Organization time!

I think I mentioned that we got our Ethiopia guidebook and that it overwhelmed me a little….. ok, A LOT!  There is just so much to do and gather and read.  I’ve decided that even though having things electronic are nice in some instances, I think I just need to go out and buy new ink for my printer and a few reams of paper and start printing all of this.  As I was reading through the middle of one of these electronic documents I found a checklist of everything we need for our dossier.  I had received an email that had dossier documents attached and my feeble little brain thought that was it…. thought wrong!!  That checklist is so very important but it was tucked in the middle of all kinds of other information that had I not been flipping through I may have missed it and delayed things by send 1/10 of what we needed for our dossier and they would’ve laughed in my face!!  ;)  So I think we print and make a binder and get organized so that I can make sure I’m not missing something and so I can have those checklists in the front. (and if you know me you know I love a good checklist :) )

I did also find in there that we are not able to have any communication whatsoever with Judah until we are there to meet him.  Made me sad that we can’t send him anything for Christmas but I guess I understand those regulations.  Sometimes people get this far and something happens and this precious boy doesn’t need to be told that he has a family and get his hopes up and possibly have one more thing go wrong for him.  Our prayer through this whole process was that we would walk through every door God opened until He closed one and so far He has flung them wide open.  My prayer continues to also be that if He has a plan to close the door that He do it soon because I already love this boy and picture his little face in our family pictures and with every day I love him more.  I don’t see that happening but nothing is ever a guarantee when the government is involved and in this case it’s TWO governments!

So in other exciting news we have started making money on our t-shirts!  So exciting that we don’t even have them yet and are coming up on half of them already being sold.  How much of a blessing would it be if we needed to order more in a couple months?!?  Obviously it’s great because of the money that we are raising but it’s also so exciting for me to think of people actually wearing these shirts and remembering our son in prayer and being able to share his story with others.  I hope we can inspire others to take a leap to not let anything or anyone get in the way of something God is calling you to do.  Especially money!!

Our amazing friends John & Julie (their son Canaan inspired Judah’s name) also got a hold of us yesterday to tell us that they ordered 200 awareness bracelets for us to sell and they won’t tell us how much or let us pay them back for them!  On one side they say Adopting Judah and on the other they say John 14:18.  I could use your input on how much you think we should sell them for??  I know we have a lot of selling going on but I’m glad for that because I feel there is a wide range of things people can choose from.  I also love this bracelet idea because it’s something we can wear everyday to remember to pray for Judah.  (Be prepared though when my shirt comes I may be wearing it every other day too) :)  When I pray for him I always like to think about what he may be doing at that time so if anyone else is interested in that, he is nine hours ahead of us (we’re central time).

Love & Thanks to all of you :)