looking into some local companies that might do it for cheap! Also, I may need help editing it on the computer so if you're good at that and would like to help... contact me!! I also came up with a fundraising idea; making home made pre-mixed cookie, cake and brownie mixes. Now for those of you in the states, you might think this is silly, but if you live in China, well, sometimes it can be as we say here, "hen ma fan" or "very annoying" to buy the expensive imports or to go through the effort of trying to get all the materials together to make your own. I'm going to sell some in zip-locks, decorated of course, and some in pretty glass jars. I hope that people here think it's great and buy tons!!

        Here’s an update worth sharing; we feel lead to adopt siblings! Our plan is to adopt 2 children between the ages of 1-10.  David wants the older child to be a girl, and other than that preference, we don’t really care what age or gender! I can’t wait to see their pictures! I can’t wait to go meet them and to hug them tightly and tell them that they are ours forever. I can’t wait to go pick them up and bring them to their new home! But I guess I need to start with the paper process first. I hope we can start this whole thing soon. We’re hoping to paint the house this summer while we’re on vacation. (We can’t paint while we’re in the house because in China the fumes are dangerous for a while). We’ve also been working hard at setting up some other things around the house, mostly organizational. Do you have any advice on what to make sure to do before a home study? Anyone have any experience with this?  It’s a little nerve-wrecking for us!

       Lately, I can’t get our kids off my mind. I keep praying for them and wondering at what point they are at right now in their young lives. Have they experienced their tragedy, whatever it might be, yet? Is there someone there to hold them and love on them even a little? Is someone taking care of those sweet little hearts and building them up? I hope someone is there for them, I really do. I think about them as I’m walking home from school, wondering what it will be like to talk with them about their days at school; to be able to hold their little hands and maybe stop off at the store for a snack or the playground for a couple of minutes. I wonder what it will be like to get home with them, let the dog out and live out the rest of our day. What will we do? Anyway, I long for them. I long to teach them English, to play with them, read to them and hold them tight. I know things will be rough and majorly difficult at first, maybe even for quite a while, but they will get better. I realize that I will deal with discipline issues, behavior and attitude problems and there will be days that I will hate, but from some of the best examples in my life of parents I have seen that everyone does. That sometimes it doesn’t work out perfect, but in the end most of the time it works out. I don’t pretend to think everything will be just perfect or amazing the moment we see our kids, but I can anticipate what God has laid out before us. I know that He has a great plan for us and our kids and I just can’t wait to see what it is amidst all the chaos and labor surrounding raising children. I’m so excited, in fact, that I kind of want to go out and buy a toy box and start filling it for our future kids! I have to restrain myself every time I go to the store now-a-days! What is one thing you think is super important for a child to have? What is something you always want to buy for your kid?