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

Hallelujah!! Thank you Jesus!!! Makes me wanna shout!!

So, why are we fundraising, you ask???

I felt the Lord leading me to write in our blog about why we are fundraising. It has been on my heart that some may think that every time we turn around we are having some type of fundraiser and "asking" for donations. For Steve and myself, this is not easy to do, but the Lord has laid peace on our hearts that it is the right thing to do. Believe me, if our dream of stroking one check had come true, we would do it. But the good Lord did not have that in his plans for us. But then that is where you guys come in. Fundraising invites our family, friends, church family and those we don't even know, into a bigger story. Our story becomes theirs as they become invested in, and changed by our fabulous journey!! Some may even decide to adopt and some may even give. By God's grace, many will understand the heart of Jesus and hear the gospel as they witness the miracle of adoption through our story.  We are doing this for the glory of God!!! We love him so much and thrive on learning so much more about our Savior and why he wants us to go on this journey. Now, you ask me, "Would you trade this for a $25,000 check to make things easier?" Absolutely not!! This experience is continuing to show us that we do serve a powerful and generous God and our faith is growing tremendously, so no we would not trade that for a $25,000 check. 

Upcoming Fundraisers:

We are currently doing a fundraiser with Ordinary Hero. This non profit organization was established by Kelly Putty in Tennessee. She has a fabulous and inspiring story. Check out her blog and the store and find out why she wanted to help so many in need including adopting a boy from Ethiopia!!! :) 

http://ordinaryheroblog.blogspot.com

www.ordinaryhero.org

Celebrating Home, Friday, August 12th. Jenny Nelson will be the host and is opening up her beautiful home to my family and friends. Super excited!!!

We will be participating in the Butter Bean Festival in Pinson on September 2nd & 3rd, Grace Life's Arts/Crafts Fair at Shadow Lake on October 1st and Homestead Hollow in Springville on October 7th, 8th and 9th. 

Steve is also planning a Boyd Adoption Golf Tournament at Timberline on Thursday, October 13th. Brother Joel Frederick and Robert Pelfrey will be speaking at this tournament!! PTL!! 

“The Bible tells us that God is writing a big story, a story centered on Jesus. If you’re in Christ, God is at work directing your little story to fit into the plot of the big story.” – R. Moore, Adopted for Life

Blessings and Love!!!

Steve and Julie

Yard Sale!!!

Just to give everyone an update as to how the Boyd Adoption Yardsale went, well after getting to bed Friday night or Saturday morning at 1:00 then up at 5:00, started yardsale at 6:30 and ended it at 3:30, finally got the yardsale cleaned up around 6:00. My feet are killing me!!! Through the short sleep time and the tired feet, God was so good!! He is a gracious God!! We set ourselves a goal, well me met our goal plus some more!! Wow!! Praise the Lord!! I just want to thank everyone that donated items and/or came out to support us!! We are so blessed and God gets the Glory!! How exciting!! Only getting closer to bringing home our China baby!! We have alot of stuff left so we have decided to have Round 2 Boyd Adoption Yard Sale which will be on Saturday, July 30th. My sweet sister will just have to look at that stuff in her basement for 2 more weeks!! Carson and Hailey had a great time at the yardsale! Hailey sold drinks and Carson did some, but fished alot!! 


Also, I will have my individual interview tomorrow. I am a little nervous about it because I am thinking in the back of my mind "INTERVIEW". Ugh!! Who likes interviews, not me!! But, then I think, it is all for the GLORY OF GOD!!! What an awesome God he is!! The joy never leaves either one of us! Steve and I both are just overflowing with joy and happiness throughout this process!! Prayers are much needed!! 


One more thing, we have signed up on Ordinary Hero to do a little fundraising there as well. They have some great stuff including jewelry, clothing, accessories and lots more. Check it out. www.ordinaryhero.org


I will update everyone as to the status of my interview and then Steve's interview when his time comes!! 


Blessings and Love,


Julie

Interview Time!!!

We made our first goal and made our first payment!! God provides and we are so thankful!! After making our first payment towards bringing home our China baby, we set up our initial interview with our social worker at Lifeline. We interviewed with her on Wednesday at 2:00. We left there around 4:30!! I was a little nervous going into speak with her and answer her questions. So, I thought I would be prepared and take my manual (227 pages) and my own binder that has copies of documents already provided to Lifeline. It helped somewhat, but knowing that when I prayed that God would be there for us and help us through this interview as he has lead us to this. Well he did and it was fine! God held our hands and kept us calm and relaxed. The questions were simple, yet broad and hard to answer. When you have to dig deep to talk about yourself, it is a little difficult to do. (Especially for me!) Steve did a great job and was complete security for me! I could not have done it without him sitting near me. We got through all the questions and then asked a few of our own questions. A few about the forms that we need to fill out and a few about the orphanage and waiting children. The last question was, " Is it difficult to arrange for our children to travel to China with us?" The answer was "No, absolutely not." Of course we will have to raise more money for them, but so far God has provided for everything and we have no doubt about raising money for them as well!! The social worker told us exactly what we were thinking, "Why wouldn't you want to take them?" Not only would they be getting a once in a lifetime trip, they would be meeting their new sibling and making memories along with their parents!! What a blessing to hear her say that was so reassuring to us!! God is so good and the joy that overwhelmed us both after the meeting was incredible!!! When we left there, we went home picked up the kiddos and went to church. We were able to talk about the visit with the social worker a little bit and discuss our upcoming individual interviews that will probably take place next week. Please keep us in your prayers. We need as much support as we can get from our wonderful family and friends of Christ!!!

