Overdue Update

Hello!  I can't believe how quickly time flies by these days.  I can't believe it's already been a month since my last post!

I have to tell you all, I have SO many times when I think to myself "oh I have this great idea for a blog post and will get that written as soon as I get home".... and then of course I get home, get distracted or busy, and then the post never gets written.  I can only imagine how much harder it's going to be get to things accomplished when we have a toddler running around here!

So all that to say, stay tuned/bear with me... I do have a number of posts "brewing" I just need to find/make the time to sit down and get them written.

I feel like we're finally making progress with all of our paperwork.  In recent weeks we've been able to finish up our online parenting training, complete our second home visit with our social worker, get our passports ordered/re-ordered, and got our labwork done for our medical form.

This week James and I both have our doctor's appointments, which will complete the last task for our home study.  We are a little bummed out because our social worker leaves for a long vacation the day before we have our appointments, so we can't get our paperwork turned in right away, but we aren't in a HUGE hurry to move onto the next step yet because we have a bit more saving/fundraising to do.

Along with our home study, we've been working on our Dossier, which is the collection of documents that will get sent to China.  Many of the documents are required for the dossier are also needed for the home study, but there is a lot more to the dossier, so we will still have quite a few steps that need to be taken before this is ready to be sent to our placement agency (CCAI).  A completed home study is also one of the required pieces of the Dossier, so completing our home study is necessary before anything else.

We have our next meeting with our social worker set up for November 4th, and then I believe she has ten days from then to get us a draft of our home study report.  Our goal is to have our home study mailed to our adoption agency by the end of Thanksgiving, and then our Dossier sent in by the end of December.

Nothing is set in stone with adoption, and of course much of the process is dependent on how quickly we get OUR part of the work done.  But since I'm sure many of you are wondering what all of this means for the overall process, so here's a total guess at how the next few months might play out.
If we get everything turned in for our Dossier by the end of December, we SHOULD hear back from our agency within 4-6 weeks that it's been translated and sent on to China (providing that there isn't anything we need to revise or redo).  "LID" (log in date) is the step that everyone strives for in the adoption process.  That is the date that your documents have arrived to China, they've been reviewed, and deemed acceptable, so you are "logged in" to the China adoption program.   It is after this step that you can start receiving children's files to review.  In a perfect world,  this means we COULD reach this step sometime in February or March. Travel to China usually occurs between 2 and 4 months after accepting a match, which means we COULD be traveling to China as early as next April, and fairly likely by June.  All of that being said, we went into this process telling ourselves that as long as this (2015) is the last Christmas without our child, we will be happy.  I figure that's giving us an extra six months of cushion, which should be more than enough time to cover any bumps that come up along the way.  I'm still not getting my mind or heart set on any particular timeline, however, because there are still SO many variables in this equation, and I don't want to set ourselves up for disappointment.  Part of me would prefer to travel in the fall of next year, as that will allow me to have a few more days of my time off paid, but I'm sure as soon as we receive that match we're not going to want to waste any time going over and getting our kiddo and bringing them home.  So there you have it.  The best guess I can give you is this:  highly unlikely we'll travel to China before next April, and quite possible we'll travel before next December, but we are still too early in the process to really know anything for sure.


Going into this adoption I kept hearing so many people say that the paperwork is one of the hardest parts of adoption, I thought to myself "I don't know why everyone stresses out about the paperwork so much, how bad can it be?".  Let me tell you, it's honestly not that bad.  I think people who have never adopted actually assume it's a lot more cumbersome than it actually is.  So far, it's just gathering up a lot of legal documents, and then we will have to get them all notarized.  From there we'll have to take them to the Secretary of State to be certified, and then after that happens they go to the consulate in Chicago to be authenticated.  Because there are so many steps and so many documents it's easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the process, but I've found if we just take it one step and one document at the time it's not nearly as bad.  The hardest part for me is just finding the time and motivation to sit down and work on it.  I can tell you, after a long day of work where I sit in front of a computer working on forms all day, it's the LAST thing I feel like doing in the evenings.  It's so easy to say "well I'll just do that tomorrow."  But then we all know how that story goes...

So as of this week, I've committed myself to taking one step forward each day.  Even if that means one thank you card mailed, one document gathered, one thing notarized, or one blog post written. I'm hoping this new strategy will help us reach the finish line a little faster.

On top of all the paperwork fun, we've also been gearing up for that next fundraiser, which I will be launching within the next  couple of weeks. *stay tuned for more on this in a later post*

So there you have it!  A very brief summary of what we've been up to for the past month or so.  I still hope to write some of my posts that have been brewing in my mind soon, but I felt like I at least needed to get SOMETHING out there before I lost everyone.

One post I'd really like to do is a FAQ style post.  In order to do this, I need some CROWD PARTICIPATION!  I need to know what questions you all still have unanswered.  These can be about China, about adoption in general, our process, our story, family, anything!  If you have a question you'd like to see answered, please leave it in the comments, or email me!  

For now, I'll leave you with a cute picture of the dogs I took yesterday.  These two are our first adopted "children" (well, technically 2nd and 4th if you take our cats into account).  Our dogs are a VERY important part of our lives, and I think it's safe to say they will be almost as happy to have a little brother or sister as we will be to have a child.  Thankfully they love kids and are super sweet with them.  Chester (the smaller one of the two) has a little "nanny" personality type and I even get to use him to help rehabilitate kittens and cats who have fear issues through the animal rescue I volunteer with (where we adopted each of the dogs from).  Huck (the larger dog) is a little more skittish and takes a little bit longer to feel safe with new situations,  but is a total sweetheart.  I can't wait to see how the relationships play out between our kids and our dogs.  I know it will be hard at first, as many Chinese adoptees have never been around animals, so they tend to be very scared, and need to learn safe boundaries with pets once they do open up, but we hope and pray it all comes together nicely for everyone!

