God's amazing provision

We have 78 pieces of the puzzle claimed! We have had donation amounts from $10 to $2000 for a single piece. I had hoped to sell the 300 pieces and have $3000. God has been amazing and we have received $6400 for 78 pieces. We have paid the home study fees, agency fees and post placement fees! There are no words to express our thankfulness! Selling the remaining puzzle 220 pieces for $10 each will generate a total of $8600. The estimate to fund the entire adoption is 35k.

Be a piece of NIck's adoption puzzle

Fundraising update: I sat at my desk on Friday, April 12th going through the stacks of adoption paperwork. As I crunched the numbers on the contracts sitting in front of me, I realized that we would need close to seven thousand dollars in about 30 days. I was a bit overwhelmed:> I had already started the puzzle fundraiser and quickly realized that selling the 300 puzzle pieces for $10 each would not fund what we needed in 30 days. In the next four days, we raised $2500! I talked to the agency on Monday and we were given a later due date for one thousand dollars. In four days, I we had gone from needing seven thousand in thirty days to $3500 in the next twenty-six days. Donations continued to trickle in and here we are are at day eleven and we only need $2900 in the next nineteen days.The cool part is I have only "sold" forty-one puzzle pieces. How did that happen, you maybe wondering? I had two sweet friends, purchase a puzzle piece for one thousand, yep, two thousand dollars for 2 pieces. A few other people donated more than $10 and told me they only wanted their name on one piece. They just wanted Nick to know that they helped get him here. The bottom line is we only need to sale the remaining 259 pieces for $10 to fully fund the amount we need in the next nineteen days. At that point, we will have to start on the next fundraiser to get the dossier to China. To donate quickly and painslessly on line, click on the following; Thank you!

Two Fishes and Five Loaves

Saturday was a whirlwind of activity at the McDermitt home. We found out late Friday that our caseworker was coming for our first home study visit at five on Saturday. We made the decision to let the first meeting include the home check and interviews with all nine of us. There was lots to be done. We wanted to make the best first impression that we could make. There was one little hitch in the schedule. I was already committed to spending part of Saturday at Belk selling Charity Sale tickets. Kenny and the rest of the crew would have to get the house ready without me. I felt terrible about leaving them to accomplish the house cleaning task. I prayed that God would multiply the work of their hands and that my time away would be fruitful. I did not have the luxury of "wasting" a Saturday. I had no idea what my day would hold. I stood at the entrance of Belk for over three hours selling tickets. All the money I raised was for our adoption. I was a bit nervous and spent the first thirty minutes experimenting with what to say. I got in a groove and sells picked up. I continued to get bolder and bolder and started using the opportunity to talk about my relationship with The Lord. I asked numerous people to pray for God to multiply the five dollar bill that they were giving me for their ticket. During one conversation, a man overheard me talking. He told me that he did not have any cash but he would be back with some. I had heard that several times already. Some time later, I looked up and he was smiling at me. He had five one dollar bills in his fist. Smiling, he said, "I told you I would be back." I thanked him and asked him to pray that God would multiply his efforts. He told me that we would be praying together. He nodded for me to step away from the table. He spent a few minutes talking to me about The Lord and his faithfulness to his children. We bowed our heads together and he started praying. I felt like I was in the presence of one of God's greatest saints. He went to bat on our behalf with Jesus. I think his t-shirt and Bermuda shorts were damp with perspiration when he had finished praying. The sweat on his gold chain was glistening in the sunlight. He reminded Jesus about he once fed 5000 men, not including the women and children, with two fish and five loaves. He then asked Jesus to take his five one dollar bills and multiply them to the exact amount that we needed to complete our mission. He also thanked God for my faithfulness to God's call for my life. Wow! I was speechless for a few seconds. He smiled and left. I returned to my station and finished up my time slot selling tickets. I sold close to fifty tickets that day. Way more than I thought I would. I also made a few connections for the hosting program and was told to stop by a local business on Monday to pick up a check for our adoption. I came home to a check in the mailbox and donations in my paypal account. As for the house, Kenny and the children did an awesome job getting it ready for our first home study visit. God had given us another fruitful day and I was the one who came away with the blessing.

Be a piece of NIck's Adoption Puzzle

We invite you to be a part of our adoption journey by purchasing a piece of Nick's adoption puzzle. Nick loved putting puzzles together while he was visiting us over the Chinese New Year. We created a 300 piece puzzle with his picture. You can purchase a piece of that puzzle for $10 and we will write your name on the back of a puzzle piece so that Nick can see who helped bring him home. Use the donate button to easily purchase a piece of Nick's puzzle. Check back for pictures of us putting Nick's puzzle together. If you would like to make a tax detuctible donation, please mail a check payable to Living Hope to Nick's Adoption Fund, 102 Baxter Road, Carrollton, Ga 30117. Thank you for being a piece of Nick's Adoption Puzzle! We have sold fourteen pieces already!

