My heart is full!!

Can I just tell you.....I am amazed!!  I am amazed how awesome the fundraiser was on Friday!!  WOW!!  My friends can sure throw a party!!  And add over 100 items for a silent auction and a few items for a live auction, and some money is to be raised!!!  Because of giving people, we were able to pay almost HALF of our adoption fees!!  THANK YOU!!!  And thank you so much to my precious friends for taking the time out of their busy lives to plan, organize, set up, take down, and on and on and on!!!  And the music....perfect!!  I do believe they will all have an extra jewel in their crown in heaven!!!  The night was perfect and so fun!!!

And to my friend that decided to post a "CREW t-shirt fundraiser" on fb today, which totally surprised me....that blessed me....sooo much!!  THANK YOU!!!

Today was the day we went to OKC for our fingerprinting!!  Ahhh, it's always such a relief to be one step closer!!  It worked out sooo good!!  Not only did Steve and I have to get our fingerprints, but so did our girls, since they are 18 and 19.....but all of us had different appointments to get them done (the computer just spits them out, so you take what you can get!)....in Oklahoma City.....and they are both students, so the timing wasn't real good for them on the dates they were given.  Thankfully, as we all arrived together on Steve's appointment day, with sweet smiles and lots of praying, they let us all use Steve's appointment and we all got our fingerprints done at the same time!!  I am sooo excited!!!  Now we are just waiting for our court date!!  I feel like we will get it any time now!!  I keep reminding myself that God's timing is perfect...so I feel very content waiting!!  I know it'll be exactly as it should be!!

Btw, a friend of ours just left Ethiopia and he was able to see Crew and take pictures (which I will see when he gets back).  There are no words to describe how special it is to me to know someone we know was with him to hug him, even if just for a little while.  We are able to send a gift bag to him this weekend with another friend going over.  She will not be able to see him, but will send the bag to him with our picture in it.  He is little, so he won't understand who we are, but I am so happy he will have a couple new toys and outfits from us!!  It makes me smile....I can already see the new toys going straight in his mouth!!  :)

My heart is full.....I'm thankful.....and eternal perspective is INcreDIblE!!  :)

Love ya'll!!  xoxo!!  Debbi

I'm thankful for sure!

I just can't get over how thankful I am.

It's been a busy few weeks.  Getting ready for the fundraiser we are having this coming Friday has kept me on the move!  I love that, though!!  It makes me feel like I'm doing SOMETHING to help get Crew here faster!!  Of course, I know, it's all God's timing, and He already knows the date Crew will arrive.  But it still makes me feel like I'm doing something!!  :)

As I've been marking off my "to do" list I've realized over and over again, how thankful I am.  I'm actually most always a pretty optimistic person, so being thankful isn't unusual, but I am just so aware of how thankful I am right now.  I think it's funny how things go complete circle.  By that I mean, Steve and I are pretty giving people...both of us.  It's not strange for us to help people out, whether it's making a meal for a sick friend, or helping a kid get a first car that needs help.  We've been known to house a few people when in need.  Steve is constantly picking up hitchhikers (only when he's by himself) and witnessing to them, and very often he gets calls from homeless guys he's trying to help "kick the habit" and when they need encouragement, they turn to Steve.  That's just who we are.  We like to help others.  And here we are, on the receiving end.  We're not really used to being on the receiving end.

When my sister first came up with the idea to contact my friends about having this dinner/silent auction fundraiser, I just wasn't so sure about it.  But it has become one of the most awesome experiences for me!  I have had the opportunity to talk to so many people about our adoption when I've gone to pick up donations.  Out of about 70 people I contacted, only 2 people said no about donating!  That tells me there are so many giving people out there!!  It gave me so much to be thankful for!!

I am thankful for giving people that are willing to sacrifice and help others!!  I am thankful for my family and my sweet friends who are willing to sacrifice their time (and a lot of it) to organize the food, decorations, the program for the night and all the auction items!  I'm thankful for a church that opened their doors to us to host our fundraiser!!  I'm thankful for the people who are taking the time to come to the fundraiser!!  I'm thankful so many "well known" people have a heart for adopting and they took the time to sign stuff and mail it to me for the auction!!  I'm thankful for my kids who are so excited about this new little boy coming to our family!!  I'm thankful for my husband who will father this child just like the other 4 we have!!  I'm thankful for a sister who took these steps before me and has walked me through every single (and I mean every single!) adoption form we had to fill out!!  I'm thankful for friends and my precious family who have prayed for us on this journey!!  I'm thankful that even though we recently had bad news that my mom has breast cancer, that we have had only good news since and that we can be excited that we have more time together!!  I'm thankful for the precious kids my sister adopted that make me less "unsure" of the "unknown" of adopting!!  I'm just so thankful for so much!  I wanted you all to know I'm thankful for you!!  Thank you for sharing, caring, praying and everything else!!  xoxo!!   Debbi

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."  James 1:27