September is nearing an end.
One month marked off the calendar and closer to our boy coming home.
We are so encouraged each time you ask about him or ask about how close we are to meeting our financial goals to bring him home.
Thank you so much for loving us AND John Preston.
We can't wait for you to meet him and see his beautiful smiling face in person. You are going to love him.
In the beginning of the adoption process, you feel like you just have to get to the next thing.
What is the NEXT payment we have due?
What is the NEXT piece of paper I have to fill out?
Now that we are nearing the end, a large amount of money related to travel is due just about all at one time. It can be quite overwhelming to look at it on paper.
I know my God is larger than that number on the paper though.
But yet, I have to keep reminding myself.
I wanted to share below where we are financially.
It helps me to look at it and I wanted to share with so many of you who have asked.
- John Preston's Reece's Rainbow account was at $2752 when we committed to him.
- Since we have set up our FSP with Reece's Rainbow, others have donated $2003 to his account (after our matching grant is applied).
- We are asking John Preston's orphanage if they will waive his orphanage donation fee of $5700. This is a huge prayer need for us. If you want to pray specifically, please pray that his orphanage is willing to waive this. We will be submitting the request this week to our agency. It might be a while before we hear back.
- We have been offered a matching grant with an organization called Brittany's Hope. Basically, we raise $2000, send it to them, they match is with another $2000 for a total of $4000. This will be dispersed to us after we arrive home with John Preston. That is different than when we were gifted this grant with MinLan. With our first adoption we used this to help with our air fare. We have several fundraisers in October planned with help us reach this goal.
- Our plan has been all along for Ethan and Ellie both to travel with us. I feel like Ethan will be so wonderful to make John Preston feel comfortable with us. And Ellie is a HUGE help! I am so thankful that she went to China with me to bring MinLan home. She helped so much and the thought of her not being able to go has me sweating a little honestly. When it comes time to buy our plane tickets, we will have to make a decision quickly about my ability to take them with me this time.
So with all of the above taken into consideration, that leaves us with around $15, 000 to be fully funded.
[$2000 will have to be sent to Brittany's Hope but we will get it back after we travel. Confused yet? ;-) ]
I have stepped back in the month of September.....have not actively done any fundraising and God has continued to provide.
We have had friends host fundraisers for us.
We have had friends walk up to us at church and hand us a check.
We have had friends reach out to take our hands and leave cash money in our palm.
Times like these the tears come freely.
We are so grateful.
I can not even begin to tell you how much this means to us. Not only that you are willing to support us through our adoption but that you love John Preston already and want to see him home.
We are on day 58 of waiting for our LOA from China. This is the next big step. Once it arrives...could be any day as China is processing families right now that had log in dates the last week of July like we did. Once our LOA arrives, we probably have only about two months before we will travel. As I type that, my heart is giddy with excitement and terrified at the same time.
Will you pray with us? Pray that we make effective and wise decisions regarding raising the remainder of our funds to bring our son home. Pray that God continues to bless our adoption process as He already has.
If you feel led, donations can be made anytime to our You Caring site
HERE.
Tax deductible donations can be made to our Reece's Rainbow account
HERE as well.
We would be so honored if you would share our site with friends and family by clicking the share button below.
Love,
Jenifer