THE BIG GARAGE SALE POST!

Alright folks, I hope you're all snuggled in, this is going to be a LONG post!

My #1 goal for this post is that I can provide insight and advice to anyone who might be planning for a fundraiser yard sale for their own adoption or any other cause.

I also hope that those of you who played a part in this day can see how big of a success the event was for us.

I'll break this post up into four sections, as follows:
1. What we did
2. How it went
3.  What I learned
4. What I would do differently next time

1.  What we did.
As soon as I decided to have a garage sale fundraiser, I began to do some homework.  I spent a lot of time researching on the various adoption Facebook groups I belong to, and ordered a book called "Adopt without Debt" by Julie Gumm that contained a lot of great information about yard sales.    If you are in the process of adopting and don't already belong to the Facebook group "Adoption Fundraisers and Support," I highly suggest joining! Through this group, I stumbled across a "pay it forward" style thread involving a yard sale banner that is traveling around the country to different families hosting yard sales.  I got my name on the list just in time to reserve it for our sale!

Here's the really cool banner we got to use- it's HUGE!

Once I had done my homework and had gotten a rough idea of what the day would look like, I started asking for help from my friend and family members.  I did this about a 4-6 weeks before the sale itself, which gave people enough time to plan ahead for the date,and also to start thinking about cleaning out their closets, cupboards, garage, etc.
I decided to do a three-in-one event, adding both a pop can drive and a bake sale to my yard sale.  I had originally planned to sell lemonade and cold bottled water as well (many other adopters said these were huge hits at their sale) but we ended up scrapping that plan at the the last minute as we had a chilly autumn day that day.
I made sure to plan our sale on the same day that our semi-annual neighborhood sales were happening, knowing that there would already be an increase in shopper traffic that day.

I created an "event" on Facebook, so that I could easily communicate with anyone who wanted to volunteer that day, and also so that my friends could begin spreading the word about our sale to potential shoppers. 
I let people know that I would be accepting donations, but asked that they not drop anything off until the week of, as we did not have the space to store all of these items (big mistake, see more on this in the "what I learned section").
The next thing I did was create little quarter-sheet-of-paper "save the date" flyers on brightly colored paper.  My initial plan was to compass the neighborhood passing them out, but we had just had some phishy solicitors going around the week before, along with a couple of break-ins potentially tied to these solicitors, so I decided it was not a good time to be going door-to-door, as people were on high alert (our neighborhood rarely sees any crime like this).  I also realized that with the size of our neighborhood, hitting each home would take hours and hours of our time, which we just don't have much to spare these days.  Instead, I watched our neighborhood Facebook group for anyone hosting a yard sale, and then asked them each if they would be OK with handing out these flyers at their own sales  (they all said yes).    In my post on the neighborhood group I also asked if anyone would be willing to take a small stack and pass them out to their block, and I had a couple of people volunteer for that.
Sidenote- I live in a HUGE (like couple hundred houses huge), well-known subdivision that is bordered on three sides by very busy main roads, and I believe this was one of the biggest contributing factors to the success of our sale.  If you do not live in a high-traffic area, consider having your sale at a friend or family member's house who does (if they are willing of course), or even a church or business' parking lot.
Beyond raising awareness for the sale itself, these flyers were great because many of the yard sale hosts who passed them out for me also ended up donating a lot of their leftover sale items to my sale.

Here's an image of the flyers I created

In case you can't read the text in the image above

 

Fast forward to two weeks before the sale:
Once we got our garage cleared out, we opened the door to donation drop offs.  At first things were coming in at a very manageable pace, one load every couple of days, so we were able to price items as they came in.  This was extremely helpful.  I tried sorting things out as best as I could, and spent a couple of hours each night out in the garage putting stickers on items.  Some people suggested NOT pricing items and just letting people  make offers, but in the end, I was very glad I priced each individual item. (more to come on that topic in the "how it went" section).

The week of the sale:
The neighborhood's Facebook group was truly one of my biggest assets in this whole endeavor.  I ended up connecting with a woman who let us borrow a cash register, 4 clothing racks, and 7 or 8 huge wooden tables! The kindness of strangers in all of this was such a wonderful surprise!  Another neighbor offered to use his trailer to help my husband and I go get the items.  We picked all of these up on the Monday before the sale. It was so nice to get all of this from one place and not have to worry about returning items to multiple people/homes.  (We did borrower a few card tables and clothing racks from a couple of friends, but they all live close.) 
Another friend found a HUGE box of hangers for free on one of the local yard sale sites, which was also a huge lifesaver!  Monday night we started hanging and pricing clothes.

Tuesday-Friday:
Never underestimate the power of advertising!  If you have friends that want to help your cause, but are not able to get out to your house, put them to work cross posting on Facebook pages, Craigslist, and other sites to get the word out about your sale.  One thing I had a friend do was to create little 8 1/2 x 11 signs to be hung up the day of the sale, with different quotes and facts about orphans and adoptions.  These ended up being a huge hit and great conversation starter the day of my big sale.
Other friends took a revised flyer I whipped out (based on our save the date version) and helped share it around Facebook.  Every little bit helps so much.
My parents showed up on Thursday, which was such a blessing because my husband and I both had to work all day Friday.  Donations started POURING in Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday you couldn't even move in our garage.  Bless my mom's heart, she spent the entire day on Friday hanging, sorting, and pricing clothes. I was absolutely astonished at how many total strangers showed up with van-loads of items to donate for our sale... it was very humbling and slightly overwhelming, but more than anything I was just so thankful because I knew we would have no trouble attracting buyers!

Here's the point at which (I think this was taken Tuesday night when only a few drop offs had come in so far), I knew we were in for a BIG sale.

