Hope Ethiopia: 100

What an amazing story witnessing God's hand at work!!! This is the latest post from Lifesong for Orphans! What an amazing organization they are and the things that they do for orphans are quite amazing!!

Do you remember that Hope Ethiopia:100 challenge we gave you? The one where YOU all completely exceeded our goals? 

And that one phone call where an AMAZING donor committed to match ALL donations (up to $130,000) to Lifesong Ethiopia through the end of 2011?

Well, we found out about that donor on November 17th! That's 45 days to raise $130,000... which made this goal seem next to impossible... in OUR eyes! However, as you all know... GOD had different plans for THESE kids -

and these kids -
 

Plans that we could never had imagined... plans to give them hope and a future! 

Thanks to an AMAZING TEAM of individuals and their fundraising efforts, coupled with the provision of our Lord, THE MATCH HAS BEEN MET! Did you hear me? All ONE HUNDRED THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS has been donated for the children at the Adami Tulu and Ziway, Ethiopia schools! 

We stand in complete awe of our MIGHTY Jehovah Jireh! 

Thank you fundraising team for your efforts, for the way you never stop advocating for these children, and for our faith in our Lord God Almighty to provide for ALL of their needs! 

Thank you donors who stepped up to the challenge and did not let the dollar amount get in the way... but trusted that EVERY one of your dollars mattered! 

Thank you to all of you who advocated for these children, pray for them, and have invested in their lives... it will surely be an invest with an eternal reward! 

Check the Adami Tulu site often to learn more about The Project, the fundraising priorities, and what's in store for 2012! 

Its been a whole month!

I can not believe that it has been a whole month since I last updated our blog! I guess you can tell that I have not been twiddling my fingers. Well, we had the last 3 fundraisers for the year. We had 1 at Sirote and Permutt, my mother n law's office, and it was a great success!! We raised over $800.00 and are still delivering orders!! We appreciate her very much to take the time to help us get it set up and sell the handmade items while I was at work. Everyone was so sweet and thoughtful and complimented us on all that we had made. God is so good and has blessed me with a crafty side and I am so thankful for it!! It has been alot of fun and just knowing that a little piece of what we have made has gone into so many homes and given as gifts to so many. I pray that the blessings that we received from making it all carries on and it taken by each recipient. The next fundraisers were lots of fun, both were at friends homes and we raised close to $800.00 at both combined. God is so good!! I thank Christy Sparks for allowing us to come into her home and set up. What a fun Shopping Palooza it was! I am so thankful for Christy and her sweet family!! Just to be with friends and praise Jesus for what he has given us and just knowing it was a "God Thing" that we all made it back to another show together was fabulous!! Candi Boissel was there selling Thirty One and she had a great turn out!! I am so thankful for her and her friendship. It is funny how we have met so many people through this journey and some have just touched our hearts in so many ways!! I just think the world of her and I feel like I have known her for years!! Thanks to my mom as well for coming to the party and sitting with me! And thanks for delivering orders after the party!!
The fundraisers for 2011 have come to a fabulous end! We are so blessed and thank Jesus everyday for entrusting us with this journey! We continue to ask for guidance and for him to be the pilot, because we can try and take over, but it will not be the same as how God wants it to be!! PTL!! We have raised enough money to take care of our next payment to the agency and the payment for our dossier to be mailed to China. Oh my, that is a huge relief and a huge praise!!!

So, what's next? Where do we go from here? Well, during the fundraising period, we have been compiling more documents together to be added to our dossier. We have been to the Immigration Department here in Birmingham and had our finger prints done, which was painless and done within 15 minutes!! We have applied for 2 grants so far to Lifesong and Show Hope. We pray that these go through and we get some guidance from those. We have about a 1 month 1/2 left to wait on our approval from Immigration. When we get our approval from Immigration, our dossier will be complete and mailed to China! After about 2 to 3 weeks after China receives, reviews and logs us in to China, we will receive a log in date. When we get the log in date, shortly after, we will hopefully begin the matching process!! Woohoo! So far everything is right on track, we hope that it stays on track, however, if we do come across a road block, we pray that God will continue to let his light shine through us and we continue to build our faith in Him!!

