Yard Sale Fundraiser

Over Memorial Day weekend, Rebecca and I had a yard sale together...for her to raise funds for her missions trip to Ethiopia/Uganda this summer, and us for our adoption.

As busy as we both are, a lot of this happened in the wee hours of the morning.
We made these...





















...and turned this...





















...into this.














We learned several things:
1. We should have taken the time to do more publicity at the sale regarding why we were trying to raise money...if they had known more, people would have been more generous.

2. On Memorial Day weekend, there are two kinds of people. One kind is out camping/boating/fishing/having fun somewhere besides at garage sales. The other kind of person is having a garage sale. Between the two, there aren't a whole lot of people left to actually come buy things.

3. I can be really hot, even in Alaska, and despite only raising $300 (which was then split between us, meaning that overall, all the effort really wasn't worth it, esp. for us having made extra trips to Sol. to deliver stuff before the sale), my kids still had a lot of fun.

Time Flies!!!

I have neglected this blog for a bit now on account of lack of news. We have just been trying to be faithful in the waiting. We talk about Karis all the time...we are looking forward so much to seeing her sweet face. Anna asks routinely when we're going to go get her baby sis'er and how we'll get home. The kids pray for her every night. I pray for her all day long!

I have connected with our yahoo group of families within our agency who are adopting from Ethiopia, and have been blessed by joining with them in great prayer, heartache, and rejoicing on this rollercoaster ride called adoption! There was a definite slow-down in referrals, as another new Ethiopian court policy is that all children must have a regional birth certificate before proceeding to court. Until this past week, no less than 20 families have been waiting, pictures of their sweet children in hand, to even be assigned a court date. Then the floodgates opened this week, and travel dates and court dates have been assigned...and referrals have been given out again!

Now I doubt that you keep track of it like I keep track of it, but we are just finishing up MONTH 5 of our wait. And are you ready for this? WE ARE #1 ON THE LIST FOR BABY GIRLS!!! (Provided, of course, that there aren't any other "mystery" families...the list is unofficial, after all). The family with the latest referral has only been waiting six months!

The rub now is that the court will be closed sometime in August-September for the rainy season...and if we have our referral by then but not a court date, we would have to wait till after September to go and meet her. Yet this whole process has been orchestrated by God, and I'm not about to start doubting His timing now!