Another overwhelming thought was that I had advertised our sale starting at 8 am, not even considering the fact that this time of year it doesn't get light out until shortly before that time, and also not thinking about how early that meant I would need to get up that day!  I put a plea out for a 7am crew to help us set everything up, and thankfully my friends really came through for me.  One of the many perks of having young mothers as friends-  many of them are up that early on a Saturday morning anyway! :)  My husband and I got up at 5am on the day of the sale, and left the house around 6 and  drove around the neighborhood putting signs out in the dark.  I don't know if it was because we were half awake, or just because we were so excited for this day, but this was one of my favorite parts of the day.  We were so giddy sneaking around in the dark putting out our nearly 30 signs, that whole thing just seemed sort of surreal and crazy.
Apparently our signs worked right away, because by the time we got back to the house at 7 or so to find our huge crew of busy volunteers pulling stuff out of the garage in the dark, we were already getting people driving by slowly IN THE DARK scouting out our sale!  Garage sale shoppers are a serious breed, let me tell you!
Signs are SO important in getting buyers to your sale.  As we live near the dead center of our huge neighborhood (which is full of twisty-turny roads and can be very confusing to navigate through), I knew it would be important for us to have adequate signage.  I made 11 big bright neon signs to post along the main roads that said "Adoption Fundraiser- HUGE SALE- credit cards accepted"  (I thought of all the times I drive past yard sale signs, wanting to stop but then I don't because I don't have any  cash on me) and then a bunch of smaller, "arrow" type signs with our address on them to post throughout our development to lead people to us.  Also, because our neighborhood also has a very large city park in it with a lot of ball fields and pavilions in it, I made sure to post a big sign down at the park to let people know about the sale.  note: yard sale signs are expensive!  This was definitely the biggest expense we had.  Thankfully a friend loaned us 6 signs, but had we known the cost earlier this is another item I would ask to borrow.  If you do buy your own- don't waste your time with the flimsy little signs that need to be stapled to poles.  get the kind with stakes attached, that are sturdy plastic so they can be left out overnight and will survive the dew and the rain.
Here are the signs we used:

Around the perimter of the neighborhood (found the wood for the stakes in the clearance bin at Home Depot- score!)
 hint- when you make the signs, make the arrows so that you can flip them around and have them work for either direction.

Throughout the neighborhood leading to our house

One thing I did which ended up being super helpful was to print out a map of our subdivision, and then used colored hi-lighters to trace the many different routes to our house, and marked out which intersections would have signs at them.  This made our sign placing and retrieving SO much more efficient because we knew exactly where to go.  Many of our shoppers commented on how easy the signs made it to find our house.  When it was time to retrieve the signs, we checked off the little dots as we went so that we knew we weren't missing any.

Here is the little map I made

One of the only disappointments we had happen was that we learned it's actually it's actually against city ordinance to post signs along public roadways and on street corners where we live.  Early in the morning one of our first customers told me they saw the city driving around pulling all of our signs along the busy roads.  My heart sunk, and I immediately got to Facebook pleading for friends and family to share about our sale, fearing our traffic would come to a halt without our signs out.   We stayed so busy all day that we never had time to go check on the signs for ourselves until after we were all done for the day and went to pull up the posterboard signs for the night (I left the plastic ones up throughout the neighborhood for the next day). The strange thing is, when we went to get them, we learned they had only pulled 2 or 3 of our 11 signs, and seemingly in a random fashion.  I'll never understand this, but at least they left the majority of them up!  

The other great thing I did to prepare for our sale was that  a few weeks before we had the sale I ordered a credit card reader.   Through the company Square, if you get a referral link from a friend (I found someone on the fundraiser Facebook group), you get the device for free, and also get the first $1,00 of transaction processing without any fees.  This was a wonderful thing to have, and I ended up doing about 20% of my business through my card reader.  They are so easy to use and really save a lot of time, plus people tend to spend more not having to worry about running out of cash. (send me your email address if you'd like a referral link).

2. How it went. 
The day was honestly one of the craziest, coolest days I've ever had.  I was running on fumes and adrenaline, as I had a hard time sleeping the entire week beforehand, but I don't even remember feeling tired that day. It was just so cool to see so many of my friends gather in the same place for the same cause!  I met so many wonderful strangers that day who shared their adoption stories of their own, and also met so many kind neighbors, some of which are now becoming friends.
Once we got everything set up, I honestly don't know where a lot of it even came from!  I'm convinced some of it fell from heaven =my dad says no- he remembers how many times that doorbell rang the two days before the sale.  We even had some donations show up the morning of!
Here are a few photos of the sale all set up and ready to go:

 Since it was too cold for lemonade, we had coffee and hot cider (just gave away for free).  Here are the facts/quotes signs my friend made for us.

 So many clothes! (this only shows about a third of them)

 So many of everything!

 Thank goodness we had a lot of tables!

I had asked any of my friends and family coming that day to wear their "Worry Less, Love More" shirts, so this also provided for some great photo opportunities in our new shirts :)

 These girls and I all went to college together, but really grew in our friendship these past few years after we spent a couple of years meeting weekly for a Bible study group.  We no longer meet weekly, but try to get together as often as possible given a few of them are now mothers and one more is a mom-to-be.  Our child will certainly not lack for friends their age!

 This is a dear friend I met through work, and has been such an encourager and help to us!

 Another work friend, she also helped us one night the week before the sale getting items ready and donated many nice items to our sale.

The biggest helpers and supporters- my parents!   My husband's mom also helped a lot too, she just wasn't able to be there the day of the sale due to work, but she gets huge credit for driving 5 hours the night before just to drop off items to us!

2 out of 3 of my college roommates.  One came in from out of state the night before,and the other showed up even through she was 11 days away from her baby's due date! Talk about dedication!  The 3rd would have certainly been there I'm sure, had she not just recently moved a few hours away to start grad school.