This is just a little note that I shared on Facebook this morning...
Last night Steve and I were discussing that our house is not decorated like it usually is every year, one tree has nothing but lights on it and all of our fun decorations to sit out are still in boxes in the attic, our outdoor decorations are not out, a wreath fell off the window and still sitting on the ground, we have not mailed out Christmas cards just yet, however, the work and time that so many have put into making all those fabulous handmade crafts has paid off!! It does not bother us not to have ornaments on one tree or a decoration not on that step, because next year, we will have another precious angel to celebrate the real reason of Christmas, Jesus Christ!! With that said, we have made our next goal and are a step closer to bringing home our China baby!! Without him, nothing is impossible!! We want to thank everyone that has had their hand in our journey thus far and also thank everyone for the prayers!!

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. Psalm 105:1,4


We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Just remember the reason for Christmas, it is not about how many lights you can get up or how many tree's have all the ornaments or just how many presents you expect to get, it is about our one and only Saviour, Jesus Christ and what you can give back!! Please continue to keep us and our journey in your prayers! This time next year we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus with a precious little one and there will be one less!!

Praise to be the Lord!!

Blessings and Love!!

Julie

By God's Grace

O.k. So, I have been a little frustrated for these past few hours because I could not post to our blog!! So, know that I have finally figured it out, I can post about all the exciting things that have been going on!! Of course it is about fundraisers and more fundraisers!! For these past few weeks since setting a date of 11/11/11 for our 1st Annual Adoption Open House, we have been working everyday to get things made and the house decorated, cleaned, cleaned and did I mention cleaned? I think Steve vacuumed the house at least 3 to 4 times a day. I can speak for him, he is glad that the Open House is finally come and gone!! I will get back to the Open House shortly, I wanted to share a few more great things that God has sent our way! By God's grace he has placed us in loving families, a truly loving church and home! God is so great and is getting every bit of the glory and we are overflowing with so much joy that it is so overwhelming. I explained to our preacher that we are so undeserving of the joy that he has provided to us and continues to provide to us! We are learning that being obedient to doing work for the Lord is rewarding with the joy!! We are all adopted into God's family and to be able to extend that love to an orphan is a God thing!! Praise him!!
So, we have a sweet friend that told us months ago that she wanted to do something for us, well she presented us with a check a few weeks ago. She had sold her complete set of "China" to help us bring home our "China baby"!!! What a blessing she is and we just love her dearly!!

Last Sunday was Orphan Sunday, and church service was fabulous! Our great church recognized us and others that have been adopted or fostered or in the process of adopting/fostering and had some really great things to say and sweet prayers! The service was great, the slideshow was great and you could definitely feel the holy spirit!! This is how our Sunday went !!

"First I have to say that God is so good! Yesterday was one of the most
important and touching days that Steve and I have experienced through out
this process! Church was fabulous, the preaching was fabulous, Jennie's
testimony was great, the songs were great and just feeling the holy spirit
in church was overwhelming!! I may be crazy because I don't take things
lightly, but make a "story" out of them. We had plans to attend the St.
Aloysius Fall Festival and we did. We got up early Sunday morning and got
ready,( might I add got ready an hour early because we forgot to change the
clocks back), headed to church with all of the fair stuff, had a great service,
got to the festival unloaded and just sat there and watched the kids play.
There were tons of games for the kids. We sold enough to pay for the booth
fee, supplies I bought Saturday, Carson won (4) 2-liter drinks, that will
be used Friday night ( I will not have to buy any for the Open House) and he
also won 4 movie passes and free Top This ice cream that will be used
Sunday after all this is over!!Throughout the day, I was just thinking about getting home and getting thehouse decorated and making some more stuff. When I finally sat down andthought about the day, I thought to myself, I have thought about the"icing" of the day all day long and not the "cake". God had his hand in our entire day! I thank him so much for that!!! Not only did he provide the
festival, but he provided the funds to pay for it, the supplies I needed
for the Open House and a whisper through my children saying, "Here are 4
movie passes, take a break on Sunday afternoon!" This child will be coming
home soon!!!"

