What a fabulous update!!! Gotta read, We Won And Our Lifesong Grant was Matched!! PTL!!!

Last week was quite an amazing week and I know that I lit your facebook pages up, email boxes up and when you saw me it was OH all over me!! Well, to tell you the truth, it is totally out of my comfort zone to do any of those things. I have always hated to ask anyone for anything, but that suddenly changed 9 months ago when our world was changed forever..........for one!! When God leads you on a journey, be sure to know that this is his journey that he needs your help on and his story for you to tell!!! You better be ready to go at his speed!! There have been many times that I have tried to take control and do it myself, but found out really quickly, that is not how he wants it and he will let you know. We have had a timeline set on each goal on when we thought we should receive our approvals from different places. Our timeline has not be right yet. For example - Passports, normally take 4 weeks, they took 2, approval from Immigration should take 90 days, it took 67 days!!! Everything is coming back sooner and we are super excited about it, but I will tell you when Jesus says GO, you better GO!! Going at Jesus speed is exhausting, but the rewards have been great!!! I have felt all along that he has been wanting us to go, go, go!!! So, my advice to you guys, sit still, listen and be ready to Go, when he says GO!!!!

So, what else has happened these past 10 days???? As I explained in Sunday school, we were so blessed to have someone match our $2500.00 grant with Lifesong!! The story is below that I have promised to share. 

A few months ago right after the Swing for Adoption golf tournament, I posted on my wall that we just made our next goal and was about to mail in our 2nd payment and we were thrilled about it. I explained that we had a few more to go, maybe I said something like, "2 more payments to Lifeline and also our dossier payment". It was not a few seconds later, that I received an instant message asking me questions about our payments and how much they were. Well, I gladly shared the amount of our payments and our dossier payment. A few seconds later, I received another message stating that she would love to help and felt lead by God to help us make our last payment. Tears of joy just ran down my face and I explained how grateful we were, well I was, because I could not shake Steve hard enough to wake him up! He had been carrying his golf clubs all over the golf course, he was tired!! :) I explained to her that it was between her and God and when she felt lead to provide the donation, that we would gladly except!! God works in awesome ways and a few weeks later, Steve and I applied for a grant with Lifesong. It took them about 10 weeks to reply, which is normal. Friday, January 13th, we received a phone call from Lifesong stating that we have been approved for a matching grant in the amount of $2500.00!! Woohoo!! Super excited!! I immediately sent text messages to my friends and family, called Steve to let him know! That was huge to me!! When I got home, I posted about it on Facebook and a few days later, I received a message from her and she needed to know Lifesong's information. I gladly gave it to her on Sunday, January 15th. On Tuesday, January 17th, I received a heart felt message from her stating that as she types, tears are flowing down her face, because she just mailed $2500.00 to Lifesong to match our grant!!! Our matching grant is now met and our hero is Kathy McCulley! Hallelujah!! This donation was made in honor of her niece, Torrey McCulley. Torrey passed away during her open heart surgery when she was only 5 months old. On January 16th was her birthday! What an amazing birthday gift to Torrey in heaven! And for this to be in honor of a precious child that is rejoicing in heaven over this amazing contribution from her Godly Aunt Kathy to bring our child home from China!! What an amazing heart Ms. McCulley has and what it means to not only us, but to our Awesome God!! God gets the glory and we get the joy!! Oh and she purchased a donkey that she named "BOYD"!!! Ha!! What a huge blessing Kathy is to us and our family!!! So, what I know of at LIfesong is a total of $5750.00!!