The funniest thing about yard sales to me is that you always sell the stuff you think is total junk the quickest, and the items you think are really nice and priced really fairly tend to sit there all day (I can't be the only one who has had this experience).
We stayed busy all day, right up until about  6 pm.  Just when I would think we were slowing down, more cars would show up.  It was certainly the most busy in the morning and early afternoon, but never close up shop just because it slows down... there is definitely a big "after lunch" crowd that rolls in around early evening.
We did open for a few hours the next day, which brought in another good amount of money for us.
The following weekend, our friends' neighborhood was having sales, so we took  the nicest items over there.  I felt like we were really busy and we definitely sold a ton of stuff, but apparently I was selling it TOO cheap, because we really didn't make a lot of money.  That's OK though, we got rid of  a lot of stuff that day, and had a fun day hanging out with them.
TIP-It's important to find a happy medium between striking a bargain and nearly giving stuff away.  For example,  I had one item priced for $20 and let someone buy it for $3.

We're still tallying up items, and I'm still trying to sell some of the nicest leftover items on Craigstlist, but a safe estimate is probably around $2500 raised from the yard sale/bake sale (I didn't separate these amounts out) and around $150 from the pop can drive.  Certainly a huge success!

My husband, my volunteers and I probably logged about 200 hours of work combined, but as the saying goes, many hands make light work and so many people seemed eager to lend a hand.  If you have  the people who are willing to help this is certainly a worthwhile venture!

3.  What I learned
I certainly had a few surprises through all of this.  I'll try to be brief here, as I know you've been reading for quite some time already.
-One of the biggest surprises I had, was how many people tried to negotiate on prices, no matter how cheap I had stuff marked.  Lesson learned-  price a little high, so you always have room to bargain down.  If you want to make $2 on something, price it $3 or $4.  Even when I had stuff marked for 25 cents, people would try to take me to down to a dime!
-Another thing that surprised me was that even though I live in a community where adoption is very common and well-supported, the vast majority of folks who showed up were not there because it was an adoption fundraiser- they were there because it was a yard sale.  They were there to get a bargain.  This is not to say that many people didn't let me "keep the change", add to our donation jar (we made about $150 from this alone- certainly worth doing, despite my insecurity about it), or just our friends and family who showed up and handed us checks.  One neighbor even rounded up a $30-something sale to $300---- that was one the craziest moments of the day--- I was fighting back tears and shaking as I slid his card. He and his wife live a few doors down and foster children and just genuinely have a heart for this cause.  They were strangers before this event, but I have a feeling we will become friends, and it's great to know we share the same heart for these children.  What a blessing!
-Going into the sale, I was overwhelmed by the amount of clothing we had.  In my previous experience with yard sales, clothes just did not sell.   I was pleasantly surprised to find the opposite to be true with this sale.  I sold more clothes than anything else.  The key is to have ALL CLOTHES HUNG, and sorted by size.  I sold most of the clothes on day 2, which is when we had one rack for each size..  People just don't want to pick through, dig through, and rummage for their size.  When you put everything on hangers and put an entire rack in front of them with things that fit, they WILL buy!  Goodwill prices have even gotten expensive, so when someone can come and fill a bag for $5 of very nice, gently used clothes- they will!  Ask your friends for racks to borrow, you'll be surprised how many people have them.  Worst case scenario, you can buy decent ones at Target for $20, or you can also look into renting them.

Here is the set up we had for clothing on day 2:
Each rack had a sign attached that said what was on it along with the price (i.e. "Womens size Medium- 50 cents each item)

-Don't limit yourself to just one day.  At first I didn't want to commit to doing the sale again on Sunday, but let me tell you, once you've already done the work of advertising, putting out signs, and getting everything staged, it's very little effort to drag it all out again and sit with it for one more day.
For our Sunday sale, we let everything know that just about everything was half off, and that's when we introduced the "Fill a bag for $5" option for clothing.  The day before each item was sold as marked.  We sold a lot of clothes that way, and of course made more money on day 1, but marking them down the 2nd day was a nice way to make some extra cash.
-In our experience, the following items did not sell and were just more worth moving and storing than was worth it:  printers (for some reason we ended up with about 6 of these- I did sell a few, but only because I practically gave them away), older style TVs (we had some really nice ones with DVD players built in, and I couldn't even sell them for $1 and had a hard time getting rid of them for FREE!, shoes (now the strange thing here, is that we ended up setting up the sale again a 3rd time at a friends house the following weekend and sole a ton of shoes- but only after I weeded them out and kept only the very nicest ones-  maybe having all the junky ones in the pile made the whole pile look junky?  not sure here), coats (also a huge surprise to me- we had our sale in the fall and had some really nice coats- maybe this was just a fluke for us?), and books.

4.  What I would do differently next time
 If and when we ever do a big yard sale again, there a few things I'll do differently.

Start at 9- It's important to start early to attract those early buyers, but give yourself at least an hour after daylight before opening for business.  No one likes getting up at 6am-  if shoppers show up, that's fine, but in your advertising list a little bit later of a time.

Avoid donations of: TVs, heavy furniture that's not likely to sell, books, and printers.

Set a cutoff date to incoming donations at least 2 days before your sale

Start collecting donations early, even if it means you have to dedicate a room or two of your house to storing them.  Ask that anyone donating clothes makes sure they don't have any stains or tears on them.

Get your clothing racks a couple of weeks before the sale, and get those clothes sorted and hung well in advance.  

Price everything with room to bargain (but not too high to where people are not even going to ask)

Plan for a two day sale (at minimum)- We didn't end up "opening" until almost 2 pm on the second day.  We still ended up with a decent profit, but I bet we would have made much more had we done earlier hours to catch people on their way home from church.

Write out thank you cards each night, as you get donations in- this only takes a few minutes at a time, and this will prevent you from forgetting where everything came from.

*EDIT*- Another adopter mentioned that after her sale she sorted out the nicest leftover clothes and took them to consignment store and made a few hundred dollars that way.  I wish I would have done that, as I had some items that even had the tags on them still.  This is certainly something I'll try next time!

