This time last year we were in the throes of our adoption home study and dossier completion. As we looked forward to summer we also dreamed about having another child in our family within the next year. We had been discussing for a few weeks how we would like to take the boys with us to Ethiopia. However, after reviewing the price of tickets, we decided they would need to raise the money to help out with their plane tickets if they wanted to join us. We quickly learned that round-trip tickets can cost between $1,500 and $2,000. So, Brian naturally thought they should raise a combined $3, 500…a nice, happy medium. I, on the other hand, thought that was way too much money for an 11 and an 8 year old to raise! I tried to talk Brian down to $500 but he wouldn’t budge. I am so glad that he didn’t because I would have missed out on the miracle that God wanted to work in our lives!
We put up a fundraising thermometer on our refrigerator with a goal of $3,500. Wow! That looked impossible! The boys looked at it and commented, “How are we ever going to make it there?” I simply pointed to the verse that we had put at the bottom of the chart…
“Now to him is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” – Ephesians 3:20-21
They couldn’t argue with that.
At the same time we were finishing up our dossier paperwork, we were putting out our first garden. One day when the boys and I were up to our elbows in dirt, they came up with the idea to have a produce stand to raise money for their trip. They worked hard planting, weeding, and harvesting…and by the end of the summer we had some fruits of our labor. We put on a card table in our driveway with a sign that stated all proceeds from our sales would go towards our Ethiopian adoption. Bless those people who stopped by on our little, old country road. I think we made a total somewhere around $20 and that was just for a few tomatoes! The boys then took their produce stand complete with zucchini bread and chocolate chip cookies to my sister’s yard sale. They had some help by their cousins’ lemonade and cake pops and their nana’s flowers and produce to make the stand the highlight of the yard sale. Before they knew it they had around $300 on their chart!
We heard in November that we had a referral for our 3 month old baby boy, Titus! Wow, now it seemed really real! The boys kept looking at their chart. How were they ever going to get there? Then came Christmas… they received numerous gifts from family to put towards their trip and the number on their chart continued to grow. The biggest surprise for all of us came when Brian’s company, Unified Technologies, gave the boys $1,000 towards their trip at the company’s annual Christmas party! I couldn’t wait to tell the boys the news! Now they were 1/2 way to their goal! God was doing immeasurably more than we could ever ask.
January was an exciting month. We were only given a 5 day notice to travel to Ethiopia to see Titus and attend court to make him 
legally our son. What a wonderful experience…I’m not going to go there right now or I may start down a whole different path! When we got back home, I immediately went online to try to find something the boys could do to raise money for their tickets. It had to be something that was easy, fun, and not too expensive to make. I found directions for making coasters from tiles and it was exactly what we were looking for. So, to the basement we went to test our new product. Not bad, time consuming, but not hard to make at all. We posted it on our blog and Facebook and were blown away when we got 5 orders the next day! A “small production plant” started in our basement and grew beyond our wildest dreams. Believe it or not, we have raised around $1,000 from the sales of our coasters! The boys were almost to their goal! God was doing more than we could have ever imagined!
Additionally, soon after we got back from Ethiopia, a friend of mine from Milligan College, Cindy Newland, contacted me to say that she was a representative for Thirty-One and she would like to throw us a party to help raise funds for the boys’ trip. She said that she has a heart for adoption and would like to help us out. I love Thirty-One products and was very excited about this opportunity. I was again blown away by family and friends who ordered to support our adoption. With the Thirty-One fundraiser, we raised $300 for the boys’ tickets. The goal was getting closer to being realized.
As word continued to spread that the boys were raising money, we began to get checks in the mail from friends and family who wanted to show their support of our adoption and help the boys reach their goal. The boys were getting more and more excited as their total got closer and closer to the top! No longer did they question if they were going to get there. They knew God was working it out!
We are happy to announce that the top was blown off a few weeks ago when our good friends, Jeff and Kerrin Omer, offered their timeshare condo in Myrtle Beach for us to auction off in order to raise money for the boys’ trip. After a slow start, we had a bidding war on the last day. The winning bid was $700 and was won by Brigitee Stapleton, a friend of a friend from Milligan College, who heard about the condo fundraiser on Facebook.
The boys celebrated by making fireworks go off on their chart as the top was blown completely off! (I think they are excited to be out of the coaster making business, too!)
As I write all of this down for the first time, I am reminded of how many people have been a part of this journey that God put us on more than a year ago to give a child in Ethiopia a home. He has taught each one in our family the power He has to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine. And he has used many of you to do it!
THANK YOU! This is the deepest, most sincere thank you we could ever give! The boys are looking so forward to seeing the country where there brother was born. THANK YOU for helping to make it possible! We hope to be able to repay the favor when it is your turn to take whatever journey God has planned for you!
Borg Man's World 