Two Steps Forward

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the daunting task of fundraising eight thousand dollars in the next thirty days. In my mind, I was trying to invision how those sixteen much needed steps in the adoption journey would happen in such a short period of time.  I packed up my Bible and headed to my Bible study this morning. My mind and my heart were in a slight tough of war on the short drive to church. My heart knows that God loves me and my head wanted to make a fool proof plan for making sure we had the needed funds for the next round of adoption payments. I was having an internal battle with myself. Should we investigate the option of borrowing from Kenny's retirement fund or should I just remain calm and wait for the Lord. My heart longs for Jesus to come riding in on a big white stallion and save us from our fundraising woes. My head is thinking that I need a back up plan for the big guy on the stallion. I settle in for the Bible study and I soon have the feeling that I am in an audience of one. Me, just me, sitting at the feet of Jesus as he tells me via 2 Corinthians 20:12-22 to give thanks and to wait on him today. I am praying that I am hearing him straight this morning. Today is day one in operation mark off sixteen steps (remember each step represents five hundred dollars) in thirty days and I do not have a second to spare. I have a few errands to complete on my drive home. At all three stops, God has a person waiting to ask me about our adoption journey. I asked them all to pray for God's provision and grace for our journey. Two out of the three agreed to pray and offered words of encouragement. The third was trying to nicely tell me that I was out of my mind to even think about adding one more to the fold and even more crazy to think that people would actually support my plan with their checkbook. I made the choice to  pray for her, silently of course, and to keep smiling and nodding my way back to the van. I closed the door to the van and was to afraid to think about anything. I did not want one ounce of doubt to travel home with me. I turned onto Baxter Road thinking that Day One was behind me and that I had not made much progress on the adoption journey today. I stopped by the mailbox before turning into the driveway and  uncovered an envelope addressed to me. Inside, two steps of our adoption journey covered! I cried for an hour! God gave me a few other gifts on my travels today and I am going to bed tonight, $1045 closer to having Nick home. All He asked from me today was to give Thanks and to wait. I serve an awesome God!

Summer hosting

I returned from China and headed to the mountains for a spring break trip with the McDermitt children. It was such a blessing that we had planned and paid for the little trip months ago. I had no idea that I would spend so much of that time matching the children I met on my China adventure with their summer host families.I was blown away with God's provision and we matched thirty-three orphans during the first day! It was a long day. I wondered into the kitchen in my pjs about 9 am to start checking emails and returning phone calls. I only left the kitchen for potty breaks, never got out of my pjs and worked until one am, sixteen hours straight. I had no idea that my day would turn out that way. My children were amazing! They pitched in along with MeMaw, and allowed me to dedicate my day to connecting orphans with families. I am in awe of the love of God's people for the least of these. I talked to some great people all across the United States and made some connections with some families who I now consider my friends. There are still some great children available for summer hosting. If you are interested, visit www.NewHorizonsforchildren.org for hosting information.

Whirlwind

The last four weeks have been a whirlwind! I have been to China and back, spent some time in the mountains with the McDermitt crew, spent hours connecting orphans from China with summer host families, marked off a number of items from the home study list (including medicals for six two legged family members and fourteen four legged ones), spent a day in the emergency room, three days recovering from a respiratory infection and spent hours trying to decide how to tackle the daunting task of raising thirty-five thousand dollars, give or take a few thousand! Being a visual sorta girl, I need a picture to make it happen! My picture, a mountain with seventy steps. The mountain represents the location of Nick's family home in China and the experience I had on that mountain (promise to share that story). Each of the seventy steps represents $500. Thanks to God's provision, I climbed four steps before I left for China. A family who shares my passion for orphans volunteered to cover the cost of our home study. Four steps, two thousand dollars the day after Nick boarded the plane for China. It was covered before he made the journey back to the orphanage! During the last week, we have almost taken another step. I am so excited to see how our experience will unfold. I spent a few hours during my visit to China at the Great Wall. The height of the steps on the wall are not all the same. Some of those steps gave my short legs a challenge and others were easy to master. I expect the seventy steps separating us from Nick to be the same as my Great Wall climbing experience. Some steps will threaten to stop the climb and others we will take two or four  at a time.
We start our home study visits this weekend. It is expected to take thirty days, maybe less to have it completed. I will need to climb sixteen additional steps before I can hold that all important piece of paper in my hand. We have to pay agency fees and post placements deposits before that document will be ours. Pray for God to make those sixteen steps doable and not to challenging, we are still early in the climb. We need eight thousand dollars in thirty days!

The Journey Begins..... again:>

We are excited about our new adoption journey. We are blessed to have ten children. Seven who live on the farm, two who live in heaven, and one who currently lives in an orphanage in China. We invite you to join us on our journey to bring Nick home to the farm. Nick will be the fifth child to join our family via adoption. Nick spent five weeks in our home during Feb. and March as part of New Horizons for Children's First China hosting program. We have hosted a total of sixteen children in our home during the last seven years. We met our oldest son, Kevin, on the hosting program four years ago. Nick returned to China on March eighth, and part of our heart returned with him. I was blessed to be a part of the New Horizon's Mission team that traveled to China March 17- 28th. I spent two days at Nick's orphanage during the mission trip. He was excited to see me again. We are counting down the days until he returns to the farm as Nick McDermitt! I was blessed to meet his father and grandfather on my trip. I will share that wonderful story in my next post.