FUND RAISING

For those of you much more experienced than I... I was wondering if I could glean some fund-raising ideas. What have you done to raise money for your adoptions that worked for you. There has to be a million ideas out there... we just gotta find 'em! Please let us know. We know the best thing to do is pray and God will see us through! We are eager to hear what you all have done!

For those of you checking this blog for an update... take note that benefits will be planned. Our AWESOME sisters are helping to get some ideas going! We will be having a couple garage sales as well. If you would like to donate sale items PLEASE contact me! prayforasia@netzero.net

We will do whatever it takes to get these kids home!

Ok Moms...How do you do it!!!

How do you wake up in the morning and not cry!!! Those of you who are not moms... just imagine that you have been waiting to have children for years and once you have them you can't touch them or talk to them. It is SO MUCH harder than I thought it would be. I just cry without warning... and I really never used to do that about anything. I feel like I have had the loves of my life taken SO far away from me. At least I have the peace that they are alive, healthy and they have great people taking care of them, that is more than some people have. But I am CONSTANTLY wanting to know what's going through their minds. Does David understand how much we really LOVE him and that we will do anything for him?? What was Guillanda thinking as I had to sit her in the middle of the nursery floor and walk away from her, those big brown eyes looking at me and questioning why I just sat her down after such a good cuddle session. Not to mention that pouty lip hanging down... I LOVE that pouty lip. I love those kids... I want them deperately to understand... WE ARE COMING BACK!! WE LOVE THEM.... WE have not forgot about them!!!!! MOMS... how do you do it?? How will I ever be able to focus on anything else in life again!!!????? Through the help of God I'm sure. Please pray for our little family! =)

99.999999% SURE!

Ok.... so you have been waiting!!! And WE'RE back!!! Never in our lives have we undergone such emotion! I found my self kinda emotionally stunned during this trip! I honestly have no idea WHERE to start.

Have we found our kids??? Well, we are 99.999999% sure! Why not 100%? Well it happens to be a huge decision, and the biggest thing holding us back is that we don't want any children to end up heart broken if we don't have it all together. We are not so much worried about ourselves.

You see, there may be more children involved in the process than the ones mentioned below...so we have not yet asked any kids if they want to be ours yet because we would like to ask them all together as a family. AND YET... WE WOULD LOVE to just ask them, it's so hard not to. I think one of them has it figured out in his mind however, I hope so anyway!

(You-you... We need your email address ours is prayforasia@netzero.net)

David and Guillanda!

We have had confirmation that this is right, even during our few hours back to life at home... one of my sisters KNEW these two would be our kids. There have been others that have mentioned this to us as well. And I do recall dragging Rob upstairs to the office one day to show him these two, telling him I was pretty sure GOD was asking us to adopt them.

Honestly coming to the "O" was awesome! The first couple days I was emotionally overwhelmed with not knowing who our kids were... I just looked at Rob one night and told him, "If nothing else, we DO know, the next part of our family is at least on this island somewhere. We are at least all on the same piece of land and in the same area!" I needed to weigh the benefits. As much as I heard people say, "you will just KNOW when you see your kids",... I wasn't KNOWING fast enough for my own likeing! So if you are reading this and you still don't know who your kids are, I would suggest not being scared if it takes some time. I was a little in panic mode... thinking if it was unclear it must just not be right, but it wasn't that, it was that God wanted to show us who are kids were in amazingly delicious emotional waves! And He did. I'm glad He did it the way HE knows best!!!

After a couple days I was able to look at David and Guillanda and KNOW that was our boy and our baby girl. And leaving them WAS NOT an easy process. I have found myself crying OFTEN today... and I DON'T CRY!!! I have never loved anything nearly as much as I love God and Rob, until now. NEVER EVER, until now... and don't get me wrong... I love a lot of people sincerely, but there IS no love like the love you have for your Creator and the family He gives you.

I guess we just ask that you all pray with us that God would give us 100% peace! We are in need of more funding to get our homestudy going. Yet God has AMAZINGLY provided so far and we believe He is able to see this through. Thank you SO MUCH if you are one that has given!

I just can't wrap all this up into words. AT ALL!!! I am in the midst of such a whirl wind, what I just shared with you does not do justice for what we are feeling! But thank you for being by our side!!!!

-Hope and Rob

TAGGED

OK so now we have been tagged to share 7 little known or interesting facts about us so...

1.We are high school sweethearts!!! Well... I had to convince Rob of that in his first year of college... but it worked... He was always MY high school sweetheart!

2. Rob did not always love God!! (Now he does...FYI) He went on a mission trip to Mexico to help build a church but..."didn't want anything to do with the God stuff"... God had different plans.

3. Hope was a cheerleader and ran hurdles in track (that surprises a lot of people for some reason!)... Rob was a football/baseball jock... voted "hottest" guy in the senior class...Hope says he will still be the hottest guy even when he is truly a SENIOR! (Rob is cringing... he hates cute comments like that) =)

4. We live in a log house built by Rob

5. We have EIGHT nieces and nephews and we love them a lot!!!

6. Hope loves EVERY kind of music imaginable (within moral boundaries) and Rob is very patient with her spastic CD changing ability in the car!

