Dossier Run Through Call

I can't believe how fast time is going by right now! I love this Christmas season, but it's moving too fast.   It's already been almost a week since we got our adoption planner in the mail! It came literally 5 minutes before we walked out the door to our small group Christmas party.  Needless to say, the excitement of getting home and looking over everything was in the back of my mind all night.  I still can't believe we're already to this point, God is so good! We had our DRC(Dossier Run Through call) Thursday afternoon. It was the perfect day, it was snowing and Aaron and I were both off work(a rare thing these days) so we both got to be there for the call as they explained the mountain of paperwork to us.  In my head, I knew it was going to be a lot of paperwork, but now seeing it all in front of us is a little overwhelming! I love our agency though, they have already been so helpful. The end result will be so worth it! We cannot wait to have this baby home! Our Christmas break will be filled with a visit home to family and trying to knock out a huge chunk of the paperwork and education while Aaron is out of school.  Praying we are super productive and get lots done in the next few weeks! We also don't want to get so bogged down in all the paperwork and logistics of what we're doing that we forget the reason for this beautiful season and why we're doing what we're doing.  Glory in the highest!

A Little Update

Today was a great day at the Coalson house because these...

Are in the MAIL!!!       

God has been SO good, gracious, and faithful to us over the past few weeks! We put these contracts in the mail today, along with the biggest check we've ever written.  It felt so good to get those in the mail and no longer worry about that 90 day deadline.  We needed to raise about $4000 in order to pay for our contracts and home study right up front, and me...showing my lack of faith, expected it to take us the full 90 days and until the end of January to come up with that money.  But God has really shown us just how big and faithful He is through this process and we now have enough money to pay for both of these steps and some left over to get us started moving towards our dossier, just 4 weeks later! Wow! We are so thankful for a God who cares about the details and is able to do abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. 

So, now we wait for AGCI to receive our contracts and make sure everything looks good, and then we will get our adoption planner/dossier notebook! We also have a big pile of paperwork waiting for us to get started on the home study! I feel like we can finally start "doing" things to move this process along.  Let the paper chase begin!

Yard Sale Update........and the WINNER of the Mountain Getaway!!

Well, the yard sale has come and gone, and I can maybe get a little of my sanity back!  We were up bright and early yesterday morning at 4:30am(for those of you that know me, that's a miracle in itself! Especially when the temperature was a crisp 26 degrees :) ). We had the help of some awesome friends who were also up at the crack of dawn to help us get everything set out.  Somehow I managed to not take any pictures of the actual set up of the sale. We had what we thought was a great turnout considering the weather and the fact that our yard looked like this not one hour after we got everything back inside! 

Yep, that's snow! And it kept snowing all night, it was beautiful! After everything was said and done, the Lord truly blessed us and allowed us to make almost $600 with our yard sale and we are SO thankful!  We are that much closer to sending in our contracts and being on our way to bringing our baby home! A huge thanks to everyone that donated, prayed, shopped, and stood out in the freezing cold to help us out yesterday, we are truly blessed!!


And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for!!!  Tonight concludes the getaway giveaway part of our $20 Difference fundraiser.  We are going to continue to have this as part of our fundraising but the deadline to be entered in the giveaway ends now.  We have raised over $1600 in three weeks through this fundraiser and each day we are just completely floored by how the Lord continues to provide for this baby through the generosity of others.
The winner is: Pam and Mark W.  Congratulations!!

Thank you all so much for your generosity and prayers throughout our journey!  We've got more updates on where we are in the process coming soon!!

Yard Sale!

We're having a yard sale!! I've got a spare room full of donated items and next Saturday we're going to get rid of them.  It has been so awesome to see the generosity of people around us, some of whom we don't even know personally, but have heard our story and given us some great things to sell.  It's probably going to take me the majority of the week to get everything priced, but it's so going to be worth it.  We've already been bathing next weekend in prayer and would love for you to pray with us.  Pray for good weather, lots of visitors, and that all who come would experience the gospel.  We've advertised on various websites, we just put an ad in the local paper, and we're hoping to have lots of help spreading the word.  So if you're in the Wake Forest area, or know someone who is let them know about our yard sale. Here's the details
December 4 7:00-1:00
Highgate Park Neighborhood in Wake Forest (very close to downtown)

We can't wait to see what God is going to do through this sale to bring our baby home!  I've also got an awesome story for you that I'll get to in a day or two to update you on how things are going.  There's only one week left to enter the cabin giveaway, so make sure you get those entries in!!

