Saint Patty's Winners!

What better way to end a fun day of shamrocks and pots of gold than by giving away two gift cards!  We had a $100 Visa gift card and $50 Target gift card to give to two lucky people, and www.random.org just chose the winners!

The winner of the $100 Visa gift card is..... #127

KAREN B.

And the winner of the $50 Target gift card is..... #407

CYNTHIA K. 

Congratulations to you both, and I'll be in touch!

Melted Like Wax

Once again, thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to give you all the glory!

One week ago, I wrote that we had decided to use another homestudy agency, a change that would save us $1000 and be less restrictive as we move through this adoption process.  There were actually two agencies, both with similar fees, and we were unable to decide which to move forward with.  It was a very difficult decision to try to make.

Yesterday, I wrote the blog post $937, asking for prayer as we faced a small mountain getting in the way of us moving forward with our homestudy.

I left a message with the Assistant Director of the homestudy agency we were leaning toward last week, but due to their office moving and training classes, she was not available at all last week, and very little this week.  I received a message from her yesterday afternoon, and I emailed her back this morning with several questions.  

Two hours after sending that email, Scott called me to tell me our mountain had "melt[ed] like wax before the Lord" (Psalm 97:5) in the form of a bonus he didn't know was coming.  And it's coming tomorrow!  We can't ignore God's timing in this, waiting until we spoke with just the person we needed to before having the money to move forward.

I've spoken again with the homestudy agency and with the placing agency, and we are THRILLED that we were shown the correct path to take, after much prayer over this decision.

To everyone who has covered us in prayer, thank you!  To everyone who contributed toward this fundraising goal, thank you!  We have enough to pay our homestudy fees, post-placement fees, criminal/background checks, and my passport fees!  PRAISE GOD, FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW!

 

Just a Reminder of Why We're Fundraising....

And a heartfelt 'Thank You' from all of the Picketts!



God's Provision... Again!

Today is a day I've been waiting ten days to blog about!  Only ten days, because that's when we found out that, instead of paying our foreign agency fees in two installments, we'd be paying our foreign agency fees in three installments.

We had begun fundraising for our homestudy fees when I got the call that there was a mistake with the original fee agreement with our foreign agency, and we'd need to wire 1,190 euros ASAP, because the money was due with our referral acceptance in country.

So, our homestudy fees took the back burner, and we turned our focus to coming up with $1,826, to cover the foreign agency fees and two wiring fees (one for us to wire the money to our placing agency and one for our placing agency to wire the money to our foreign agency).  And today, the wire has been made!  At the time we sent the wired funds, we had, to the dollar, exactly what we needed!  Isn't God awesome!  He provided exactly what we needed, exactly when we needed it!

We are 1,826 steps closer to our daughter, and 1/3 of the way funded!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!  

We are praying that we will soon get updated information on her development and, just as I hoped for an updated ultrasound picture during my pregnancies, I am hoping for a new picture of her!  I cannot wait to see how much more beautiful she has grown since the time her photo was taken!

I can't end this post without thanking a few people specifically for making this payment possible.  To D&J, thank you for your very generous gift for our Chick-fil-A giveaway; to S&M, B&M, and M&D thank you for giving so unselfishly your kids' clothes and toys for us to sell, and to T, I cannot thank you enough for the time you spent helping me to get everything organized and priced, and for advocating so much for our family.

Chikin Winnur!!!

With 761 entries in the giveaway, and $700 raised, this was a VERY successful giveaway!

Before I announce the winner, I just want to say that I was VERY tempted to enter my own giveaway!  I love Chick-fil-A, and the great employees at my local Chick-fil-A know when I walk in that I want a #4 with pepper jack cheese and a sweet tea.  I LOVE the Spicy Chicken Sandwich!  So, consider yourself lucky, lucky that I didn't rig my own giveaway!

AND THE WINNER IS.... #580

 DEBBIE BEAUMIER!!!

 Congratulations, Debbie!!!  I will be in touch!

Hoarders: Pickett Edition

Anyone who knows me knows that there is only one time during the year when my house looks ready for an episode of Hoarders: the time leading up to Bargain Fair.  It's a HUGE indoor sale of items donated by the active and sustaining members of a local charitable organization, as well as people in the community.  As the Chair of Bargain Fair last year, it meant that for part of last summer and fall, my family room was full of donated items.  We felt like we added 500 sq. ft. to our house after Bargain Fair was over and the family room was ours again!

I don't keep things around that we don't use.  All my kids' clothes are passed along to a friend whose kids are girl-boy-girl, just like mine.  If it doesn't go into my Bargain Fair bin, it goes to a local thrift store.  So when I got an email from the women who organize a large kids' consignment sale twice a year, asking if I'd like to consign, I didn't have much. 

