Things are coming together

I will start with the praises today because there are many.  First of all, we have received our certified copies of our marriage license from South Korea!  This was a BIG document that we were waiting on for our home study.  We are only waiting on one more document to come from Florida and our documents for this step will be complete.

Another fun praise is that we have gotten our first bag of clothes from friends for Vitaliy when he arrives.  It was so much fun to receive these boy clothes.  It reminded me of when I first received baby clothes for the girls when I was expecting them.  It makes it seem so much more real and tangible!

We have many fund-raisers going on right now.  We have a hair-stylist coming in the months of November and December to our house to cut hair with all proceeds going to the adoption fund. We have our Italian friend offering a cooking class coming up this weekend to all who want to learn authentic Italian cooking and support our cause.  If you’re not local you can participate in another fund-raiser that my friend is having who makes and sells beautiful jewelry.  She is offering starting now through the end of December all bracelet sales to go towards our adoption.  Check out her web-site.  If you purchase a bracelet remember to write a note saying that it is going towards the Thompson’s Adoption. She can do custom bracelets too.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/babycady  If you are able, purchase a matching set of earrings or necklace to show your support for her generosity. 

Today I sent off our 5^th letter to Vitaliy.  The missionary there said when she went to the orphanage last week he ran up to her and was “Sure” that she had a letter from us!  I love that!  This means that we are giving him hope and that he is starting to trust us to write to him every week.

Things to pray for:

1.        That we get our home study preparation completed NLT than Sunday October 30^th.

2.       That our home-study is smooth and worry-free on November 5^th.

3.       That the fund-raisers going on now and through December are successful and raise $10,000.  That would bring us to 50% of the total cost.

4.       That our hearts and minds would be prepared to parent Vitaliy and that his heart would be prepared for our family.

Thank you for your continued prayer support as we make this journey. 

Amazed and Thankfull

     Still amazed at the things that people are doing to help us with our adoption, God is great! So far we have raised about 22% of the total cost to get Vitaliy home with us. We are humbled by the generosity of those who have even more meager incomes than we do but have followed God’s challenge and have donated abundantly to us. This is challenging to our hearts as we watch God do his work on others to help save one little boy. If he cares so much for him, how much does he care for us all? We still need about $30,000 but my heart is bursting with faith because of what he has already done.
     Events coming up to raise finances are: A local friend is going to come to our home and spend four of her Saturday’s cutting hair to and give all proceeds towards the adoption costs. An Italian friend has offered to host Italian cooking classes in her home and donate all proceeds towards our adoption costs. Another friend has offered her photography services to take pictures and donate all proceeds towards our adoption. This is so shocking to us. We never thought so many people would want to help by giving financially but also giving of their time and talents too. We are so incredibly thankful for everything everyone is doing! Truly we are.
     We are preparing for our home-study that is scheduled to happen November 5th. There is much to prepare. Brandon and I have to write our entire life stories and that is challenging to say the least. We are taking our on-line parenting courses to prepare us to adopt an older-international child. I am learning so much through these on-line classes and they are helping us have more realistic expectations of what may happen when we get Vitaliy home. I know that when we were preparing for the birth of Grace we had grand expectations for what having a newborn was going to look like only to be quite surprised by the actual reality of the situation. Therefore we are thankful for sound advice by experts to what we may go through once we get Vitaliy home. Also in preparation for Vitaliy we have some friends that are “trying” to teach us Russian. Russian is very challenging with many sounds that the English language doesn’t have but we have hopes that this may help Vitaliy see that we care enough about him to learn some basics of his native language.
     Things we need prayer for: #1 That God will continue to press on hearts to help us financially pave the way for the adoption costs. #2 That the paperwork already in progress is sufficient and adequate for the Ukrainian Government. #3 That our home-study prep is done by October 28th so that we can have a week of rest prior to the actual home-study. #4 That God is continually in control of all aspects of this adoption and that he will continue to prepare Vitaliy’s heart for us and our hearts for Vitaliy.


Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.

Battle is Over and Blessings are Continuing

 We finished the Battle of the Mustache and Brandon won.  He finally shaved his mustache after 15+ years.  The battle raised $1,208!  Amazing!
      This week we mailed off our first big check for the adoption process written for $4,900.  We were praying for God to show us his Majesty in providing for this need.  Grace, my 13 year old daughter, and I prayed specifically that we would have $4,900 by Monday so that we could pay the obligation.  Tuesday morning when we woke up and checked our pay-pal, someone had donated $5,000 into our account!  This was so wonderful for Grace to see that God is faithful and He answers prayers even if we don't see a way for them to possibly be answered. For me, however, it spoke something more precious.  To me this was God's confirmation that He is in this and it is His will.  It showed me that even though we don't know how or where the finances are going to come from in order to complete the process, God is ABLE to do ALL things!  He knows what we need even before we say it; he just wants us to ask.  We are trying to be very specific in our prayer requests throughout this process.  Please look at our first post "We are Announcing our Plan to Adopt" to see what things we are specifically praying for and we ask that you join us in sending these prayers to Him who is abundantly able to do more than we can ask or think.   
      We have a dear friend who has offered to cut hair and all the money given will go towards our adoption.  If you are local I will be sending out the details on this soon. We have other ideas swirling around in our heads but we'd love to hear the opinions of you all or offers of service to help us.  We are limited on what we can legally do while here in Italy but we love creative ideas.  Feel free to share. 
       We haven't yet heard back from Vitaliy since we have sent our letter but we are not discouraged because we have received some recent pictures of him and he looks healthy and well.  Our plan is to continue to send him a letter once a week.  Please keep this in your prayers as well that this will encourage him and give him hope.
     Finally, we have some friends near us that speak Russian and they have volunteered to try and teach our family some of the language basics.  Although it will be of top importance that Vitaliy learns English, it would be beneficial for all of us if we can at least communicate on a basic level.  These friends of ours have also agreed to be our translators in the beginning stages to communicate the difficult things.  Pray that our family is able to grasp this language quickly.  Italian has been a challenge for us but we feel that we have been able to learn enough to be understood in most cases.  
    Grazie Mille!