Now, what you guys have been waiting on for 10 days!!! I am proud to announce that we are in the TOP 3!!!!!! A total of $ 2275.95      was sold with a profit of $ 910.38!!! We have so many folks to thank for being our Ordinary Hero's and helping us bring our baby home from China!! We are so blessed with a wonderful family, church family and friends!!! Thanks to all Our Ordinary Hero's, Brian and Kimi Gilliland, Kim Perkins, Reginna Allison, Stephanie Brook, Christy Coggins, Bridget Shirley, Bevin Tomlin, Charlotte West, Kathy McCulley, Lyndsey Tibbs, Kari Tibbs, Shawn Dickson, Ashley Stricklin, Meagan Hyde, Brandi Abernathy, Kathy Bates, Lori Lawrence, Jeri Boyd, Nicole Rudd, Missy Bittle, Katy Wallace, Melissa Burdick, Dejah Greene, Virginia Holloway, Karmen Johnson, Lee Ann Conger, Jennifer Reaves, Robyn Nunley, Robert & Renee Pelfrey, Reagan Bellenger, Samantha Ross, Bradley Leonard, Wendy Woods, Nikki Nunnally, Denise Davis, Alyson and Erick Anderton. I believe there are a few more, but I have not received those names yet!!!

So between Lifesong and Ordinary Hero, that brings our total that God raised in just 10 days is $ 7,160.38. We still have $ 1,204.00 saved up, so that would total $ 8,364.38!! Wow!! What a way to start this 2012 year on our adoption journey!! God is so good and if you had doubt for one minute, it was not possible, he proved us wrong!!

I hope that if you feel lead to adoption or foster that you continue to pray about and answer to the one and only, our God!! He knows what he wants and will continue to stir your hearts and minds!!! 

God Bless you all!!! We love you and are super excited that you guys are following us on this most fabulous journey!! Please continue to pray for us!!!

In his name, 

Steve and Julie Boyd

Lifesong's Matching Grant!!!

God has been so good to us and has provided funds, lots of prayers, new friends that we have been able to share his story with and many many more blessings!! We are so fired up for this adoption journey that God has entrusted us on!! The more I talk about it the more excited that I get just knowing that we are saving 1 orphan and bringing he or she into our lives to share the great news of our Almighty God!!!

O.k so, now that we are up to "Jesus Speed" it is time to raise some money!! We were contacted a few days ago by Lifesong. A fabulous non profit that helps provide grants to families that are adopting! We were so blessed to find out that they would provide us with a match dollar for dollar grant for $2500.00!!!! Wow!! So what does that mean, we need to raise $2500.00 and send to Lifesong, then they will match it and $5,000.00 will go towards our adoption fund! What a huge blessing that is!! And too, it is tax deductible!! Double blessing!!! Come on guys, help us out to bring this sweet baby home from China!!!

Do you know what is better than that, Ordinary Hero is also having a grant contest for the next 9 days and if you purchase something from their store and choose my name in the affiliate drop down box, we will get 40% of the total sales and we could be in the running for top prize which is another grant for $500.00!! So here is the breakdown.

Lifesong matching grant for $2500.00 - when it is matched, $5,000.00 will be applied towards our adoption fund!!

Ordinary Hero - Purchase apparel or other fun items, we will get 40% of sales and could possible win a grant for $500.00. Ordinary Hero will mail total profit to Lifesong to help match dollar for dollar the grant. So, this way, you get a great shirt or other item, our adoption fund will receive $5,000 or maybe more funds to go towards our adoption fund!! This contest will end on January 22nd!!!

www.ordinaryherostore.org

If you consider helping through donating funds through Lifesong, please see indicate Boyd/#2446 on the memo section of your check and mail check to:
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford Street
Gridley, IL 61744

or Via Paypay:

On the PayPal screen, please indicate where you'd like your donation to go. Please note that PayPal does charge an administrative fee (1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction). The donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee.

http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html

Alrighty guys, you will see me on Facebook like crazy because that is what I have been lead to do is bring home a precious child from China and I will make sure that God is overwhelmed with lots of glory from us!! As you can tell, my joy is overflowing!!

Come on now, loaves and fishes!!!

Love you all!!

LIfeline Waiting Children

This is straight from Lifeline's blog. Please keep these sweet children in your prayers that God will lead a family to them. If you feel lead to adopt, I highly encourage you to!!!! PTL!!! 

Lifeline would like to take this opportunity to stir the hearts of many in the adoption world who are considering the adoption of an older child. Will you join us in in this challenge and spread the word?

