New Fundraising Opportunity

Anyone need to order any magazines?!?! A fundraiser has been set up in our name. If your magazine subscriptions are about to expire, or you have been meaning to order a magazine and haven't gotten around to it please follow the link below and you can order your subscriptions online. The great thing is, 40% of every sale goes to our adoption fund!!!

http://www.qsp.com/profile/tffu

These fundraisers are normally set up for schools so if you see any weird wording, you can just ignore. If you know anyone else that might be interested, please pass this link along!

Thanks and thanks to Heather for setting this up for us!

Sarah

Two Weeks Until the Courts Open

No news to report but only two weeks until the courts open back up and we HOPEFULLY hear about a court date. We are working on getting our shots, collecting donations for the orphanage, and enjoying time with Emma before baby brother hits the scene. We are still hoping to get a court date in October and travel in November.

Just a reminder to start collecting formula and diapers......November will be here before you know it (I am obviously having an optomistic day today...)!

Great News on the Financial Front!

We applied for a grant through Caroline's Promise and were very hopefull that this would be an avenue to help us reach our goals for our final adoption fees. We found out last week that we did not get this grant and were pretty dissapointed. That same week, our church had decided that they wanted to help us with our adoption by giving us $2,000 toward our final adoption fees. On top of this, the Abba Fund agreed to match up to $750 of our church's giving. So within hours of being dissapointed, we found out that we had been given $2,750 toward our adoption! We are so blessed that we have such amazing people around us that allow God to work through them to encourage us just at the right times.

It looks as though we have about $6,000 of fees remaining to be paid when we travel ($1,000 more than I had previously estimated). This means that with the church's grant and the donations recieved since we last paid fees we have about $2,500 to go. We have been so blessed by all of you that have joined with us in this way. Thank you!

A little over a month......

We met our son through pictures and paper a month ago Friday. Since then, we have heard no news on his wellbeing, his growth, his personality, his needs, or just overall how he is doing. We understand that this is just part of adoption but it is so hard. I just want someone to send me something, just a small token of information that will pacify us for another long month of waiting. We haven’t heard any news of a court date and have been told that this probably won’t be given out until after the judges come back from recess on October 5th. Some days aren’t so bad. Other days are very long and hard. Our family feels incomplete, like we are missing someone. Is it possible to miss someone you have never met? Emma talks about her baby brother daily and seems to miss him in her own way as much as we do. We are all ready to be a family of four and hope that these next months pass quickly as we wait for the word that he is in fact ours to keep……

Orphanage Donations Needed!!

Baby Formula
Powdered, any brand
&
Diapers
smaller sized, any brand

We are gathering diapers and formula to bring with us to help provide for the needs of the orphans at Hannah’s Hope Ethiopia, the orphanage our son is in. These items are hard to come by in Ethiopia and families that travel to pick up their adopted children are the main sources of donations for Hannah’s Hope. Any items given to Hannah’s Hope in excess of need are distributed to the nearby orphanages that are also in desperate need. Therefore, we will be packing light and taking as many extra suitcases as possible filled with formula and diapers.

It is our goal to collect 150 pounds of formula and diapers by November.

If you would like to help please:

Give diapers or formula to John and Sarah Pell and we will pack it with our materials or order these items online and have them shipped to our home. (If you do not live in Greensboro but want to help, please contact us and we will find a creative way to make your donation work).

Package for Our Little Man

On Monday we were able to send a few items to Baby John. We could only send what would fit in a zip lock bag so we sent a photo album, a lovie and a cute little outfit. We heard from our case worker that this will go over to Ethiopia on Monday so should be there for him soon. He is too young to really know anything but we hope that these items bring him some comfort and the pictures make us a little bit more familiar when we arrive to pick him up.

Emma sending some love to her baby brother.

She gave each item a kiss before they went in the bag.

Financial Update: Thanks to the support of family and friends, we have been given $9,756 toward our adoption with $4,244 left to go.

Hannah's Hope

The feeling of having a child that you know is out there waiting for you and having no power to act is a pretty indescribable feeling. For those of you that are adopting or already have, you know the feeling that I am talking about. I am a pretty down to earth person. Someone that can easily focus on tasks at hand and ignore things that I can not change. This is completely different. We feel as though a piece of our family is missing. My thoughts and prayers are never far from him as I wait for the powers that be to announce he is ours and can come to live with us. Is is safe? Is he well? Is he scared? Does someone rock him to sleep at night? Does he ache for his birth mother? These are all questions that plague me. My only assurance at this point is that I know that he is being well cared for, or as well cared for as he can be in an orphanage. I was going to write a post about Hannah's Hope but thought this video did a better job explaining the vision behind this orphanage and the loving group of people that brought it about:

Click on http://www.allgodschildren.org/about/videos/

And Go to AGCI - Hannah's Hope Ethiopia