Take the day before the sale off work!

Well, that's all I have.  I truly hope that you found this post to be helpful and informative, and I really hope that if you are planning an adoption yard sale for yourself, you find it to be as profitable as I have!

I personally do NOT like event planning, so going into this sale I kept telling everyone if I do an event, I follow the motto "Go big or go home"... we certainly went big, and we certainly made a big dent in getting our little kiddo home!


Best of luck to you!

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments!

Home Study Visit #1

Wow, I really got behind on my updates... where does the time go?!
I guess for us the past couple of weeks pretty much went to yard sale prep, yard sale, and yard sale recovery (more to come on the sale in a separate post).

I promised that I would do a post regarding our first home study visit, so here it is.

Because our adoption agency is based out of Colorado (and we live in Michigan), we had to contract with another (local) agency to complete our home study.  We were given a list of about 5-10 different agency choices, and noticed a wide variety in pricing.  I found the most cost-friendly agency, did a little bit of research to make sure others who had used them previously were satisfied, and went ahead and sent them my application.  Being a very small agency, it did take quite a while to hear anything back and to get this process going (come to find out I applied just shortly before the whole office shut down for vacation for a week).  However, once we finally got connected with our assigned Social Worker, things began to go very smoothly.

Lucky for us, our assigned social worker has a regular full time job on top of this duty, so her availability for meetings is on nights and weekends (one of the things I worried about was that our social worker would want to meet during daytime/working hours, which doesn't work for us).  She reached out to me on August 24th and we set up our first meeting for the 29th.

Going into this visit, I really had no idea what to expect.  Of course before the visit I scoured all of my adoption Facebook groups for hints and tips from others, and found some people saying their social worker probed into every cupboard and closet in their home and others who said the visit is more about YOU than your house.  Some said that the social worker probed into every nook and cranny of  their personal lives (one said theirs even asked about their "intimacy") and others said it was just a casual "get to know you" conversation.

We tried not to stress out about the visit too much.  We enjoyed some quality time together Friday evening, and then woke up early Saturday morning to get the house cleaned and ready for whatever level of "inspection" might come our way. We moved all the chemicals up to the top shelves of closets and cleaned the rest of the house, but didn't go too crazy (there was no baseboard scrubbing or wall washing). Our social worker arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon.  Before she even asked to see the house, we all sat around the table for a little over an hour.  She spent a lot of time talking about the agency she works for, as well as her own experience with adopting her daughter from China.  She did ask us some basic questions about our lives (marriage, work, pets, etc). and asked about what led us to adoption.
We had some questions about the process, which she also answered for us, and she gave us a binder to help us keep track of the documents we need to gather for our home study.
Overall, it was just a really nice time of sharing stories and making connections.

Before she got ready to leave she did ask for a tour of the house, but she didn't bother going through closets or ask to see the insides of any drawers, etc.  She just wanted to make sure we had a bedroom for our child, our house was generally safe and clean, and that our dogs weren't viscous (that was settled about 2 seconds after she walked through the door).  She asked about if we had any guns in the home, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, but she wasn't worried about a fire escape plan, child safety locks, etc.

This was the first of 4 visits we will have with her. Our next visit is scheduled for this coming Monday evening.   We could have got it in sooner, but needed to take some time to really devote to the big yard sale fundraiser we hosted last weekend.  The one thing I do know that will take place at this next visit is individual interviews with each of us without the other one present.  I'm sure this is just to make sure we are both on the same page about adoption, child-rearing ideas, and so forth, but I guess we'll find out for sure soon!

We appreciate the casual, laid-back nature of our social worker.  She did reveal to us that in her near 20 years of doing home studies, she has only had to deny one applicant,and it was a pretty extreme situation (mental illness, unsuitable housing, etc).  Hearing that definitely put our minds at ease in a huge way!  I had been so worried that maybe even having foster cats in the house at the time, or the fact that our deck rails might not be up to code might create problems for us...oh, the things we worry ourselves with!

Now we need to focus on the paperwork gathering process.  I've already sent in for (and received) copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, and we went and got our police clearance letters- now we need to get/renew our passports and gather a few other letters from our employers and so forth.  Once we get all of the letters and documents together we have to get them notarized, and then send the notarized copies into the state so that they can certify the notaries are valid.  They definitely call it a "paper chase" for a reason!

One of my friends posted this diagram on Facebook a few weeks ago which I thought really summed up the whole process pretty nicely for those who have no connection to it.

As always, we appreciate your comments and would love to hear what questions any of you might have for us! I've really immersed myself into the "adoption culture" these past couple of months and sometimes it's hard for me to remember what the average person does and doesn't know, and what you all might be curious about.

Where my Trust is without borders

Note: this blog post was intended to be all about our home study visit that happened yesterday, but I just couldn't get myself to push this other post out of the way.  For those of you anxiously waiting to hear about the home study visit- I will update on that soon, I promise.  Just know that it went well, and was a nice, informative, encouraging afternoon.

A few weeks back I saw a really cute shirt in one of the fundraising groups I belong to on Facebook that said "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders"  and had the outline of China printed in the background.   I had never heard this phrase before but I thought it was so fitting for this international adoption process.  I liked it so much I almost ordered it, but I didn't because we're really trying to save money for our adoption, and if I ordered every shirt on that site I loved, I'd have a new wardrobe every week!

Fast forward a few weeks and I found myself in church today, and the worship team started singing a song with the same phrase in it (in hindsight, I'm sure the song is what inspired the shirt idea).  I just can't emphasize enough how closely this song aligns with our adoption journey. (see lyrics and video at the bottom of this page)

We are embarking on the journey I've always known I was meant to take.  From a young age, I knew I was called to adopt, but since James and have been married, I've let my fears convince me that it wasn't the right time.  Well, as I shared in one of my first posts, I was called out by the Holy Spirit in March that I need to TRUST and FOLLOW and let the Lord lead us through this journey.