Update

So far, after one week, we've had a pretty good response to our $20 Difference Giveaway.....with this and a few previous donations, we're close to being half way to our goal of raising $4000 in less than 90 days.  But there's still 2 weeks left to enter, so don't forget!  It's been awesome to see people get behind us and spread the word about our blog, donate, email their friends, and even post our giveaway on their blog, some of these people we don't even know! God is so good, and He is constantly reminding us(me especially) day by day that He's the one who's going to provide for this baby.  Everything is going to happen in His timing, not ours, and this is so evident in how He keeps us going by allowing a small increase in our donations each day.  Each day we end with more money in the fund than we began with is a blessing and another reason to be thankful this season. Ultimately we want people to see the gospel through this process, and I pray that for every person who comes across this blog.

Today I'm resting in Romans 8:28-And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. (ESV)
Even when we have bad days or days of discouragement, we know that we are called to this and the Lord will work it out according to His purpose. Each day we are one step closer to our child.

Thank you all for your generosity and prayers, keep those entries coming!!

Win a trip to the mountains! (Update to $20 Difference)

Want to win a trip to the Tennessee mountains?

Want to support our adoption?

Here's what we're doing: as an update to the $20 Difference Project someone has graciously donated a weekend(3 nights) in a beautiful cabin in the Tennessee mountains for one lucky winner!!
*Dates to be worked out with winner based on availability between Jan-April

How to enter:
* $20 = 1 entry
* $50 = 3 entries
* $100+ = 6 entries
You have until Sunday December 5 to enter, and we'll draw a winner at 6:00pm.

Here's where you'll be staying

* 4 bedrooms
* 3.5 baths
* Sleeps 18
Complete with hot tub, fireplace, and game room
For more pictures click here

Everything you need for a relaxing weekend!

Bring on the entries!!

Thank you for helping us bring our baby home!

$20 Dollar Difference

Ok folks, here it is, our first big fundraiser!!  We're hoping to start this fundraising out with a bang!

Here's the deal, we need to raise about $4,000(hopefully more!) in order to be able to send in our first big chunk of paperwork to really get the ball rolling.  And we need to do it in less than 90 days.  This first part of the paperwork needs to be turned in before we can begin working on our dossier(which is even more paperwork that has to be completed in order for us to get on the waitlist for a baby!)  So, here's where we're aksing you guys to help us out.  We're asking everyone we know to donate $20(or more if you'd like) to our adoption fund so we can bring our baby home!  $20, that's it!  That's giving up one trip to the movies this month, or a couple of Starbucks drinks, or whatever it is you normally spend your $20 on, and its for an awesome cause.

Your $20 will make an incredible difference in the life of a child who may not otherwise know or experience the love of Christ.  Your $20 will give a home to the fatherless.  It's as simple as clicking the donate button on the left side of the blog, or if you'd like you can email me at scoalson104(at)gmail(dot)com to get our mailing address and you can send cash or check.  If we get enough people to join us, this can be huge! So please tell everyone you know, we need your help spreading the word. Blog it, tweet it, Facebook it, email it, whatever you can think of! Thank you for supporting our adoption. Let's see God do something extraordinary out of the ordinary!

Bows, Bows, Bows

So after the Craft Fair this past Saturday I have lots of bows left over.  I thought I'd put them up on the blog and sell them here, bows to bring home our baby!  You know you want some!  These are some samples of what I have left but I can definitely make more if there is enough interest.  I can also customize the bow holders that are pictured with whatever letter/color/ribbon you like.  Email me at scoalson104(at)gmail(dot)com if you'd like to order.  Thanks in advance for helping bring home our baby!

These are the $4 bows, the bow holders are $5

$3

Tiny bows, perfect for babies, $1.50


















Thanks for looking! Stay tuned for another fundraiser that we're starting soon!

