Pieces of Love for Micah - Our 2nd Fundraiser!

I got this super creative idea from my friend, Marianne (the one who told me about Reece's Rainbow). She did this same fundraiser for Darya (www.ahomefordarya.blogspot.com). So I ordered this adorable picture puzzle with Micah's photo on it. It has 252 pieces. I stole Marianne's idea that if for every $5 you chip-in to our adoption fund I would write your name (or whoever you want to designate it in honor of - your son, daughter, dog, whoever!) on the back of a puzzle piece.

As you read in my last post, I had a supportive yard sale shopper (Kathleen Serrano) donate for this, so the first piece is shown below.

As soon as I have a few pieces with names on the back, I'll post a picture on here and continue to update it as it is being put together. Once it's all finished, I will glue and frame it so Micah will know who helped bring him home and how many friends and family members loved him before he even got here! This is the beautiful tin it came in and what the picture looks like.

And this is what it looks like now, so please help us put it together! You can use the red Chip-in link to your right on the sidebar to donate :-)

Thank you all so much!! We are truly humbled and grateful for all your support, love, and prayers!!

First Fundraiser a Success!

We had our first fundraiser, a yard sale, today. There were so many donated items toward Micah's adoption from close friends, and even a few extra donations today! One woman in particular made me smile. Her name was Kathleen Serrano (I hope she doesn't mind I use her name), and she was just THRILLED that we were adopting a baby with special needs. She worked with special needs children at a local school and you could just tell she had a huge heart for them. I told her we started a puzzle fundraiser (will be explained more on next post), and that for $5 she could put her name on a puzzle piece and Micah would know who helped to bring him home. She put $10 in the can and was so excited to be helping him out. She asked if I was going to glue it all together and frame it for him and I said yes! She stayed and talked to me about Micah and the process for quite a while, and the funniest part was she didn't buy one thing from the yard sale. It was like she was led here just to share our stories with each other. What a wonderful lady!

Then, another family we know from church happened upon our yard sale, bought a couple things, and ended up taking Reece's Rainbow information for a family member who is looking to adopt. Special needs didn't seem to be an issue at all! What a wonderful day of sharing our story. I felt so truly blessed.

So with all the donated items, and some things we had to sell, we sold a total of $593.33 today. We still have about half of the items we started with, so we will most likely have one more sale before we donate the rest to Deseret Industries. What a very blessed day we had!

P.S. It was about 40 degrees all day today.

National Adoption Month

National Adoption Month
We committed to Micah (on the right) November 5th. Jackson's forever family found him soon after. We had no idea it was National Adoption Month! We are so excited to be on this journey and are really grateful for the amount of love and support we've received already.

A few points I'd like to make in love though: Micah has Down Syndrome. We do not know how severe it is, nor do we care. We also do not know if he has any other health issues other than a heart condition he had surgery for last year. What we DO know is that God led us to him and we want to bring him home. We do not know how the funds will come, but we know God will provide a way. We are doing many different kinds of fundraisers in the hopes that something will appeal to someone along the way. Our intention is not to bug anyone and we do not expect everyone to help at every fundraiser. We do understand this is the holiday season and the economy is bad. However, we still hope that we will have morale support and that if our friends and family feel led to help financially that they do so in the way they feel the most comfortable. We've had friends donate $20 and strangers donate $10. We've had other friends donate items for our yard sale coming up this weekend. We've had friends interested in the family photos for $20. We've had other friends and family just HELP SPREAD THE WORD, in the hopes that someone else may be able to help in some way. There will be a pizza fundraiser night coming up on December 6th at Pizza Factory in Phelan. We also hope to do a pancake breakfast or spaghetti dinner with a silent auction.

What we'd like you all to know is that every little bit helps us get closer to our goal and we appreciate your help in ANY way you give it. Please don't take our requests as badgering. We are simply trying to save an innocent boy's life from permanent institutionalization. Yes, there are children who need homes in our own country. However there are many parents on waiting lists for these children. Most adoption processes involve the birth mother choosing the family they want for their child. Other kids are stuck in foster care. We do not wish to do foster care in the hopes of adopting a child. For us, international adoption of a down syndrome baby was our door. It's not for everyone, but it is for us.

