Fire Corn Festival Fundraiser

We wanted to update everyone on our progress. We are still waiting to hear back about our paperwork in China. Waiting is the name of the game right now! I try not to think about it so that I'm not consumed with the waiting. I have 3 sweet kiddos here to keep me busy! We've been filling out any grant application we can get our hands on to help with funding our adoption. We haven't heard back from any of them yet so please pray for God's provision in those. He's provided so much for this journey so far and we are trusting that he will help us all the way to the finish line! He is Jehovah Jireh! 

On another note we are working on our next BIG fundraiser with our sweet friends Brooke & Murray. They are from Louisiana and usually have a crawfish boil for all our church friends. This year they wanted to make it into a fundraiser for our adoption. We are so grateful for all our supporters through this journey, you are all caring for an orphan through your support! So we have set a date for the crawfish boil and would like to invite you to come out and enjoy a fun afternoon with us! I'll add the details below. Hope to see you there!

Fire Corn Festival

May 15, 2016 @ 4pm

Place: "Harlan Hill" 

Harlan Rd Columbia, TN

Suggested Donation $10 per person/$25 per family

This is a family friendly event!

There will be hot dogs and other items for those who are not up for crawfish...

We will have some games for kids and feel free to bring any toys/games for your kids to play with too. 

Also bring your chair!

Please let us know if you are able to come and let me know if you have any question. 

Email me: akrobinson06@gmail.com

Exciting Adoption Update!

I've been trying to write this blog post for nearly 2 weeks now! We've all been battling colds/allergies for about 2 weeks. We are all finally on the mend and we're trying to get back to a regular schedule...whatever that looks like. ;) Thanks for all those who have prayed for us to feel better! He hears our prayers! And now for the update!

The first weekend in March I had the opportunity to sell some Compelled Designs necklaces at a friends church's women's weekend conference. I'm so thankful for Mindy inviting me to be able to share our story with so many women as they shopped at the conference. I was there Friday night and Saturday...I had SOLD out by lunch on Saturday!! Praise God for all those wonderful women who stopped by my booth! I pray for many blessings on their families!

We were able to send all our paperwork in to be sent for authentication. These documents were sent off on March 9th. We were then notified on April 7th that we were officially DTC (Dossier to China) on April 6th. Our dossier has been uploaded into China's system and has been mailed to China. THIS is a huge step in our journey! Praise God!

So what next!? Well...waiting! Our dossier has a few steps to go through to be approved. The next step is to be LID (Log in Date) which is when our dossier is actually logged into the CCCWA. (3-4 weeks after DTC) So after LID, we will be waiting for a call from our social worker with a child's file for us to review. HOW EXCITING!! Everything seems to be moving along quickly now.

So our plan while we are waiting for this very important call...is to continue raising funds to bring this little child home! We have been filling out grant applications and trying to decide on our next fundraiser.

Thanks for praying with us through this amazing journey! We love you all!

God Answers Prayers!

God has been at work in this adoption! Of course He has, He brought us to this journey and is providing every step of the way. Glory to God! In our last update we said we needed about $5,000 to send our paperwork to China. As of today we still need about $2,400.

This past weekend our sweet friends hosted a Family Dance Fundraiser at our church. We want to give a HUGE Thank You to everyone who helped organize this event for us. Thank you Ryan, Emily, Kim, Brian, Karen, Maury, Brooke, Murray, April, Trey, Esther, Robert, Beth, David, Jenn, Mark, Becca, Aaron, Candace, Brian, Nora, Dave, Sarah, Rick, Angela, Randy, Karla, Jim. I tried to name everyone, but please forgive me if I forgot someone. These are the ones who were behind the scenes working on every detail to make this fundraiser such a success! 

Also a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to the dance on Friday night. Y'all could have been anywhere, but you sacrificed your Friday night to come support our adoption. We are so thankful for everyone who came out to support us in this journey.

The money raised this weekend will help us to send our paperwork to be authenticated and ready for the next step which is sending it to CHINA! We're praying to have this done in a few weeks so that our paperwork doesn't start to expire and have more delays.

Family Dance Fundraiser

Sweet Friends at the Family Dance Fundraiser

I'll be at a friend's church this coming weekend March 4-5 for a Women's Weekend. They had asked if I wanted to sell some of my necklaces at the conference! What a blessing! Pray for all the ladies that will be attending the conference that they will feel God's presence. Also pray that we will SELL OUT of necklaces! ;) We are so close to being able to send our dossier to China! Pray we can be diligent in saving and raising funds to get this done quickly.

Again Thank You for ALL your support!

Compelled Designs Jewelry Fundraiser!

Update: January 19, 2016
ALL necklaces have been sold! Praise God for answering our prayers and providing for this adoption! Thank you all who purchased a necklace from us! I am planning to get another bundle so if you missed out on this round just wait I'll be getting more in soon!