Orphan Sunday

   Today is Orphan Sunday.  Wow, I just wrote that and realized that this is the first Orphan Sunday I've really paid attention to.  Sure, I've recognized it before, but this year it means so much more.  I think it's God's good timing that this just happened to come along a few days after our approval.  I've been thinking about our baby all morning, and I couldn't help but get a little emotional as we were singing Come thou fount during worship this morning: "I was lost in utter darkness til your love came and set me free!" God is good and gracious, and because of His love there will be one less orphan to feel like they're lost in the darkness, forgotten.   

    I want to challenge each of you reading this to think on the gospel today, and God's command that we care for the orphans.  Our Father says that pure religion is taking care of the orphan's and widows in their distress(James 1:27).  Pray about what this means for your family, there are 147 million orphans in this world with no family to love them, what are we going to do about it? It's so awesome to see an adoption community forming around us here, I can't wait for all these beautiful babies to be home! I'm going to leave you with one of the videos that inspired us to start seriously considering adoption NOW and not later down the road.  Get your tissues and your heart ready, you might be the next ones to sign up :)

Approved!!

We have been waiting anxiously all weekend for the beginning of the week to arrive so that we could hopefully get our official approval.  Monday we hit one more little speed bump so we knew that today could be the day.  I tried hard all day not to stare at my phone while I was teaching the kiddos.  Finally,on my way home from school, just as I was about to pull in the driveway, my phone rang and it was the call!! We have officially been accepted and can finally get this show on the road! Yay!! We are beyond excited and so relieved that we can finally tell people.  I've been calling friends and family all afternoon and have gotten a great response.  It's so awesome to see so many people already give us their support with this announcement.  We've ordered our adoption announcements and hope to get those in the mail soon to help us get the word out.  One of our first fund-raising opportunities will happen this weekend at the SEBTS Craft and Bake Sale.  I was originally just doing this for fun, but now the proceeds will be going towards our adoption.  I will be at a table with several others adoptive moms and we're all raising money to bring our babies home, it's so exciting!! So if you're in the RDU area come out Saturday and see us from 9-3 in the SEBTS gym!

Waiting Already

And so, the waiting begins.  I know that this process is going to be full of waiting, and God is going to grow my patience through this.  We sent in the application on Tuesday, AGCI got it on Thursday and our contact person said everything looks good, we're just waiting on one piece of paper.  That paper will now not be arriving until probably Monday, which means, there's a good possibility we won't be approved on Monday like we were hoping.  We are dying to let everyone know what we're doing.  Sure we've told our family and a few close friends here in NC for support, but I want to be able to call my friends and share the good news with them.  I want to make this blog public so that everyone can hear our story.  I've had to stop myself from telling a few people here over the last week.  Not that it would be a bad thing if I did, but we just don't want to get ahead of ourselves and we want the for sure go ahead that this is happening before we let anyone else know.  We are so excited for this baby already, we keep walking around telling each other we're going to have a baby! I'm already dreaming of the day when we get that call that there's a baby waiting for us.  But I know that before that happens there will be lots of waiting, we're waiting already and the process hasn't even officially started yet. Right now I'm just resting in the fact that God is with us in the waiting, and every little delay or wait brings us one step closer to child he has picked out just for us!

Application Mailed!!

Today we mailed our official application in to AGCI!  We were on our way back from a wedding weekend/anniversary getaway and we stopped at a random post office in SC to get all of our info in the mail! We were so excited to officially get the process started! Hopefully we'll hear back from them at the beginning of next week and we can begin telling people.  We've told a few close friends who have/are going through the process so that we can have their support and have them pray with us and we also told our family while we were home this weekend.  We thought it would be something they would want to hear in person and they all took the news really well! They seemed pretty excited at the thought of being grandparents! So, the ball is officially rolling now on our journey to our baby! We're brainstorming ideas for fundraisers right now so there will be more to come on that later, we're going to get started right away! The first thing we have coming up is the craft fair at SEBTS on Saturday, November 6 from 9-3.  Originally I was just doing this for fun but now I'm going to use it as a kick-off for starting our fundraising. So if you're in the area, come out and see me, along with several other adoptive families from our church! What better way to kick off the Christmas season?

