Monday, January 9, 2012

How About a Cup of Coffee?

So imagine you and I decide to meet at Starbucks for a chance to catch up on old times or maybe get to know each other better and enjoy the treat of a fancy coffee.  I order my favorite, a white chocolate mocha.  But when I get ready to pay I realize that one of my kiddos (probably JoJo) has snatched my wallet out of my purse and I don't have the money to pay for my purchase.  You're such a nice person and you can see I'm a bit embarrassed at this awkward moment and you very graciously offer to make it your treat this time.  You pay the bill of around $10 and we enjoy our coffee together.

Price of two coffees at Starbucks--approximately $10
Cost of the adoption of two daughters--approximately $25,000
Your help making it happen--PRICELESS!

So we got some news yesterday and the news is GOOD!!!  We are the very happy, very excited, very anxious parents to be of TWO beautiful baby girls.  They are not twins but both look to be about 6 months old.  We've been waiting for a couple months since we lost the referral of our twins and the wait has not been easy.  But no part of this adoption waiting game is.  So once again we are off to the races.  The court process has been started for both girls, we just got a very important approval document back from the US government last week.  We are cruising.

And we are humbly asking for your help because we still have about $15,000 to raise before these girls make it home.  We still have to pay for airline flights, lawyer fees, visas, translation fees, medical exams, lodging and meals while in country, foster care expenses, taxi rides, phone cards, etc, etc, etc. 

Yes, this all makes me sweat a little.  Right at this minute, my forehead is a bit damp. 

So I am going to take a deep breath and remind myself that we are doing the right thing, these girls need a home and we need these girls, God will provide. Everything is going to work out just fine.

Here's where you come in.  You are an important piece of the puzzle.  We need you to buy us that cup of coffee.  We are asking for donations of $10.  About the price of two cups of coffee.  One for Baby K and one for Baby L.  Or maybe one for me and one for Brian because we are probably going to need a lot of caffeine in our bloodstreams in order to stay up at night with two more babies.


As a way of recording our progress and as a special memento to show our girls just how many people out there helped to bring them home, we are putting together two jigsaw puzzles (before kids I was a huge jigsaw puzzler and I'm really excited to have an excuse to put one together now).  For each contribution of $10 we will write your name on the back of a puzzle piece and add it to the puzzle. If you give more than $10 we will put your name on more pieces. Hopefully both puzzles will be completed before the girls come home (which could happen anywhere between March and June) and we will have raised $10,000 (each puzzle is 500 pieces). 








Grace and I looked at hundreds of jigsaw puzzles and she picked out these rose shaped puzzles to represent her sisters. My girls will be like a beautiful bouquet of flowers in my home.


We will also add your name to our bucket for drawings of some gifts to give back to you.  I have lots of Silpada jewelry, a highly coveted Disney DVD, some more Congolese gifts.  Who knows what goodies we will come up with!  We'll be doing drawings about every two weeks and your name will be added for every $10 you donate or for every item you purchase from our MORE LOVE store! If you can't afford to donate, and we certainly understand if you can't, please consider donating your Facebook status or a blog entry to let others know about our fundraiser.


In addition to our rose puzzle fundraiser, we will still be selling our MORE LOVE t-shirts, sewing more Congolese blankets, making more Africa applique shirts, working some extra hours, selling everything in our house that's not nailed down, and praying for some kind of tax return that arrives in this decade (not holding my breath on that last one). 


Somehow we will find the funds.  Somehow it will happen. 

You are part of that somehow.  You are a piece of our family puzzle.  So what do you say, how about a cup of coffee?  It'll be my treat next time!
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