Shortly after deciding to move forward with the adoption, we knew that we needed to re-balance our schedules and make church attendance a priority in our lives, and have been blessed beyond our imaginations by joining a new church congregation at Madison: North.
Even though I think we've only been able to attend maybe 5 or 6 times total due to summer travel and house guests, I know beyond doubt that this is our church home.

At one of our first visits they had an insert in the bulletin advertising a parenting workshop for parents of adopted children (which I wasn't able to attend, but at least I know I must not be the only adoptive parent in the congregation!)  Since then, one of my close friends has told me her neighbors attend this church, and they have adopted multiple children.  I have yet to meet them, but look forward to that encounter.
Every other time we've been in attendance, the message has spoke directly to something I've had on my heart that day or week, and this morning was no exception.

I decided two weeks ago that I'm going to make a concerted effort to focus my Sundays on gratitude.  I will make every effort to get thank you cards written to those who have shown us help that week, and I will spend time in reflection for the many blessings we have witnessed in our life that week.  It is important for me to do this type of exercise when going through a stressful situation -- it's all to easy to get sucked up into the whining, complaining, fatigue, and annoyances of the endless tasks, paperwork, and fundraising efforts.  However, every time I take a step back and think about the people who have spoken kind words to us, who have said they are praying for us, who have donated money, pop cans, or garage sale items to our cause, I am AMAZED at the love that is being shown.  It is so humbling to think that there are that many people who even think of you, and who are interested in your lives.
It's also important for me to give acknowledgment that God is doing what He said He would-  He is providing a way for us to bring this child home.

This morning I woke up about an hour earlier than I needed to, which is normally something that I find really annoying.  What usually happens is I wake up feeling awake and refreshed, but convince myself to take advantage of more sleep time, so I fall back asleep, only to find myself feeling exhausted and cranky when that alarm goes off.  Today I decided to break that habit, so I got out of bed, came out to the living room, and sat down with my breakfast in front of the window overlooking our yard.  I was amazed at how quiet and still the neighborhood was. I enjoyed taking in the sights and the sounds of a foggy, wet morning after 24 hours of off-and-on rain showers.  The crickets and cicadas were still chirping, and a few birds could be heard in the distance.  I could hear the gentle "drip, drip" of the rain drops falling off of tree limbs, and for a moment, it seemed I was perhaps the only one in the neighborhood awake.  I was overcome with gratitude-  for our house, for our yard, this neighborhood, and again, all of those who have helped get us to this point in our adoption journey.  I also found myself reflecting on the dear Granddaughter of a friend who nearly died in a tragic near-drowning 2 weeks ago today.  Despite original Doctor reports that it may be weeks before she even regained consciousness, and threats of brain damage and a long, long road of recovery, that little girl walked herself right out of the hospital just two days ago-12 days after her accident.  She had thousands of people praying fervently for her, and God has heard our prayers and has saved her for a bright future.  Hallelujah!

Fast forward a couple of hours, and what does Pastor Joy talk about at church?  GRATITUDE.  She challenged us to spend the next two weeks jotting down items each day we are thankful for, and talked about the importance of reflecting on gratitude, even in times of difficulty.  The message was based on 2 Kings 6, and how things are not always as they first appear.  How when God gets involved, our circumstances seem so much different (a fish turns into a feast, a sacrificed man turns into a Risen Savior, a Giant falls at the stone from a slingshot, etc).    Of course my mind immediately added on "and two people from Kentwood, Michigan, will travel across the world to rescue an orphan and bring them back home to show them a lifetime of love and guidance."

So that's all I have for today- I encourage you all to spend time reflecting on the seas in your life you feel are uncrossable, the mountains that seem un-passable?  What is holding you back from taking that step of faith into the unknown?  God has promised us if we put our trust in Him, He will provide, and He will lead us through.  I pray that He might speak to your heart and show you the way to love and trust.

Perhaps God seems far away right now.  Perhaps you feel as though you are sinking in oceans deep, and have no life line in sight to grab onto. Just remember, that even when you can't hear or see God, He is always there.

Here are the lyrics to the song I mentioned above, and a video clip if you'd like to hear the song for yourself:

"Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)"

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand
And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine
Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You've never failed and You won't start now
So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine
[6x]
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior
Oh, Jesus, you're my God!
I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine 

"May the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.  May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you Peace."

Fundraisers Galore!

We are still waiting to hear back from our home study agency to start scheduling our home visits, so our paper chase is on a temporary hold.  During this time, we are trying to take advantage of our spare time by getting as much fundraising out of the way as possible.


Our t-shirt sales ended this week and overall, I would say were quite successful.

I thought I would share a review of my experience with the T-Shirt sale, in case any of you adoptive parents are considering doing a campaign to raise money for your own journey. Even if you are not an adoptive parent, maybe you have to do a t-shirt campaign for another organization or cause.  Either way, here is a recap of our experience:  
My biggest surprise was how much better the adult shirts sold than the toddler's or children's sizes. I was thinking that the bright colors of the shirts combined with a very kid-friendly design would really be a hit, especially among adoptive families (and you better believe I was cross posting that sale all over different adoptive family Facebook groups).  Unfortunately, we ended up only selling 6 toddler sizes and 3 children's, and we ordered 1 of each category.  This seems to be a fairly common occurrence- maybe it's because parents figure their children will grow out of the shirt too fast to make it a wise investment, but who knows.  The good news is that we sold 75 adult shirts (and yes, at least 5 of those were for us, but I am still very pleased!)