We received the Spirit of adoption, the assurance of our inheritance. For we are the children of God and have been adopted into His family. inspired by Romans 8

O.k So what everyone has been waiting on results from the "1st Annual Adoption Open House". For the open house we made swags, wreaths, garland, frames, camera straps, crayon rolls, chalkboard mats, burlap ornament, burlap pillows and crosses, wooden crosses, decorative lanterns and tons of food!! It was so much fun! I can tell you that God provided tons of customers! I know at one time, it was so hard to even move a step without bumping into someone! This was so successful and we praise God for it!! We have had so much support and love through this process!! Believe me, my house was full of stuff from the dining room to the living room to the foyer! It was, as my daughter says, like a mall!! At 8:30, the last customer left and we sat down and took a breather and started counting the money! A sweet friend of mine, Leslie, was calling the amounts out to me to add up and I was typing each number into the calculator. Now, I will tell you that we prayed for a crazy amount to raise of $1500.00. Yes, I know, how in the world and is she crazy? Well, as I was typing, tears started flowing and Leslie looked at me as I was crying. I handed her the calculator and it showed a total of $1741.00!! In my wildest dreams, did I think that was possible!! Every lost hour of sleep and every late night of working and making one more frame as a customer was coming in to the open house, I knew every minute was worth it!! Yes, I would do it all over again and will do it all over again!!! Praise Jesus!!! He is so good!! We also attended another craft show today at Hepzibah Baptist Church! It was super fun and great to meet great people that love the Lord!! Now the total is $1866.00 between both fundraisers!! 

So, what is next?? A few days of rest!! Then we will be going back at it for an "Open House" at a friends house and a craft fair at my mother n laws office, Sirote & Permutt. Then we will be enjoying the last few weeks of December with our sweet family and friends!!! 

Now a few updates on the adoption process itself. We have completed the Home Study!! Praise Jesus!! It has arrived at Immigration and will be there until the middle to end of January. While we are waiting on the results of that we are preparing our documents for the dossier to be sent to China. Which is a little bit more of paperwork, passports, originals of our marriage certificate, birth certificates and reference letters, pictures of our family, etc.... When our approval comes back from Immigration, our dossier will be sent to China and hopefully within 2 to 4 weeks, we will get our LID (log in date). At that time, we will be able to start the referral program and start searching for our child!! So exciting!! We can not wait!!! We are also applying for grants through different agencies. 

Please continue to keep us in your prayers!!! We are loving this journey!!! God bless you all!!! 

Praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Through adoption in Christ, God invites us to enter His kingdom. We are adopted children of God. 

Blessings & Love,

Julie

Updates from September & October

I feel like I am so far behind from everything that we have had going on especially during September and thus far in October. I wanted to make sure that I kept you guys updated on our progress. During the month of September we had a fundraiser on Labor Day. We went to Pinson for the Butter Bean Festival and raised $400.00. We met some great people and enjoyed butter beans and cornbread!! The people we met are doing some really great things for our gracious God. We received our Sow To China sign and displayed it!!! 

My birthday was September 19th and I received a fun party from my wonderful coworkers!! This party included a fabulous cake and a birthday card. I opened the birthday card and to my surprise they had collected $400.00 to go towards our adoption fund!! How great is our God!! I am so blessed to work with such wonderful, caring people! It was a huge surprise to me and to Steve as well when I told him!! With the money that was donated we were able to make our next payment!!!! 

As you could see from the last few posts, I posted some pictures of the new frames that we are making to sell to raise money as well. Well, Ordinary Hero, a non profit organization in Tennessee contacted us about making some frames for them. What a blessing it was to be able to package up 30 frames and mail them to Tennessee. God is so good and I hope that the joy I received from making them is also received by the purchaser!!! 

The events in October so far have been such a huge blessing. I have told several people that we don't deserve all the blessings that God has given us. I want to share just a small dose of what has been going on.......   October 1st, we attended the 1st Annual Adoption Craft Fair held by Grace Life Baptist Church at Shadow Lake. We worked so hard to prepare for it and we raised $650.00!!! It was such a blessing to be with our family, church family and friends. The blessings received from the fair was far bigger than we could imagine!!! The next weekend we participated in Valley Creek's Craft Fair. This was so fun for all of us. Steve grew up at Valley Creek and was baptized there. He enjoyed being there and spending time with Carson and Hailey. He was able to see lots of people he had not seen or talked to in a while. The kids were able to walk across the street with Steve to see the house that he grew up in and play in the field that he played in. His heart was happy!! 

On Monday, October 3rd, what a great night it was!! We will never forget this day!! Carson and Hailey both accepted Jesus into their hearts!!! This was the happiest time to us! God is truly working in our families lives and it is so overwhelming and our hearts are so full of joy!! The kids were baptized at Shadow Lake the following Sunday, October 9th. What a glorious day it was to share these wonderful baptisms with our family, friends and church family. You can see God's lights shining down!!! We love these kiddos so very much!! We pray that we will continue to be the parent's that we need to be to raise Carson and Hailey the right ways!!! We also pray that for this child we are adopting that he or she will also be raised the best parents that we can be!!

