Nickels for Nahla

So my dear friend Kristin designed some adorable labels called Nickels for Nahla, that you post on a coin jar or any other type of container. Kristin gave them out to our Bible study group so that our friends could fill up their nickels for Nahla jar with coins to help us raise money for our adoption. We have already collected a full coin jar from one of our friends and are surprised how a little bit of spare change can add up! Josiah is having so much fun putting extra coins in our jar. It's a fun way to get the kids involved too!
If any of you would like a cute Nickels for Nahla label to help raise money for us with your spare change let me know and we will mail you one! We can even mail you more than one if you think of someone else who might like to join in. I am going to post a very cute picture of Josiah with his jar :)

God Provides!!

Hello dear friends and family!
We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was very special since we were able to spend lots of quality time with family. This Christmas was even more exciting for Josiah then the last because he really understands now about the true meaning of Christmas and of course the presents. We had so much fun attending Christmas parties, looking at lights, reading Christmas stories, and of course decorating cookies. It was so special to share the story of Christs birth with Josiah and listen to all of the questions he had about Jesus's birthday. It was also special to look through the World Vision catalog together and talk about the needs of people around the world. Josiah was very surprised and interested to know that many people don't have things like clean drinking water, food, clothes, toys or a house like we do. After looking through the catalog he decided he wanted to give the gift of clean water to those who have none this Christmas. So that was our outreach gift this year and Josiah was very excited to be able to help those in need!

As far as the latest news with the adoption process goes, we have our fingerprint appt. on January 12 and then we wait until we are approved. We are hoping we won't have to wait too long but as always we know Gods timing is what matters and He already knows who our daughter is so no worries right?
We also have some updated fundraiser news to report! Thanks to so some very generous family and friends over the holidays our grand total we have now raised is $6000!! Whoo hoo!! Praise God!! We feel So blessed, loved and supported! We also feel encouraged that God is providing for us to bring our daughter home!  So thank you again for your prayers and financial support! There will be one less orphan, alone with out a family because of your help!! Doesn't that feel awesome?!  One step at a time with your help! We love you and thank you!!!!!!!

Belated Updates!

So I guess I am discovering that I am not so good at keeping our blog updated! I can't believe it has already been one month since my last post. I am really going to work on being more consistent with updating my blog....starting.. now!
Ok so here is the latest!  We have sent out our immigration form (I600A) which allows us to bring our duaghter home from Ethiopia. We just recieved our appointments to get fingerprinted and then we wait to recieve the approved I600 form to arrive by mail! Hopefully we will be able to send out our Dossier by early February but you never know with this process. We are learning to be patient and surrender the timing and process to God. It's hard to be patient when I just want to go to Ethiopia and bring our daughter home but I know Gods timing is so much better then mine!
We also feel so blessed to report that we have raised $2200 towards our adoption from the support letters we sent out! We feel so amazingly blessed by those who have given so generously to help us bring Nahla home! People have sent us such encouraging words, support and prayer! We are VERY thankful because every dollar helps us so much!
Starting in January we will begin to plan for hopefully TWO future benefit concerts. My precious and amazingly talented friend Brooke from Boston has offered to fly out and host a benefit concert for us in Santa Cruz! She has a beautiful voice and plans to be one of the performers at the concert. I might even sing a song with her!
We would also like to plan a concert in the Sacramento area and are beginning the process of hopefully making that happen!
Another amazing friend has also helped us design a shirt that we plan to sell at our fundraising events and sell right here on our blog! It is turning out to be such a neat shirt! We can't wait to unveil it in the new year to you all!
In the spring time we will plan a hopefully very large rummage sale to also help with all the adoption expenses.
I feel really excited for the new year and all of the fun fundraiser events that we hope to make possible! Our heart is that our own adoption journey will inspire and bring awareness to the orphan epedemic in Africa and all over the world. We hope to show that it is not impossible to adopt internatinally, and pray that maybe along the way someone else might feel a tugging on their heart to do the same. Thank you all for reading this blog, and supporting us!
We will keep you updated more often now :)