~Welcome to the story of our journey to save another Eastern European princess with down syndrome and an older child! In 2010, we traveled half way around the world to adopt a twenty month old (now three years old) precious girl with down syndrome, Gabby. Now, less than two years later, we are on a mission to adopt another precious little girl that is in the same orphanage Gabby was in, Ava. Not only Ava, but yes....one more "Elaine". That means we are trying to adopt two more children!!!! If you are unaware of the situation in most, if not all Eastern European countries, please continue to read. In these countries children with down syndrome and special needs are most often placed in orphanages and if not adopted by the age of four or five (depending on circumstance), they are transferred to institutions where the likely-hood of them ever seeing outside of the institution walls remain slim to none. Many will live very short lives due to lack of appropriate care. Please don't allow this to happen to our sweet Ava! "Elaine" was fortunate enough to escape a very bad institution but nonetheless is in an institution and is an older child whose chances of coming home if we can't adopt her are not good. Having adopted and fully funding ourselves the previous adoption such a short time ago, we will need all of the help we can get to reunite these two angels and bring their big sister home. We utilized all extra resources with our first adoption and so fundraising is essential with this adoption. Whether it be from your prayers, helping to fundraise, buying from fundraisers, donations, etc...your help is much appreciated and is very much needed in order to make this dream a reality. Thank you so much for following our journey~

Friday, April 13, 2012

~Just Rambling On~

We just wanted to say THANK YOU to Sarah Peters and her husband for their very generous donation we recieved in the mail yesterday! Seeing and hearing the support we are recieving to help bring Ava home is overwhelming and very touching!  Also, this week, we recieve other donations online although I will not recieve the list of who those were from until next Friday, but THANK YOU in advance!
We are so blessed to have so many people supporting us on this journey and to know that so many people care about this little girl's well being! We have a wonderful group of women that are working hard to sell Celebrating Home items as a fundraiser, people are purchasing items from this fundraiser, Eva Bargo McCoig donated a Mary Kay Basket that we are currently auctioning off, Snobia Brock donated a quilt that we are currently auctioning off, people are bidding on these items (which is a great help), many people have donated, many people have donated time to help fundraise, and many people are PRAYING!
Just in case you are wondering what we are doing, I'll tell you! So far we have completed the homestudy application and paid the $50 fee out of our pocket, we have completed all of the homestudy (visits) not report, one requiring travel, the fees for this will be due in the next week or so of $1,500 in which we will be paying out of our pocket, we have been gathering loads of paperwork required for the homestudy, we completed the application process and commitment process through Reece's Rainbow and paid this fee $1,305.00 total (we paid this out of pocket already). We have mailed in our TN Bureau Criminal Background checks and paid $58.00 out of pocket. We have completed LOADS of paperwork and still have much much more to do! We have spent a small fortune on mailing things and so forth. We have managed to get our immigration fee put back which will come later on in a couple of months (over $800). Jason and Gabby have had their medical visits for the homestudy and we have paid for those (mine is on Tuesday). We have been spending alot of time keeping track of all of the fundraising and coordination of everything going on with this adoption. And obviously we have been continuing to work our jobs, raise Gabby, and do our best attempt and keeping up with everyday life.  I tell you all this so that you can see we are extremely busy and we have already spent alot of money!  We should be able to pay for all of the things from here until time to travel (BUT THEN COMES THE BIG PAYMENTS) this is when the $9,000 facilitation fee and approximately $5-6,000 in traveling expenses will come (not counting plane tickets, which we are going to do our best to cover).
As you can see, WE NEED HELP TO SAVE AVA! Its impossible for us to do alone. So far, everyone has been incredible. If we keep this same pace up, she will be home no problem. However, this is a long process and will take 6 to 7 months to complete. Our fear is having others not be as patient as what we have to be. We appreciate everyone's support but please understand we need ALL OF YOU throughout this ENTIRE process! We need our people that are fundraising to be available to fundraise throught the process, our people donating to continue doing what they can when they can, etc...Basically, we need people to commit to helping bring Ava home the way we have committed to actually bringing her home! 
Some of the ways you can help:
(1.) Please pray for Ava!!! Pray she is being well taken care of and that she will be ok until we can get to her. Pray that all of our efforts to bring her home pay off!
(2.) Donate: You can donate ANY AMOUNT thorugh our blog or you can message me and ask for our address if you dont have a debit or credit card. ALL donations are tax deductible as Reece's Rainbow is a non-profit agency and we are using their services.
(3.) Purchase or bid from a fundraiser:
       -Celebrating homes fundraiser (we get 50% of total sells profit):
 http://www.celebratinghome.com/fundraiser/1205/OnlineFundraiserHome.aspx
You can purchase directly from the link above and have it shipped to your house or ask me about one of the sells reps that might live close to you in which you can purchase from a book.
       -Bid on our current auction for the Mary Kay Basket  or Primitive Quilt (ask me about how to do both)
(4.) Participate in helping to sell fundraising items, reposting status, telling family and friends, informing your church of the situation, etc. (word of mouth can go a long way).
(5.) Ask your employer for a matching grant, donation of funds, donation of items or services that we can auction, etc (Remember, a company will sometimes make large contributions to non-profit organizations because that can be a big tax break for them).
(6.) If you have anything that you can donate that we can auction or sell chances on that would be greatly appreciated.
(7.) We need people who can make dinners and sell them around Harlan (could you do this)?
(8.) We need people to check with businesses to see if they would be interested in contributing to the cause (could you do this)?
WE appreciate ANY efforts!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

No comments:

Post a Comment