We used the website TeeSpring, mainly because I had done a couple of purchases through them for fundraisers put on by the animal rescue I volunteer with and found them to be very user friendly, simple, and easy to work with. I know that with the first sale the rescue did some of the shirts came in sized a little weird, and Teespring was very flexible in offering refunds to buyers.  There is also zero upfront investment from the seller, and they handle all of the shipping, which is nice.
In case any of you are considering a T-Shirt fundraiser for your own journeys, here are my personal opinions based on the experience we have had so far-

In hindsight, here are the downsides to using Teespring:
-The only times to reach anyone by phone is during working hours
-I kept having issues where it would show I made a purchase successfully but then I never got a receipt.  Upon further review, it would show my order was cancelled, even though I never requested that.  I really hope it was just a glitch for me and no one else!
-You have do launch separate campaigns for children, adult, and toddler sizes, and because we sold so few of the kid's and toddler's shirts, we netted almost zero profit from those campaigns.
-They do not disclose to you who ordered, so if people don't let me know, I will never know exactly who placed orders, and what colors and designs they chose.

And you have to take the bad with the good, so here are the perks of using Teespring:
-The design tool is very easy to use and they have a large selection of pre-loaded graphics.  I did have a little trouble getting the Mandarin characters to carry over (I guess it's glitchy when you have two languages in one design), but the support team was very responsive in getting it fixed right away for me when I called them
-The site is fairly advanced, and lets you offer promotions, discounts, and up-sell incentives to buyers
-They handle all of the shipping
-Communication with buyers and sellers is excellent- clear, concise, and very quick
-I love the feature that allows you to message all of your buyers for your campaign
-Not having to pre-buy the shirts and then re-sell them and worry about shipping them out was a HUGE perk for us!
-The shirts shipped in less than 12 hours from the campaign ending, so they are very quick!

All in all, we made a little over $630 profit from the sale, which I am very happy with.  Subtract out the $150+ we spent on shirts for ourselves and our little one, and we still made almost $500, which will certainly be a help to us.  I knew going into the endeavor that it wouldn't be a huge money maker, but what is more important to me is that every time someone wears one of these shirts, it will help raise awareness for orphans worldwide.  I hope to make a photo book for our child of everyone wearing their new shirts so they can always know how many people contributed to their adoption.

One tidbit of wisdom for any sellers-  keep reminding people, even though you feel like you are being so annoying about it!  We launched a 21 day campaign, and had a very slow 10 days in the middle, and then everyone seemed to scramble to get their orders in at the last minute.  I created an "event" on Facebook, as well as posted on my own timeline. Ask your friends to share your posts to help spread the word.

Our next big event is a Yard Sale/Bake Sale/Pop Can drive we are planning for September 13th.  I've been passing out flyers around my neighborhood and have already had a few friends drop off items to be sold.  Now it's time for me to get busy pricing those items and getting everything organized!  There was a post a while back in one of the fundraising groups I belong to about a traveling banner, and I lucked out and got on the reservation list.  It's a "pay it forward" process, where the only thing you need to do in order to use the banner is agree to mail it to the next person on the list... how neat!

If you live in the Grand Rapids area, come on out on the 13th to check out our sale!  We will have a TON of items, as I've got quite a few friends and family members donating so far!  If you'd like to contribute items to be sold, pop cans, or baked goods please let me know.  Or maybe you'd just like to help out the week before with sorting, pricing, or sign making... I'll be needing all hands on deck!
If you do not live near Grand Rapids but would still like to help out... you of course can mail us your bottle slips :)

Another tip I learned from one of the Facebook groups was to get a credit card reader.  Thankfully Square has them for free, and you get the first $1,000 in swipes processed without any fees.  Additionally, if anyone else signs up under me they get $1,000 in swipes free, and we get an additional $1,000.  I think having this device will really help our sale- I know there have been so many times I've driven past a yard sale and wanted to stop but I didn't have any cash on hand.

Here is the link to sign up: https://squareup.com/i/A4CF8CD0

If you are an adoptive parent, and looking for fundraising ideas, here are three very helpful Facebook groups I have found:
-Red Thread Trading Post
-Shop With a Purpose- Support Adoption Fundraisers
-Adoption Fundraisers and Support

I'm also working my way through the book "Adopt without Debt" written by Julie Gumm which so far has been very insightful.

That's all for tonight-  stay tuned for an update as soon as we hear back from our Home Study social worker.

Here is a picture of the banner which we will be using in front of the house:

Blessings Abound

It has now been nearly three weeks since we began our fundraising journey.

I have been so amazed at the caring, kindness, and generosity we have been shown by friends, family, neighbors, and even a few strangers these past few weeks.

While our fundraising mission has only just begun, I am so encouraged and energized by how many people have offered us their time, their pop cans, trailers, tables, clothing racks, prayers, facebook shares, and more.

I've been putting at least a couple of hours in each night into this process, but I can see the first fruits of my labor already,  which is so encouraging!  Back when I was sitting in the movie theater in March hearing God's calling  that now is the time for us to take action, I just couldn't push aside the fear, the doubt, and the worry about finances.  And of course with every "But God..." protest, I was met with the answer of "TRUST ME." I had no other choice but to do just that... We dived into this journey feet first, knowing that in order to see this mission through, we would have to rely on the help of others.

Fundraising in and of itself is a very humbling process. Asking other people, especially strangers, to give of their time, money, or resources is never a comfortable process. Fundraising for yourself is even more humbling than I had imagined it would be.  I had so many reservations about asking others for help, but knew  that I wasn't asking on my own behalf, but rather on behalf of an orphaned child who deserves a loving home and a forever family.  That fact alone doesn't mean that it's really any easier to ask people for their money, time, or support, but it does remind me that I'm not asking out of my own selfish desires.