On Saturday July 16th, we will be having a Boyd Adoption Yard Sale. If you have any items that you would like to donate for the yard sale, please let me know. We will gladly come and pick up. We pray that this yard sale will be a huge success and the Lord will provide!! We will continue to pray that prayer and leave it all in the hands of our Almighty God!! I will be posting pictures of our fundraising tshirt soon that will be available for purchase.

We just want you all to know that we love you dearly and appreciate the donations to our fund, to our yard sale and most of all the prayers!! God is so good to bless us with such wonderful family and friends!! I will update you all after our individual interviews and the outcome of the yardsale.

Blessings & Love,

Julie

Latest Update........

It has been a few weeks since the last update. I wanted to update you guys on where we are in our adoption process. My finger prints were finally received!! We both received a letter from DHR in Montgomery stating that our background/criminal history was checked and was clear!! :) We have completed lots of paperwork and are in the process of reading a few books and getting some training done. The book that I am reading is quite thick!! Steve chose the thinner one and left the thicker one for me!! :) It is called Adoption Parenting. It has some great short stories! It really puts things into perspective and how our lives are going to change and how to raise a child that is from the other side of the world!! We both pray that we retain the information that we are learning from all the reading, studying and researching. Through it all we are doing our best to keep Carson and Hailey updated as well. They are still super excited and love praying to God about our "China Baby"!!

When we are not reading/training/studying, we have been doing a few fundraisers. We have sold small crosses, large crosses, crayon rolls, chalkboard place mats and a few other things. I have been taking pictures at our local ballpark for Allstars, photographing children and selling candles. All proceeds from the photography to candles to handmade items are going straight towards the adoption. We have been so blessed with the response that we have received on all three different fundraisers! God has truly worked through our buyers through the different fundraisers and we have enjoyed every minute of it!! We have faith in God and trust him and will continue to keep patient as he is guiding us!! God is so good!!! This weekend we will be selling our handmade items at Tannehill State Park at trade days. Hopefully, fingers crossed this weekend will be a success!!! God bless the buyer and the seller (us)!! We have almost made it to our first goal!! We hope to meet our first goal by the end of this weekend!!

I have had a fabulous week so far and it all started with church and the fish fry this past Sunday. I have had so many friends come up to me and say that they are praying for our adoption journey!! It has really made our heart smile and God surely has sent his messages through our dear friends and family. We are truly blessed!!! Every time I hear someone say that they are praying for us daily,  it just makes our hearts smile!!! Our relationship with God is growing more and our faith is growing too!!  God is so good!!! What a glorious day we have to look forward to!!!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Will update everyone at the end of this coming up weekend!! Can not wait! Keep your fingers crossed and prayers coming!!

Blessings and Love,

Julie

BTW- We are able to take donations on our blog now through paypal. Thank you so much!!!

Fingerprints

Well, we mailed off our finger prints last week and I can tell you that before mailing them I said a special prayer that God would carry them all the way and bless them every stop!! The process of getting the finger prints done and completing our CANS paperwork was simple compared to what we are about to start working on. When we arrived at Homewood Police Department to get the prints done the sheriff asked if we had enough change to have 4 sets completely and of course we had a $20.00 bill. He told us that we had to have $10.00 a piece to have them completed. We could only go back one at a time and we had to pay separately. Well, if you know my husband, that did not sit well with him. He stomped, huffed and puffed out the door. :) It was funny to me, but the sheriff did not like it. He said to me, "He does not have to be so grumpy about it."  I am doing yall a favor." I told him that we do not understand their policies and procedures and will gladly comply, but will do so in our way. He looked at me funny and I just smiled. He ended up being a pretty nice sheriff and I enjoyed having my finger prints completed and Steve as well. So, we got into the truck and finished signing some additional paperwork and packaged it up. I told Steve to make sure he signed everything!!! He assured me he did and I double checked and he did. Well, Monday, SBCN in Virgina contacted me and said that everything looked great except for one thing, You forgot to sign one page!!  Well, I felt like crawling in a hole, because I had been on Steve to make sure he signed everything and I double checked his signatures on all pages and failed to have someone check mine!! Steve thought it was quite funny!!! :)

God has put us on this journey and our faith sure has been tested lately!! The devil has been trying to show himself and we just continue to pray that God will continue to shine through us and show us the way!! It is amazing at how just reading back through this blog lightens up any darkness that may be trying to shine through. Steve shared with me a scripture yesterday that has kept my head up and kept us both full of joy!! Just hearing him say that yesterday lit up my face and my heart! Hearing God's word and digging into the bible for scripture to help us through the tough times is quite amazing!!

Psalms 78-23; Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven.

And another inspirational thought I read and posted to facebook this morning!!

o be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold-through your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. 1 Peter 1:6


God is so good and I am just amazed at how he continues to whisper and echo this sweet things to us!!!! God bless you all and keep us in your prayers!!! 


Love and Blessings Always,


Julie