 

The 1st Annual "Swing for Adoption" Golf Tournament was held this past Thursday. Steve planned and planned for this event and did such a great job!!! It went great!! We had 11 sponsors and 5 teams. Brother Joel Frederick and Robert Pelfrey spoke and did a fabulous job!! You could feel God wrapping his arms around everyone!! This day could not have been planned out any better. God had his hands in it for sure! I asked myself several times, "What is going to happen if it rains?" God told me really quickly, "I have it under control!" And guess what? He did!! It was amazing to me to watch the day go on. It rained while we ate lunch and cleared up just in time for Joel and Robert to speak then off to play golf. We raised $1500.00!! What a God thing it was to be able to do it this day!! We thank everyone for sponsoring a hole, playing on a team, praying for our journey and contributing to this day in anyway. We are thrilled that he has chosen us to take this journey with him! 

So, what's next for us? Lots of fundraisers to come!! 

Friday, October 21st - Thirty One Party  

Sunday, November 6th - St. Aloysious Fall Festival

Friday, November 11th - Open House at our home

Saturday, November 12th - McAdory Middle School PTA Fall Festival

We are super excited about what is in store for us through the holidays! We are extremely excited to announce that we are almost half way to the midpoint of our goal! What a blessing that is, we never thought we would even make it to where we are now. With God anything is possible!!! 

We are so thankful that God has put each and everyone  of you in our lives! The joy is overflowing and we hope that it is shared with each of you. We have lots of hands in this journey and I want to thank you all!! 

Blessings and Love,

Julie

Final homestudy visit is completed......

Woo!! What a day!! For the past few weeks we have been trying to plan our last two homestudy visits with our most fabulous social worker in the world and it just has not happened until TODAY!! We finally completed our last home study!! It took about 3 hours to complete in our home. She spoke with Carson and Hailey for a little while and then asked Steve and I some questions in regards to our take on how Carson and Hailey will adapt to having a new sibling that looks nothing like them and was not born here. The kiddos were fabulous and believe it or not, Hailey did clam up some. She was precious with her answers and Carson was very thoughtful and honest. He did a great job as well. Our  precious child that we will be bringing home will be so lucky to have them as a brother and sister!! We gave her a house tour and showed her where the babies room would be then back to questions!! Through answering all the questions and being faithful to God with our answers, we felt a huge weight lifted off of us when it was over. We thought and said to each other, we really stressed over this and cleaned as much as we could and we have made it through it! PTL!! God is so good and we have to remember, he is carrying us on this journey, why worry? This is fun for us!! This is an exciting part of this journey that is allowing us to reach out to so many people. To be able to share our story and experiences with our family and friends is such a blessing!! God is awesome!!

So, what's next? Well, we will wait a few weeks for our social worker to type up our homestudy report, then it will be sent to Immigration. It will then take Immigration up to 90 days to complete their process. During those 90 days, we will be finalizing our dossier and applying for grants. When the homestudy comes back from Immigration, it will be attached to our dossier and mailed to China. It will take China approximately 2 weeks to review and will then send us a LID (log  in date).  When we receive our LID, we will get to start the fun part!!! We will start the matching process of finding the child that God wants us to adopt and take care of!!! How exciting is that!!!! So, we are looking at January before we will get our LID. We are so excited! Please continue to pray for us and our journey!! It will be here before we know it.

What's next with fundraising? Well, we will be at Grace Life's 1st Annual Arts n Crafts show this Saturday at Shadow Lake from 8 til 2. We will have "Sow to China's" crafts out there and will be adding lots of new items as well. We will have the 1st Annual "Swing for Adoption" golf tournament on Thursday, October 13th at Timberline Golf Course. I have listed below the details on that as well. If you know of anyone that would like to attend, sponsor a hole or participate with a team, please contact Steve at the number below.

Time	Thursday, October 13 · 11:00am - 2:00pm
Location	Timberline Golf Club Calera, Alabama
More Info	4 Person Scramble Cost $100.00 per player Registration 11:30 Shotgun Starts at 1:00 Deadline for Early Entry: October 7, 2011 Enjoy a complete program of special events, 18 holes of golf (including cart), box lunch, soft drinks, water, door prizes, bonus round of golf to be used at a later date and a mulligan package (3) All for just $100.00 a player - Closest to the pin challenge - Top 3 teams will be awarded To help us properly plan for this event, please pre-register by calling Steve Boyd at (205) 288-1726 Sponsor a hole for $100.00 - If you are not interested in playing golf and would like to sponsor a hole, please contact Steve Boyd as well. All proceeds will benefit Steve and Julie Boyd's adoption fund.