These children have been waiting a long time. They are all special focus children. They have been specifically assigned to Lifeline. We have been blessed with the privilege of partnering with the CCCWA (China Center for Children’s Welfare and Adoption) to locate homes for these precious Waiting Children. As a participant in this program with the CCCWA, we are able to advocate for these older children with special needs.

Unique challenges come with adopting an older child with special needs. We realize that! But, they are so worth it! They deserve to have a forever family to call their own!

Please contact us with any questions including questions of transfer possibilities for these children. We are here to help in any way that we can.

Please email Logan Gibbons here or you can reach her at 205-972-8480 or e-mail Lisa Kelly here or by calling her at 785-783-4565 with any questions about these children.

Help us share these children who are waiting with others by "liking" and "sharing" our our "China's Waiting Treasures" Facebook Page HERE.

What a great start to a 2012!!

2012 has been a great year so far!! God has been so faithful!! We praise him for all he has done for us. Tuesday I came home from work and went to the mailbox and pulled out an envelope from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I thought to myself before I opened it, oh no, what is wrong?? We were not supposed to hear from them until the end of January, so something has got to be wrong!! Thank you Jesus nothing was wrong, but everything was right!! We have been approved by Immigration!!! Nothing is ever wrong when Jesus is involved!! Hallelujah!!!

This is a huge step and just a visual that this is really happening!! God is so good!! We are so blessed and so thankful for this journey!! We can not wait for the next few months to pass and to get closer to traveling to China!!! 

In the very beginning we knew that this was not going to be an easy journey and we knew that we had to have complete faith in the one and the only, Jesus!! We have gone through much stress, but continued to pray and keep him first. We know that instead of dashing forward towards our enormous goal, that we would try our hardest to slow down and enjoy this journey with God. We have alot more money to raise....might I add it is $18,000.00!!! Yes, that is correct!! You say, "How in the world?" Well, I said the same thing over and over again to myself and to Steve. When I initially set our goal, I left out the expenses of our children traveling to China with us. What an experience they are going to have!! I have kept them involved and I want them to experience the journey as Steve and I do. They are apart of this and we will continue to keep them a part of this by allowing them to travel to China as well!! 

This week has been a week of thoughts about fundraising. It is a little overwhelming, because I came up with so many ideas, but when you start piling all those ideas on top of each other, it gets a little confusing and exhausting. So, I wrote them down and will continue to pray over them. 

I felt led to have a theme for the Spring arts n crafts fundraising. I was not sure of what I wanted to do, so I began praying about it. When we first started our journey I was explaining it all to my sister, Missy, and asked her if she could help with the sewing. Of course, she said Yes!! She then went on to explain to me that she has also prayed that God would open her eyes and ears to ways to use the fabric that she had left over for a good cause!! :) During that same time period she began to notice sparrows flying around the same window and her garage. They came at the same time everyday and just pecked on the windows and door. She continued to pray and then it hit her to sew some stuff for our adoption to help raise money for our China baby!!! Fast forward a few months to our 1st Annual Sow to China Open House as I was cleaning house and getting everything ready, I opened the doors to just let the fresh air in and a sparrow flew in the house, around the kitchen and sat in my Christmas tree for just a little bit. I thought it was weird because a bird had never flown in my house!!! I walked outside and came back in and the sparrow had flown out. I did not think much about it until a few weeks later. I sent a message to my sister and let her know that it was a sparrow that had flown in and the night was totally blessed with an awesome turnout and we raised alot of money!! God works in wonderful wonderful ways!!!  Yes, I know you are probably thinking, she is one weird cookie!! Well, it hit me the other day when my mother n law mentioned that birds are really in right now. It was one of those Ah ha moments and I got really excited and said, "That's it!!!" Sparrows it is!!! Well, the verse that I have chosen and prayed over is:  

Psalms 84:3, 

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young--a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God. When I decided on a verse, everything just seemed right and I had peace about it!! God is fabulous and amazing!! He asks that we don't get discouraged and not to give up, he is our continuous helper!!! He is the way, the truth and the life!!! He is higher than any other!! I praise him for it all, without him, nothing is possible!! Please continue to pray that God will open doors and continue to bless this wonderful journey!!! Please continue to pray for us!!!! Blessings and Love, Julie