November is National Adoption Month along with who knows how many other thing of-course. For me this is the month it all really started a year ago. I was listening to Focus on the Family on the way to work and God spoke to me while listening to their broadcast on adoption. I can say without a doubt that I am glad I took notice of what the Holy Spirit was telling me. How often do we we ignore that small voice inside and think we can’t act on what we are being convicted to do. Let me say God is not going to ask you to do something He is not going to give you the strength to do. At the time it may seem that way but he will give you the power to fulfill His command at the time you need it. What we do need is faith in Him to provide us what we need when we need it. Our faith grows when we trust Him even when we are unable to see the how and the why. Some say God has not asked me to do anything, is that right? I think God has commanded us to do a lot of things. The Bible is full advice and commands we all should be doing and if we are not being faithful in the small things I am not sure He is going to ask us to do bigger things. Don’t misinterpret what I am saying. I am not saying you have to be perfect in all things to hear from God, I am saying it is hard to hear Him speak to us about bigger things when we are steady ignoring Him in our personal relationship and haven’t dealt with the sin that blocks our communication. I fight my flesh every day, it is a constant battle that I lose most of the time but that doesn’t mean I give up or more importantly thankfully He doesn’t give up on me.
God also uses others in His plans for us. So many things started to fall in place when we started this journey. He pushed me with believers and non-believers. When we started fund raising we set our goal at $30,000. We were told we would need anywhere from $35k to $45k. Personally I thought if we raised half that much I would be happy. I was really never worried about the money because in my mind I was thinking I know God wants us to do this and if we have to empty our savings and get a loan then that is what we will do. We opened a Go Fund Me account and we had a small response but once we started the sale of of t-shirts, things really started to move. We have quit fund raising now but we still have people send us money randomly and as of today we have $40,948.88 in adoption money and $30,818.00 of that is from fundraising. Thank you Jesus! So many people have helped us out in so many different ways to reach this goal of ours. I want to say THANK YOU. We are still not totally sure how much more if any we will need because of the likely hood of us having to quarantine but we know God is good, all the time and our needs will be met. Thank you again to everyone who has helped us. I want to give a special thank you to the following people who have been essential workers in reaching our goals.
Shelly’s parents, Margret and George Newsome, along with her brother Eddie, their screen printing company Metro Print donated all the shirts and labor to make them.
Captain Jody of Crappie Daze Guide Service for donating a 1/2 day fishing trip.
Jack Knox and RF Knox Sheet Metal Contractor for donating a Large Big Green Egg.
Chosen For Life Ministry, they awarded us grant money.
Melinda Dendy for donating a Pampered Chef gift basket.
My sister Kim for donating the 50 flamingos for our yard Flockings.
My mom and sister for arranging our Line Dancing event. They arranged many door prizes and auctioned items. Thank you to all who donated them.
Kim and Mark Smith for all the items they donated for a huge yard sale. Kim and Mom also help us with our yard sale.
Thank you to those who donated thru Go Fund Me or donated directly to us.
I have attached a video below of all of our fundraisers. Its long but I wanted to include all of our pictures. There are many others who are not pictured and we appreciate all of you also. Thank you for caring about our daughter.