Why Adoption? Why Now? Why Ethiopia?

Many of you are probably wondering why? Isn't it expensive? You haven't had your "own" kids yet? Won't it be hard? What will it look like for an African baby to grow up in a white family? Those are all questions that we expect to come our way, and we are prepared to answer them.

Why adopt now you ask? Before having biological children? Because we want our family to be a clear picture of the Gospel.  Because we too were once orphans.  Not in the sense that we didn't have a family with a mom and dad, but spiritually we were orphans separated from our heavenly Father.  We desire for others to see that just as God adopted us into His family unconditionally(Ephesians 1:5), we have done the same for a child who had no one. We want to share the love that God has given us with a child that might not otherwise know about Him.  Aaron and I both have had the desire to adopt since before we were married. However, we always thought it would be something we did later on down the road.  Lately though, through an adoption ministry our church has started, and watching several of our friends go through the process, God has really been pressing on us that the time is now.  So after much prayer we're stepping out in faith and answering the call. We want our child to know that they are wanted, they are chosen, that we came for them, that this wasn't a "last resort" but a choice we made to give a home to the fatherless.

Why Ethiopia? Yes, we know that there are plenty of children here in the US who need homes, but we feel that we are called to an international adoption.  For us right now, this makes the most sense.  I would like to have a spiritual answer for why we chose Ethiopia out of all the countries available, but I don't.  After researching agencies and country qualifications(age, income etc), we were left with only one agency, which happens to be the one our friends have all used, and two countries: Ethiopia and Bulgaria.  After looking at the country profile for both countries, Ethiopia was where we landed.  Not only were they less expensive than Bulgaria, it allows us to get as young of a baby as possible, and the need is staggering.  Here are some quick facts about Ethiopia:
*There are an estimated 5 million orphans in Ethiopia
*Only 24% of households have access to clean drinking water
*1 in 10 children there die before their 1st birthday
*1 in 6 die before their 5th birthday
*Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school
*60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
*1/3 of the population lives on less than $1 a day

You would have to take all the kids 18 and under in New York, Massachusetts, and District of Columbia- remove their parents, and you would have the number of children who are orphans in Ethiopia.

We want to make that number 5 million minus 1!

Expensive you ask? Why yes, it is.  We have no idea how we are going to come up with the money to complete this adoption, but we're resting in the fact that God does and He will provide. He has ordained this adoption long before we were even born and He loves this little baby more than we could even imagine. We're going to be doing lots of fundraisers along the way so keep checking back with us for updates on those. Also, if anyone has any creative ideas we're open to them!

Lastly, yes, adopting from Ethiopia means we will have a black child, and we're a white family.  We know that there will be issues that arise from this, and we're prepared to deal with them.  The best way I have seen this put is on another blog I've been reading and the mom answered this same question this way: "we know this will have its difficulties, but we consider them miniscule in comparison to the difficulty of being an orphan in a devastated country like Ethiopia."

So please join us in praying as we start this amazing journey to bring our baby home!

Pre-Application Approved!!

Yesterday we got the call that out pre-application has been approved! We were so excited to get that news, God's hand is already apparent in this journey to our baby! The next step is to fill out the formal application and send that in along with a worksheet breakdown of our income and a few letters. The representative I talked to said she didn't forsee any problems with our application getting approved, which is such a praise because we weren't sure if we would even qualify income wise.  We cannot wait to start telling people! We're going home this weekend so we'll be able to tell both of our famlies in person, we're excited to get their reactions! God has ordained this adoption before we were even born, that's so awesome, so even though we don't know how we're going to raise all the money, God does, and we trust Him to provide!

Pre-Application

Well, we did it! We sent in our pre-application to AGCI to get started in the adoption process! We are totally trusting God in this, with Him all things are possible, and we're just following His call.  We should hear something in the next day or so to find out if we can move forward with the actual application.  We're so excited and have been talking about it non-stop, we're already thinking of ways to tell friends and family when we get the good news.  There will be more to come, so follow along with us as we start this amazing journey!