We will also be having a few other things that I have listed below as well.

- Thirty One Party - Friday, October 21st
- Open House - Saturday, November 12th "Sow to China's" items

I am sure I will think of more things to do as the time passes!! God surely has blessed us!! Thanks so much for all your sweet prayers and thoughts!!

Blessings and Love,

Julie

Just waiting.........

Well, we are currently waiting for our scheduling of our last 2 homestudy visits and our CANs clearance to come back, then we will have a complete homestudy!!! Hopefully, fingers crossed, that will be by the middle part of September! God has been so good to us and has taught us lately over and over again that this is going to be done in his time. He has taught us that we have been so busy that we can not forget who is helping us with this journey and not to try it on our own. God is so good and he has revealed so much to us through this journey!! We have had a few fundraisers and have been so very blessed with the outcomes and how financially we are on track!!! We were able to experience for the first time this weekend the Butter Bean Festival in Pinson!! We had a great time, but boy was it alot of work to prepare for!! We were blessed to be able to meet some really great people and enjoy some great food!! The wonderful things that people had to say about our journey and how they would continue to pray for us was wonderful!! There is nothing more important and powerful than prayer!

I have attached below some pictures of the new frames that we are making to sell as a fundraiser item and boy have we had tons of orders thus far!! I have fulfilled orders, made orders for Butter Bean and when I added up the total outstanding to fulfill, it was 50!!! Praise the Lord!! He surely has blessed us with the hands to help from beginning to end!! The frames hold a 4x6 picture at $10.00 a frame.

The next few fundraisers will be the Boyd Adoption Golf Tournament on Thursday, October 13th and I plan to have a Pampered Chef party as well. Please continue to keep us in your prayers!!! We are a few steps closer to bringing home our sweet baby from China!!! We are so excited and blessed to know that God is getting the Glory and we are getting the Joy!!! Until next time.......

Love and Blessings,

Julie


"By adopting a child and helping them reach their potential, they help us reach ours. An adopted child is not an unwanted child; to the contrary. They are a child who was searched for, prayed for, cried for, begged for; received by arms that ached, making empty hearts full. Love is meant to be shared" 

Steve's Individual Interview and Boyd Adoption Yard Sale II

Steve had his individual interview a week ago today and it went great!! Steve said that he did fine and answered all the questions with no hesitation. I knew he could do it!! We have a fabulous social worker and she is so easy to chat with and discuss things with at any point. She told Steve that he was a great "story teller "!! Which means when he is telling a story about the kids or just inspirational moments in his life, he adds so much excitement and joy to his stories! I prayed for him before he went in and he was in their exactly for 1hr 1/2. He called me as soon as he got out with a big smile on his face. You can always hear a smile and I definitely heard it!!! We have been through so much paperwork, so much reading and so many discussions with so many people, but one thing never changes and that is the love that we have for adoption and just how big our heart has gotten for this journey. God is so good and has truly given us so much joy and so many blessings thus far on our journey!! We just can not express it enough!!

James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” 


So, Round 2 of the Boyd Adoption Yard Sale!! We were blessed with so much stuff!!! Oh, the stuff, it was amazing!! If you are on Facebook, check the pictures out. It is just crazy at how much stuff was donated!! God is so good and has placed so many kind, loving people in our live!! We are just amazed at what he has placed in front of us!! We made $500.00 off this yard sale and still have sweet kind hearted people donating and buying a few things from us!! We had another successful yard sale!! God said "Hold my hand and walk joyously with me through this day. I know every step of the journey ahead of you, all the way to heaven!!" What a glorious God!!! 


What's next? Well, we will be having our home interview soon!! We have sent in our discussion questions and are waiting to get a confirmation date for that and hope to combine with our last home study interview in regards to an overview on the training and reading that we have done. (Steve will have his finished this weekend!!) After that has been completed, we will then have a waiting period until the middle part of September. At that time, our CANs clearance should be back in and we will then have a completed home study. Then our dossier will be mailed to CHINA!!! Super exciting!! This Fall is going to be full of events and surprises!! Looking forward to it!!


God Bless you all and thanks so much for your continued prayers!!


Blessings and Love,


Julie