Christmas blessings

As I sit here and write this, my heart is so very full. I am so blessed to have my loving family, including five amazing children. They all touch my heart so deeply. I only wish we could include Morgan in all we do in our everyday lives. We miss her so very much, and can only hope she knows how much we love her and desire to see her again. I am so blessed to have a husband who serves the Lord with all his heart and provides a warm, loving environment for all of us. I am blessed to be able to stay home and watch my children grow and flourish; seeing each day all that they accomplish and learn.

On the flip side, my heart also breaks as I think of our soon-to-be little boy who is in an orphanage so far away. He probably doesn't even know what Christmas is, and possibly doesn't know who our Savior, Jesus Christ, is. This will be the last Christmas he spends in less-than-desireable circumstances. Even though he's in a "good" orphanage, there is much that can be given to him with a forever family. I shudder at the thought of him not being held, hugged, kissed, and genuinely LOVED this holiday season and every day. I am thankful for his caregivers and know they do all they can with what they have, but nobody can truly fill the void of a family or home until they have one. We are truly doing all we can as quickly as we can to be able to provide a home and family for him. I miss him even though I don't know him. I love him even though I have never touched or seen him. All I have are pictures and the knowledge from God that this is what we are supposed to do. I cannot wait to get to Eastern Europe and hold him in my arms and tell him how much I love him and how the last few months have seemed like an eternity. I can't wait to tell him that we are his mommy and daddy, and although we did not birth him, we know he was meant for us and we were meant for him.

I am so blessed to have family and friends who support this journey we're on. It is unbelieveable the network we have created in such a short amount of time. I look forward to sharing many stories of our future with our family as it grows to include Micah. I look forward to hearing stories from others as they go through this same journey. It is not easy. But Christ said so perfectly, "I never said it would be easy, only that it would be worth it." I always knew that meant this journey of life we're on to return to Him one day, but it also includes all the small journeys we go through each day, including this one of adoption we are on.

We love you all and wish you a very Merry Christmas, and invite you to take a moment to realize what you are truly blessed with and grateful for, and to thank the One who gave it all to you, even Jesus Christ, our eternal savior. I am thankful beyond anything else that I have my salvation and that my family is sealed together for eternity. I am thankful for Christ, who laid His life down for me, the greatest gift that could ever be given. And, I am thankful for being able to return gifts to Him by serving others in His name.

As I close this post, I want to leave a picture of our children. Morgan is missing, but Gracie made sure that Micah was included. Do you see him? I love the tenderness my children show me every day.

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

Whew!

It has been an overwhelming couple of weeks. Things are moving along, literally. We moved into our new house on the 11th and have been unpacking and decorating for Christmas. We are finally ready for Christmsas after doing ALL of our shopping on the 18th. We really love our new house and things are finally feeling settled.

In the meantime, we have diligently been working on our dossier and homestudy paperwork. We had 15 pages notarized and are sending them off to be apostilled in Sacramento. Basically, an apostille is a state certification that the seals on our forms are valid (like birth certificates, marriage certificate, notary stamps, etc.) It costs $20/page in California!! The dossier is the big stack of paperwork that eventually gets translated and sent to Micah's country.

The homestudy is almost complete. We have gathered most of the paperwork, and have done our first meeting with our social worker, Heidi. She is really nice and we had a great visit yesterday. She is doing homestudies for three Reece's Rainbow families! I think that is so amazing :) She is really focused on getting the report done quickly, so after our home visit next week, I'm thinking we'll be able to send off for the I600a (to USCIS - immigration) by the 10-1th of January! If all goes well, I would LOVE to be able to send our completed dossier to Eastern Europe at the end of February. It would be SOOOOO awesome if we could go get Micah in March or April! Oh, how I hope.

Of course, the other part of our plans is the fundraising. We have raised $7,000 to date and have about $18,000 more to raise. We are planning to do a pancake breakfast/silent auction on March 12th. And we are PRAYING daily for miraculous giving :) We were so surprised and blessed to hear about a friend of a friend sending in a $500 check to our FSP (grant at RR).

If you feel led to give, especially during this holiday season and before the tax cutoff, please visit our FSP at reecesrainbow.org/sponsorray, or you can click on the button to the right with Micah's picture and it will take you directly there. Also, our chip-in is still available if you'd like to donate funds for us to use immediately for things like the $20/page apostilles :)

Don't forget about our puzzle funraiser for only $5/piece (see posts below). We sold two more pieces today! (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

Merry Christmas!
~Shelly

We are so very blessed!

Tonight was another fundraiser, this time at Pizza Factory in Phelan. We were able to earn 10% of the night's sales by helping bus the tables. It was a pretty good turnout for the first part of the night. I was so happy to see friends from my local area, as well as friends travel from Victorville to see us. We also held a bake sale, courtesy of friends' Maria Macdonald and Gina Snow's amazing baking skills :) There were many very supportive customers for our cause that bought baked goods, and some that even donated money just to help us out. We also sold two pieces for Micah's "Pieces of Love" puzzle (Thank you Cooper's and Peek's)! We raised $119 just on the bake sale and donations tonight. We will find out how much our 10% is in the next couple days.

Again, it was so amazing to connect with new people over our story. There was a neonatal nurse who talked to me for a while, then a woman who is adopting a little girl (this week!), and finally a special needs teacher. We had really good conversations with great people. And once again, I feel so tremendously blessed at the support we are receiving.

Thank you to everyone who came and helped out! A big thank you to my wonderful son Fischer and our friend Elyssa McAlister, who came and helped us bus tables and do the dishes. You are amazing kids :)

Progress being made

Monday our homestudy agency received our retainer and emailed the guide and forms for everything we need to do. I was pleasantly surprised (and honestly very impressed) that Barry filled out his personal history form yesterday before I even got a chance to look at mine! So I did mine last night and emailed those back. Then today, I made appointments for our fingerprints the same day that we have our physicals (Tuesday the 7th). All of this is coming into place nicely, and I feel like we are finally making some progress in the paperwork department. As soon as Barry's original birth certificate arrives (ordered Monday), then we can send off for our passports. His employer is already working on his letter of employment, and now I have to send off the guidelines for reference letters to four of my friends. This is all for the homestudy portion. The dossier guidelines are in process of being sent to me and a lot of this will be able to go in both files, but the dossier is going to be much more detailed. They call it "the beast", so that scares me a little. I'm also very scared about all the notary fees and later the fees to have everything apostilled (although this sounds like apostle, it is a VERY different meaning). In California, it costs $20 per page (the most expensive in the nation from what I've seen). And we have to either mail the forms to be apostilled or walk them into the office at the capitol building in Sacramento (yeah, that's an 8 hour drive). Fun, fun! I'm just glad to get the ball rolling in an official manner finally. We should be hearing from our social worker this week, yea! :)

In other news, we are moving into our new rental on the 11th. I'm very excited to be saving $300 per month, but that is Chloe's 3rd birthday and only 10 days away. I am mentally ready, but have not packed a single box. I will be gone with Fischer Saturday for Marching Band Championships and have so much going on next week with our Pizza Factory fundraiser for Micah on Monday, appointments on Tuesday, a band fundraiser on Wednesday, the winter concert on Thursday, and then moving! When do I have time for homework? Oh yeah, never. Crazy busy life :)

On to more paperwork and phone calls.