7. Rob lives and breathes fishing... seriously... and gets a little forlorn when he has not gone for a while! Hope finally has a horse to be HER live and breath passion (second to God) to balance out Rob's fishing!

8. WE (yes WE) want to eventually open a camp for abused children to be touched by God's love through horses. Hope has a lot to learn...but WE know it will happen in God's time!

9.Rob owns his own construction business and God has been good, making it prosper... we have GREAT employees too!

10. Hope is a preschool teacher and has been for 7 years! She loves it, but hopes to stay home once the kids get home.

11. Hope loves old black and white movies. Rob likes war movies.

12. We live off of venison.. praise God!

13. Hope loves dancing(but hasn't been into it for quite some time now) and desperately wants to learn to play that Piano, Guitar, Fiddle and Steel Guitar...and maybe the dulcimer... and accordion... and banjo... and....

14. WE HAVE AWESOME FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!!

15. Rob was once invited to dance in a native Filipino dance while in the Philippines... and he DID! Hope is SO proud of him!!!

16. Hope once stayed in Mexico for a month to teach English, Rob has been to Mexico, Honduras, Romania, Philippines, Alaska on mission trips. Next is Haiti!!! We can't wait!

17. We are prayer coordinators for an amazing ministry called VVMI... check it out in our links!!!

OK... I know you just wanted 7...but why not add a few... we could go on and on!!!

Going soon!!

There is so much going through my mind, so this entry may not flow very well, but nonetheless...we needed to update!

First and foremost, let us tell you how blessed we are! We continue to get donations pouring in as we need them! Not only are we able to go early to Haiti, our trip in July is almost paid for too! It is so awesome to see God working in this process. Next we will need to pray for funding for our home study. We know it will come one way or another, as will the funding for the rest of the process. Right now we can say we have NO IDEA how it will happen financially, but that gives us even more reason to rejoice when it does! God is good and so are the hearts of His children. We are so blessed. Our families have been so supportive about puting together a fund raiser!! Please pray for this as it will soon be coming together. Pray for wisdom for the best thing to do!

So, a few people have been cautioning us to be prepared if this is not yet time for us to adopt. It's kinda frustrating, yet great words of advice. It just is an emotional roller coaster isn't it!!! I can't imagine going to Haiti in a few days and finding out it is NOT time to adopt!! It would be so painful! An emotional miscarriage! Please pray for our hearts to be prepared for anything, and at peace with God's plan!

I love that we are starting to even tell our nieces and nephews about the possibility of them having new cousins. I'm not sure they know how to take it yet, but I'm excited for what they will be able to teach our children about life, and about what our children will teach them about life!!!

Please pray for us and our children to just KNOW each other when we see each other. Pray that there would be a confirmation in our souls that we are a family! I can't imagine making a DECISION of who belongs in our family~ so we need God to show us all to each other. During pregnancy, a woman gets the gift that grows within her without deciding on the complete make up of the child. So when people ask... are you getting a boy or a girl, one or two, how old, are they healthy??? We might start saying... we don't know, we haven't had our adoption ultrasound yet!! =) I guess we could call this our ultrasound trip!!!

Please pray for us as we fly out EARLY Thursday morning!!

I have butterflies already!

Last but not least, for those of you who don't know yet... we have also adopted a horse... and it was totally God's plan for this moment in time. God has taught us so much about adoption through Blaze. Don't get me wrong... we have a TON to learn, but blaze has taught me personally about patience, giving time selflessly, showing gentle authority, working daily on relationship building, casting aside fear, being intentional, using wisdom, being brave for HIS sake, (like... feeding him with lightening flashing through the air, grooming him as yellow jackets land on my arm... remembering I CAN'T freak out, he needs to see my confidence... if you know me, yellow jackets and lightening are FAR from my favorite things!!!!) For sure in these times, God has spoken to me about how we will need all these attributes with our children. He has spoke to me about communicating to someone who can't speak my language, and relying a lot on body language, facial features and tone of voice. And He has taught me that combing through the tangles (in his mane and in his attitude) has been very good for both of us. He taught me that it is WORTH working through the tangles and not just avoiding them or cutting them all away... we have gotten much closer by working through them. It will be like that with our kids. They will have tangles in life that we as a family will work through patiently instead of avoiding them. Thankfully God is like that with us! Isn't it so true that when we totally let Him work through our tangles, we get closer to Him, we start to trust Him more? Thankfully He never just cuts them off, what would we learn from that!!?? How would we bond!? How would we see how loving He truly is?? One more thing... I will never know what it's like to be adopted, I may never be able to compare to my children in that area, but Blaze will be able to! Blaze's previous owner loved him tremendously, so much that he was willing to give him to a new home since he could no longer care for him. And Blaze will be better for it. Blaze will thrive for his owners decision!

We will update you as soon as we come back!!! Thank you for your prayers.