Growing Our Family

Dear Family &  Friends,

            We are so grateful for all of you who have been there for us on our journey with our girl. God has truly blessed us with an amazing support system. It has been on our hearts for some time to adopt again. We finally decided that we were going to trust God and move forward with adopting. Last time it took a year to get our home study approved and another year to bring Sweetie home. So we figured we could get money together in that time. I posted on Face Book “ Really feeling my heart being pulled hard into adopting again. Praying for God to show us the path to do this”.  Within minutes I was contacted by a friend that she knew someone that was looking for a family. To make a long story short, the mom said YES choosing us adopt her baby!  The baby is due this spring, which puts us in a huge time crunch for getting money together. But we have faith that if God wants us to have this child, he will provide the means to bring him/her home. We need to raise about $10,000-$15,000 to cover homestudy, legal fees and post adoption placement visits. This is a minimal amount. Our most immediate need is raise $2000 by November 1st and then an additional $5500 by Dec 1st. The remainder will be needed closer to the due date.

            We are asking that everyone joins us in prayer for the Ms. J(birth mom), the baby and for God to provide us with the Financing we need.  We are also asking that you consider financially supporting us bring this child home.

 I have been praying on how to best raise this money. We are going to do 3 things.

1. Many of my massively talented artist friends are donating fantastic items that we will be doing an online during November. (just in time for Christmas! )

2. On November 23rd  I will be selling scarves, homemade heating pads and art by a few of my friends and myself at a Sip and Shop in my neighborhood.

3. 200 Envelopes of Faith

What to do:

1) Pick an envelope (or two if the amount you want is no longer available) and post in the comments here or on the comments of this post in FaceBook, which ever one you chose.
I will update the envelopes that have been selected.

2) Donate. Click on the Go Fund Me link. You can also donate directly to us by check. Just private message me for our address.

3) Share your donation on your FB page or email a link to this page to your friends. Lots of people feel spiritually and personally moved to help others adopt, but they themselves are not in a position to adopt. Let’s spread the word!

4) Want to get a group together to fund an envelope? That is a great way to knock out the bigger numbers.

No matter what, please keep us in your prayers.

Also, if you are going through infertility or adoption, we want you to skip helping us in this way because those are big expenses. We know! Just pray and share. We want to support you too!

Thank you for the love and care and support. We couldn’t do it without you!

With Love and Faith,

Jenny & Cris

Steady Heart, Steady Faith

It has been a while since I have updated the blog. Part because we have been busy and part because I feel like it I would be writing more of the same things as I have for the last few years.
Sweetie is settling into her residential program. I love the program. They really understand her diagnosis and they approach things much differently than she is accustom to. This is good because she can't manipulate when she doesn't know what to expect. Equine therapy has been very helpful. They let the horses pick the student they will work with. The funny thing is the horse that picked Sweetie is the most difficult, stubborn horse they have... I had to laugh at that! Sweetie has been getting a good taste of her own medicine. We went up to Asheville again this past Wednesday. It makes me sad, she continues to pull away from us. She still tries to control everything. But, I can see improvements in her behavior. In the past most therapy sessions involved hours of tantrums. Now she can get through a session and instead of destroying property or slamming doors, she cries. She is now able to get herself regulated in a few minutes and then she can move on. So there is progress! Sessions are still tough because she has such a hard time talking about anything that she thinks may reflect on her in a negative way. It is emotionally hard because it is so obvious how uncomfortable she is in her own skin. Her self confidence is so low she still feels like we don't want her and don't love her. In her core she feels unworthy of love. This breaks my heart for her. She has found an activity that she actually enjoys out  there. Building model train modules! She is really good at it too. I hope it  will help to build her self esteem up. She is beginning to understand her own disorder and starting to learn how to live with it. I will always worry about her, She is my child. I can only pray for God to continue to heal her heart and hope for her path in life to be easier than the beginning.

Over the last few months the longing to have more children has been increasing. I had given up hope that we would be able to add to our family. We can't adopt from foster care again until Sweetie is out of the home and we just knew there was no way we could ever afford to adopt domestically or internationally. The loss of Leah going back to her bio mom 3 years ago still very present on my heart.  A couple of weeks ago I was at an adoptive mom's retreat and I listened to story after story of these women and how God provided the money for their adoptions through fundraising. I know many times I have given towards various adoptions, but I had never thought about doing it for myself. My pride stood in the way. The following weekend  Cris and I had a lot of discussion on moving forward with trying to adopt. We agreed we would take a leap of faith and trust God will provide us with a child and provide us with a way to adopt the child. Sunday of last week I posted on FaceBook that we felt we were being called to adopt again. Within 30 seconds I had a private message of a young woman who was in need of a family for her unborn child. We are in the process of getting information to her to see if she would pick us to be this family. If chosen we have about 6 months to raise the money needed to adopt. We have received so much support from friends. My first fundraiser is going to be an online auction. Several of my very gifted friends are donating awesome items. I will have paintings, scarves, a handmade quilt, hand knit cable knit blanket, metal artwork, a 90 minute massage, Oakley Sunglasses, a designer watch. And we are in the beginning stages of collecting. I am going to start the auction in November, so that people can get these items as gifts for Christmas. I have another friend from church who is hosting a Noonday Collections trunk show November 15th to benefit our adoption. We are praying that this baby with be our child. We have longed for a baby for years. I have faith that if this is not our child that God will bring a child to us that is meant to be in our home. I do not know God's plan is or his timing. But, I know with all my being that we are meant to have more children. Please keep us in your prayers and if you are lead to, we ask that you help support us in our journey to adding to our family.