We are grateful to my friend, Marianne, who introduced us to Reece's Rainbow. We are grateful for all that Reece's Rainbow does to help find families for these adorable and very needy children. Unfortunately, adoption is not cheap. Domestic adoptions can cost $20,000-30,000 just the same as international adoption. It is unbelievable what is involved. It is much cheaper to conceive a baby, and we are some of the lucky ones who have that ability. We do not take it for granted, but we just KNOW that we have to do this. We are in love Micah already and are emotionally and mentally prepared for what bringing home a special needs child may involve.

Lastly, we know Micah will have a loving and caring family with us and that we can offer him a forever family that will always be here for him (yes, even if he lives with us his entire adult life). We are committed to anything we need to do to save him. If we were adopting just for our personal desire we would not ask for financial help, but we are adopting him to save his life. We don't have a lot of time to get the money together to save him. He currently does not get the care God intended for him to have in his life (basic things like cuddling, playing, hugging & kissing, holding, loving, constant attention, nurturing, a mother and a father, and life outside an orphanage). We feel the need to do this as quickly as possible. This is not something we saved up for or planned for. It just sort of fell in our laps. But we know there's Someone greater than us who has had this in His plan for quite some time. Everything we've done in our lives has led us to this point. And we are ETERNALLY grateful for a loving Father in heaven who provides the way for all of us, especially Micah.

Thank you all for love, support, prayers, friendship, and donations (in any way they come).

With love,
Shelly

KISSES IN THE WIND...A waiting child's lullabye

I hold you in my heart and touch you in my dreams.
You are here each day with me, or at least that's how it seems.

I know you wonder where we are...what's taking us so long?
But remember child, I love you so and God will keep you strong.

Now go outside and feel the breeze and let it touch your skin.
Because tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God hold you in His hand until I can be with you.
I promise you my darling, I'm doing all that I can do.

Very soon you'll have a family for real, not just pretend.
But for tonight, just as always, I blow you kisses in the wind.

May God wrap you in His arms and hold you very tight.
And let the angels bring you kisses that I send to you each night.

The love of strangers

I can't even begin to express my gratitude today. Today, two people we don't even know have donated toward bringing Micah home... one who knows a friend, and one who we just met online through the wonderful Reece's Rainbow family (the angel who took my baby's pictures at his orphanage!) This journey has brought me to tears every single day. Stories of others' journeys, looking at Micah's picture, reading books, the gratitude of strangers, and the constant support we get from those around us each day. This is undoubtedly one of the hardest things I've ever gone through because I want Micah home with us now and we have to wait while he is in the orphanage. I pray for his warmth, health, safety, nourishment, and happiness. I pray that his country does not close it's doors to adoptions, especially of special needs children. I pray that the caregivers are good to him, and I pray that he can feel our love over a 14+ hour flight (couldn't find a way to calculate miles and got a good laugh over me trying from Barry! lol). We are so in love with that little guy and we haven't even met him. Good night my sweet buddy. We love you so much! Love, Mama and Daddy

Preparation and Donations

I've spent most of the day trying to put some of our fundraising ideas into action. I sent an email out to my local friends for yard sale donations. We are going to have a yard sale on November 19-20, in just two weeks. We will also sell cookies and hot chocolate, and have a donation can and fliers out about Micah (thanks for that idea Marianne!). I created a donation can for Barry to take to work. I created my chip-in (look to the right!) And I read the first two chapters of "The Connected Child"... how touching!

I've been able to break down the adoption costs and hope this will help explain to our family and friends why it costs about $25,000 to adopt internationally (it's actually not that much more than domestic from what I hear).

Upfront costs (already being covered)
$2700 Homestudy process
$1275 Promise Trust Agreement and fees
$375 Passports for us and Fischer
$830-1000 Notary, postage, fingerprints, USCIS (INS) Process

Costs to get to Eastern Europe and bring Micah home
$8600 Facilitator fees (includes translation, attorneys, the whole team working in country)
$3500 Apartment and food for 5 weeks ($100/day)
$1500 In country travel (public tranportation - may be much less since we aren't traveling to multiple regions)
$600 Micah's passport
$550 US Immigration and medical
$4000-5000 Airline tickets (Us, Fischer, and Micah)
$1000 Miscellaneous cushion