All it took was one facebook post to my friends, asking for gently used toys, clothes, and gear, and I have 3 van loads of things to get priced for the sale!  I no longer have a family room, and my husband is ready to call Hoarders!  I have so much that I've invited people to come shop a pre-sale in my home so that everything will fit in 2 vans. 

See all those clothes?  There are 2 more loads in the laundry room to be washed!

We have more big stuff, too, that we really hope to sell before the sale!

(It's even migrating to the living room!)

We are shown time and time again how blessed we are, and we thank God for giving us such wonderful friends to go through life with.  To Tonya, Jessica, Mindy, Shelby, and Brandi, thank you for going through life with me, and for cleaning out your homes to help us bring our daughter home!

And now I can't wait for March 5, when I'll be done pricing everything, and when all this stuff heads to the consignment sale!

And the Winners Are...

I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your support with our adoption.  I tried to keep up with thanking everyone who donated, and about halfway through my responses, I realized I had been replying to Paypal instead of the donor many, many times.  So, if I missed you, I apologize, and we are truly thankful for your donation!

We raised $3,534 in our Vacation Giveaway, and had a total of 1,157 entries, between donations and friends sharing online!  That is HUGE!!!

We raised $1,090 in our YMCA Giveaway, which includes the matching challenge donation, and had a total of 457 entries!

All entries were logged in order of donation (or share) received, to make sure we had no control over the outcome.  Thanks to www.random.org, a web-based random number generator, I didn't have to write out 1,614 names and put them in a gigantic hat!

So now, for what you've all been waiting for!

The winner of the 6-Night Vacation in Pigeon Forge, TN is... #110

MICHELLE MARBLE!!!

The winner of the One-Year YMCA Membership is... #158

 DAWN MILLS!!!

Congratulations to both winners!!! And again, a 

BIG THANK YOU  

to everyone who gave!  Thank you for your continued prayers, and for making the decision to walk alongside us on this journey!

For the King and His Glory

"Coincidence is God performing a miracle while maintaining his anonymity."

One of my favorite quotes was written by a man named Bill Irwin, who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail.  2,180 miles of varying terrain, through thick forests and open balds, down into valleys and over high ridges. 

That's a tremendous feat for anyone, but especially so for Mr. Irwin.  He is blind.  No white blazes to guide him, no way of knowing for sure that he was still on the trail.  When a blind person hikes alone (and Mr. Irwin is not the only blind hiker) and can't tell if they're on the right path, they stop and wait for help to come.

We've started our own journey completely blind, not knowing where the trail would lead us or from where our provision would come.  We only knew that if we weren't sure about the next step, we would wait for help to come.

Help Came!!!  I am hand-delivering a certified check for $7,225 to our agency at 4:00.  Scott and I did not do this.  We did not make this happen.  I promise, I'm not that influential.  I'm not a salesperson, I'm not in the marketing business.  And if you know my husband, you know he isn't either.  


This past week was completely, undeniably, perfectly the work of my God, who says "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." (Matthew 21:22)  We do not believe in coincidences.  We believe in miracles. We do not believe it was a coincidence that our paperwork made it into the right hands and had a signature in four working days in our daughter's country. 

Had we been given more time to fundraise, we could claim the glory for raising the money we needed.  We didn't have that extra time, so God receives ALL the glory for making this happen.  I cannot thank you all enough for allowing God to use your gifts for His glory, to help us reach our daughter on the other side of the world.

Thank You

I've said it before, and I'll happily say it again -- I love where God has planted our family!  This community, as small as it is, and as hard as it has been hit economically, is FULL of the hands and feet of Christ, people going the extra mile to do what is good and what is right. 

Do I believe that James 1:27 instructs everyone to adopt?  No.  But, but it does command us to care for the orphans.  Scott and I are being obedient to that command, and we are seeing the body of Christ move in obedience, rallying to support us financially, and that is just as much a part of that command as adopting.

I would be lying if I said that Scott and I can pull of this adoption on our own.  We're looking at a budget of around $27,000, and I'm not sure about you, but that's a little more than loose change for us.  It would take us years to save that amount of money, and I promise that, on our own, we'd be spending a big chunk on new flooring and (my personal lust) butcher block counters. 

We are trusting God to provide the money needed for this adoption, and we are seeing that provision grow each day, through the obedience and selflessness of others.  We are so, so thankful to those of you who are stepping out in faith with us, who are allowing yourselves to be used for His purpose.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.