As I had mentioned in my last post, I ordered a fundraising kit from Compelled Designs to raise funds to bring our little one HOME! We need about $5,000 to get our paperwork sent to China so that we can be matched with our sweet boy! I'm so excited about this opportunity. The necklaces are $24 a piece and I can ship them to you for an extra $1. Each piece has a Bible verse reference on the back, so if you are interested in knowing which verse corresponds with a specific piece, let me know! The best way to contact me would be email akrobinson06@gmail.com. In the subject line please put Compelled Designs Fundraiser just so I can keep track of everyone's order. Just include the number that you'd like and if I need to mail it to you please include your address. Just in time for Valentine's Day!! These are first come first serve, so don't wait!

#1 sold
#2 sold
#3 sold
#4 sold
#5 sold

#6 sold
#7 sold
#8 sold
#9 sold
#10 sold

#11 sold
#12 sold
#13 sold
#14 sold
#15 sold

#16 sold
#17 sold
#18 sold
#19 sold
#20 sold

1. Proverbs 3:5-6
2. Lam 3:22-23
3. Eph 3:20
4. Prov 3:5-6
5. Psalm 91:2
6. Matt 11:28
7. Jer 29:11
8. Prov 3:5-6
9. Phil 4:6-7
10. Rom 15:13
11. Eph 3:20
12. Ecc 3:11
13. Psalm 91:4
14. Prov 3:5-6
15. Rom 15:13
16. Eph 3:20
17. Psalm 139
18. Joshua 1:9
19. Jer 29:11
20. 1 Peter 5:7

I800-A Approved!!

So our last update we had an appointment to get our fingerprints done on December 28th. Everything went smoothly at the appointment, the employees there were VERY nice and professional. There was a pretty good line of people in front of us, but with only 2 people doing the fingerprinting they moved pretty quickly. We had prepared ourselves that there'd be a waiting period after they were done because of the New Year. But just ONE week after our fingerprinting was done we received our I800-A approval notice in the mail! The date of approval on the notice was actually December 28th...yes the same day we got our fingerprinting done. We were shocked to get this back so quickly! GO GOD!

Next I had my passport appointment on December 30th. Everything went smoothly there too and the guy who took my application said he had to tell me 6-8 weeks, but he figured I'd get it in less than 30 days and sometimes he's saw them come back in 2 weeks. Wow! Well I was one to get it back in just 2 weeks! So glad I didn't pay for the expedited service. ;)

We are so THANKFUL for everyone who supported us through our Christmas ornament fundraiser. We were blown away at how many we sold. We wanted to share with you all how well we did on this fundraiser to give God the glory for this awesome blessing! And maybe to help other adoptive families know which fundraisers worked for us. We brought in a total of $803 with a few donations made without them getting an ornament. We took home a net of $727 with all of the supplies taken out. We were hoping to sell at least 20 ornaments. We ended up selling 47...an odd number because we broke only 1 out of all of them! So thank you all again for buying an ornament and we hope that you put it on your tree each year and think of us and hopefully by next Christmas we'll have our little one home!

With that said I am working on another post about another fundraiser I found. Compelled Designs sells handmade pottery jewelry with a scripture reference on the back. Each one comes in a fabric drawstring bag that is hand sewn through a ministry in Kenya. I love that they are handmade pieces and that the fabric bag is supporting a ministry in Kenya. I will try to have the post up later today with pictures of the necklaces I have for sale!

Where Things Stand

First of all, thank you all SO much for supporting us in our ornament fundraiser! We are so blessed to have such awesome family and friends. Since our last update we FINALLY have a completed Home Study! We initiated the home study process in July and had a finalized copy in November. I know this is a long process, but I feel like ours was really slow. We had a lot of waiting time in between interviews and waiting on email replies. Though the process was long and tiresome it's all worth it. We have learned to be patient and wait. Praise God this huge part of the process is behind us.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) received our application December 2nd and we received notification of this on December 7th. We received our fingerprint appointment date today, December 17. Our appointment is December 28th. The Department of Homeland Security will complete an additional background check after they take our fingerprints. Then we will await our immigration approval. We are trying to be patient and TRUST Him in the whole process. We have many, many more steps to go, but one-by-one, we are getting closer to meeting our new child. All in His timing, which is always BEST!

Below is a list of milestones we have met so far and more to come. I've also put this on the sidebar of our blog for you to check for updates on our progress. Thanks again for loving us and supporting us through our journey!

05/2015 - Made the decision to adopt
05/19/15- Submitted application to LL
07/2015 - Initiated Home Study with Catholic Charities
08/11/15- First Home Study Interview
09/30/15- Second Home Study Interview
10/14/15- Home Study Visit
11/2015 - Home Study Report Complete
12/01/15- Immigration Application sent
12/02/15- USCIS Received Application
12/07/15- USCIS Letter of Receipt
12/17/15 - Fingerprint appt received
12/28/15- Fingerprint appointment
              - Immigration Approval
              - Dossier Authentication
              - Dossier to China (DTC)
              - Log In Date (LID)
              - Out of Translation (OOT)
              - LOI Submitted
              - PreApproval for Child
              - Dossier Match Reviewed
              - Letter of Acceptance (LOA)
              - I-800 Approval
              - NVC GUZ # PDF
              - Article 5 Drop Off
              - Article 5 Pick Up
              - Travel Approval (TA)
              - Depart for China
              - Meet Child
              - Adoption Finalized
              - Consulate Appointment

Adoption Ornament Pre-order