$20,000 sounds like an awful lot of money to raise (and it is), but I broke it down to simpler terms so it can sound attainable to me. The donations can come in any number of ways. We can raise money through the yard sale, pancake breakfast, silent auction, babysitting, mini-photo sessions for Christmas, etc. We can also receive cash donations. If it were in cash donations only, any number of combinations is possible, but in the easiest way to think about it is simple division:

20 people donate $1,000, or
40 people donate $500, or
80 people donate $250, or
160 people donate $125, or
320 people donate $62.50, or
640 people donate, $31.25, or
1280 people donate, 15.63

I really don't think we know 640-1280 people, but if you could be so kind as to spread the word to everyone you know, we can accomplish this together! It's for a good cause to save a sweet child from an orphanage. If this was a selfish thing for us, I would NEVER ask for money. But since it is to save a life of a child who won't otherwise have an option at a normal way of life with a loving family, it is crucial that we ask for your help as our friends, to help us and be part of this journey with us. He will forever be a part of all of your lives as well! Thank you!

Love,
Shelly

Funny story

Barry was handling parenting duties by himself yesterday while I accompanied Fischer for his band competition (they did GREAT! 2nd place for band and sweepstakes for auxillary). So Barry attempted to make corndogs and fries for dinner in the oven and said the corndogs turned out hard as a rock and the fries turned out "nasty". So good 'ole dad took the girls to Burger King instead. While at the counter ordering their food, Chloe (our 2 yr old) points out to the cashier "Micah is my best family." She said "oh". Gracie (our 4 yr old) said, "He's gonna be our brother." So Barry explained we were adopting a little boy. Chloe repeated, "Micah is my family" to everyone she saw in there. He said it was so cute that they were telling everyone. We also have his picture on our desktop and everytime I minimize a window, Chloe points and says "MICAH! He's my family!" :) I love my girls so much, and can't wait to bring Micah home to share this love we have for him. ~Shelly

Committment to Adopt

We have talked, prayed, cried, and laughed over this little guy for the past few days. His name is Micah and is in orphanage #5 in Eastern Europe. He has Down Syndrome. He will be our son very soon. We committed to adopt him today and we are on our way to bring him home in the Spring of 2011! I am so blessed to have a husband who was on board from day 1, in love with him as much as I was. We are blessed with funds we weren't expecting to get the process started. And now we work, pray, and fundraise! Once the adoption is final, his name will be Micah Charles Ray. Micah means "who is like God?" and we found it fitting to keep that for him, and Charles was Barry's dad's name. It's funny, in all our pregnancies, we've always wanted another boy, but we could never really settle on a boy name that would stick each time. Charles was always the middle name, but Micah is not something we would've ever picked out on our own. We had Benjamin, Joshua, Hudson, Henry, Garrett, and others, but none of those fit him. He is a Micah :) And he will soon be ours!

Reece's Rainbow

A friend of mine from high school just adopted a beautiful girl from Ukraine this past month (http://www.ahomefordarya.blogspot.com/). As I watched her chronicle her journey with the process, I started thinking more about these sweet children who have very little chance of finding a home. I have always had a heart for kids with Down Syndrome (DS) and Autism, and always thought that someday I could possibly have one. I just always thought it would be biologically. I'm the type of person who never has amniocentesis tests done during my pregnancies because it doesn't matter to me, I would keep the baby no matter what. I firmly believe God knows what he's doing and will never give me more than I can handle.

Recently, Barry and I have thrown around the idea of having one more baby. We want a boy so bad, but of course there's never a guarantee. So we thought we'd just take the chance and see. Then Marianne posted something on her Facebook page about a boy named Sam yesterday (http://www.reecesrainbow.org/). It made me wonder how much international adoption costs, and what the process is really like. So I've been asking questions and doing some research the past couple days. Who knows what the future will hold for us, but we are looking into the options and wondering if this is really possible for us. When I told Barry about it, he was as moved as I was. He said he'd been thinking about adoption, but hadn't even thought of kids with DS. We both fell in love with Micah (http://reecesrainbow.org/micah-5). I am hoping that I can get some donations posted for this sweet boy to be adopted by a family, even if it is not us. So, please view his page and post a donation of whatever can be afforded. I am going to pray for this little guy every day to be found by his forever family.

Thanks!
Shelly