As my last post mentioned, we kicked off a T-Shirt sale which ends tomorrow.  I had no idea what to expect with this venture, but since it was a zero-investment effort, I figured it would be worth giving a try (not to mention I just really wanted some shirts to wear to help us spread the message about our journey!).
In hindsight, it was totally worth doing, even though it has amounted to about 1 hour of my time every day for the past three weeks.  There are certainly faster, easier ways to raise money, but what I love about the t-shirt sale is that when it's all said and done we'll be able to see so many others wear a shirt that I designed, and then hopefully show pictures of all these loving friends and family to our adopted child.  I'm hoping that by the time the sale ends, we will have made almost $500 profit from the sale... not a huge amount of money, but every little bit helps!

Another thing I've been pouring my time into is gearing up for a Yard Sale Fundraiser event.  We will combine the yard sale with a bake sale and popcan drive.  I've got a HUGE banner coming from one of the Facebook groups I belong to, it's been making it's way around the country to adoptive families for use... what a wonderful "pay it forward" idea!  I've been spreading the word on Facebook, and also made flyers that I've been passing out around our neighborhood.  A few neighbors had sales this weekend, and generously offered to pass out flyers at their sale for me (I hesitate going door to door handing them out as we've had a few suspicious individuals knocking on doors lately and it's go the neighborhood a bit on edge).  So far I've had one person drop off pop cans, another friend drop of items, and a large number of people tell me they are looking forward to helping us out on that day and are saving up items for us!  I feel so very loved and honored to know so many wonderful people.

Here are just a few of the crazy blessings we've experienced in the past few weeks:

-One neighbor whom we've never met dropped off three huge bags of pop cans within minutes of me posting in the neighborhood group about our fundraiser
-Another "stranger neighbor" (someone from my neighborhood association Facebook group that I've never met) is letting us borrow 4 clothing racks and 10 tables for our sale
-A random stranger from one of the adoption groups I belong to on Facebook was having trouble ordering a shirt so she sent me all of her personal information and credit card number so that I could get one ordered for her! wow!  I felt so humbled that a total stranger would entrust me with that information!
-Another "stranger neighbor" got my email address from our yard sale flyer that I post and then blessed us with a $50 paypal donation

And the kindness continues on a daily basis...  God is certainly proving his point that if we trust in His Goodness and Faithfulness, he will provide the way for us to bring our child home.

We are so thankful that we chose this neighborhood to move into last year... it is such a family-friendly place to be, and has a big, beautiful park right in the middle of the neighborhood that we cannot WAIT to introduce our child to! As much as I'm trying not to get my hopes up for anything to happen shy of 18 months, I would really love to bring home our child next summer.

Another thing I'm so thankful for is having found a great church to call home.  While we haven't been able to get into a solid routine of weekly attendance this summer due to being out of town so often, it has become so apparent to us what a close-knit "family" this church body is, and we cannot wait to become more involved. (If you are looking for a great church and are in the Grand Rapids, MI area, you should check out Madison North too)
Today's message was based on John 15:5   ^"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

What an appropriate message for this season of our lives!   It is so true that apart from God's help, we certainly could not accomplish this mission on our own accord.  This journey is going to be long, exhausting, emotional, expensive, and at times, discouraging.  But we can rest in the confidence and assuredness that God will see us through, and He will provide for all of our needs along the way.
Today the speaker told a story about a clematis vine, and how it will attach to anything it can find.  In his case, they had one which had no trellis to climb, so it had began wrapping itself around tulip stems.  Of course the tulips died off, and the vine had nothing to "climb" and ended up right back on the ground.  They ended up clipping out the dead tulip stems and pulling them out of the grasp of the vine before finding something more sturdy to lean the vine on.

How often do we wrap ourselves around things that fade away, only to find ourselves right  back on the ground, rather than growing Up and Outward as we were meant to do?  I know I've caught myself clinging to my spouse, my career, my friendships, my education, and so many other things in my life for meaning and fulfillment, only to find my heart still empty and yearning for more.  Until we wrap ourselves around the never-ending love and support of our Savior we will continue to fall down, ceasing to grow in the way that we were intended to.

And so we will strive to abide in the Lord, and trust that he will deliver us through this journey.
 This isn't an attitude of "Well, God will take care of it so I don't have to..."  
We will do whatever we can to bring our child home to us.  We will scale back our budget, we will sacrifice nights out, we will spend our evenings and weekends pouring over paperwork, trimming flyers, researching fundraising ideas, sending out thank you cards, and anything else we can do to help speed this process along.

For right now, it's focusing on the yard sale and getting our paperwork process started.  James also needs to apply for a passport and we need to start ordering copies of documents for our Dossier.

I heard from the home study agency on Friday, and they will likely be contacting us soon to begin that process as well.  I will do another update when we learn more about what the home study process is going to look like.

Things are getting real....

(note: this blog post is a bit delayed, but this day was very important in our overall journey and I wanted to make sure I got it recorded here)

Today marked a big step in our journey-

We mailed in our homestudy application with the $300 application fee.
It took us over a week to complete the application- it asked about everything from how our family celebrated Holidays growing up to what our school experiences were to how we resolve conflicts in our marriage.

We also mailed in our first agency fee of $2900.

To say I was a bit anxious handing over these envelopes to the clerk in the post office is an extreme understatement.  But it was also such a huge weight off my heart, as if I was FULLY committing to this journey for once and for all.

I'm not saying we weren't 100% sure before this moment, but as you can call imagine, once you've invested over $3,000 into a decision, the chances that you'll get cold feet and change your mind after that are PRETTY SLIM!

 The rest of the day at work was so painstakingly long.  It was so hard to think of anything else other than our adoption- about the fact that our child is out there somewhere, and we are really in the process of bringing them home to us now!

The next step is to wait to hear from the home study agency, and we will begin our meetings with a social worker and find out what else is involved in that process.

We will also be hearing from the adoption agency soon, and will find out more about what goes into compiling our Dossier (the large collections of certified, notarized documents that gets sent to China for them to officially approve you as an adoptive family).

That's all for today... cheers to the future and to becoming parents!