Another Weekend Wrap-Up!

So, today marks the end of basically an 8 day fundraiser.

It was supposed to be two separate weekend fundraisers, but it turned out differently.

Here's a re-cap:

Last Saturday, we had a car wash that raised $820. (blogged about it here )
Then, Sunday a friend pledged $800 to us for our adoption fund!

Next, on Monday, my sister handed us $100!!

THEN, we received an extra $500 from another friend!!!!!
 (The same day, we got updated finance info.  Read about it here)

That led up to our Yard Sale we just had.

We had lots of donations which were all great!
A friend of ours helped price the items, put up signs, and donated a bunch of cool stuff!

By the end of Saturday, we had an extra $615 JUST from the yard sale!  

WOW!

We honestly were hoping for more like $300!  The Lord keeps surprising us :)

Oh yea, and Friday a friend donated an ADDITIONAL $130!!!!

SO, here's a breakdown of the last 8 days:

Car Wash:        $820
Friend Donation: $800
Sister Donation: $100
Friend Donation: $500
Yard Sale:       $615
Friend Donation: $130
Week's Total:    $2,965 

So excited, so blessed, so reminded of His faithfulness.

Please continue to pray with us.  We are looking at about $3,000 left to raise.

I feel like we always need $3,000!
But prayerfully this will be the last time we say that and the need will continue to dwindle until we are fully funded!!

Does $3,000 seem like alot to you?  It IS alot to our family.
However...look at the total above.  
God has given almost $3,000 in EIGHT DAYS!
Who knows what He has in store for us in the NEXT 8 days!

He knows and He will choose how to provide for us.
In the meantime, we will wait, work our hardest, and praise Him for it.

Remember, you can donate anytime at our donation site at adopttogether.org/teaglefam  or just click here. 

You can also read my post from yesterday called "Raising Hope."
A friend of mine is doing what she can to help us bring Tobias home as well!  You can take part in a unique way and have a beautiful token in return.

Below I've added some photos of our car wash.  Sometimes I post too many words and not enough smiles :)

***BTW, all these were taken by my sisters-in-law!  I may have a blog, but I'm a TERRIBLE photographer!*** 

Getting ready for the Car Wash!

The girls enjoying the treats their Auntie brought

Watching daddy put up the "flailing guy"...sadly we had to take him down :(

Family and friends taking a breather...and my husband...being himself.

Raise HOPE!

Quick post today letting you know about a really neat opportunity for you to help us with our fundraising!!

A friend of mine is a Premier Jewelry Consultant and she has approached me with a very thoughtful and generous idea!!!

There is this gorgeous necklace in their catalog called "Hopeful."

From now until we are fully funded, every time someone buys this necklace from her, Brittani will donate 30% of her profits to our adoption fund!!!  

How generous of her!!!

So, if you were looking for a way to help, here's another option!

To order from her, contact her via her Facebook page by clicking this link.

"Like" her page, and then message her or comment on her page to get more info!

Very excited about this one, and will be purchasing one myself!
I'll update this with a picture of me wearing it soon. :)

There were a few necklaces to choose from for this fundraiser and there was a reason we chose "Hopeful."

We chose it because regardless of the cost, the time, the distance between us, and the hard times that WILL come once Tobi's home....Christ has given us our hope.
Not only hope that Tobias will be in our arms soon, but hope that He has conquered ALL for us! 


"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” 
John 16:33

False Alarm

So, yesterday I blogged about how we are only a whopping $300 shy of being fully funded for our adoption!

(Read it here if you haven't yet).

Well, this morning I receive a text saying that a friend has offered up an additional $500 donation!!!

So, as of 11:00 this morning, we were fully funded!

Then, I talked with A Love Beyond Borders.

I've been wanting to have a conversation with them in regards to finances because as I mentioned in this post, we are the first family from Compassion for Congo to complete our adoption through A Love Beyond Borders in Kinshasa.

So we had a wonderful, very informative conversation that helped us understand much better what our trip will look like.  

And she walked us through the cost!

Aaaannndd we realized how drastically different the circumstances will be in Kinshasa vs. going to the guest house in Lubumbashi (where the orphanage is).  

In Lubumbashi, you pay a few hundred dollars for staying in the guest house, you pay for whatever food you purchase, souvenirs, and a few other things I'm sure.

HOWEVER....

In Kinshasa, you pay for the work that the ALBB (A Love Beyond Borders) representative goes through to pick us and our luggage up at the airport, transport us to our hotel, bring Tobias to us, provide us with other required legal transportation and translators, get our exit letter for us, as well as transportation back to the airport for departure.

THEN, there's the $150/day we pay for our hotel, the money for food, the money for any leisurely transportation, the money for exit taxis, and the money for any souvenirs.  PLUS, we want to have extra on hand for any other unexpected emergency. 

All that to say....that fully funded post was just a false alarm. 

:)

We are looking at another $3,700 or so.

And that was really cool to think we were funded for a couple hours, but it was actually kinda weird!

I was just telling Chris that it felt so wrong to be done fundraising already!  I felt like we couldn't be done yet!  Well...we aren't!  haha!

It's good timing though.  Our adoption yard sale is this weekend and we are hoping for another few hundred from that.

We also have a very expensive Italian inlay curio cabinet from Italy we are selling as well as several Thomas Kinkade paintings! (so let me know if you're interested!)

So even though it was a little disappointing, we are not sorrowful.  We know He'll provide.  I mean we received $2,200 since SATURDAY!!!!  Ya never know what The Lord will do or when He'll do it or WHO He will choose to work through!

We'll let ya know when we find out though!

We're Under $1,000!!

So, I am very excited to type this.

We officially, have LESS than $1,000 to raise to be FULLY funded for our adoption!!!!!!!

Oh. My. Goodness.

How we've seen The Lord provide!

I really need to sit down and tally all that we've raised and spent so far.  I haven't done that yet.

I HAVE been keeping track of what we have NOT paid for yet.

And although I KNOW that things can, and probably WILL change, we are only $300 short of being fully funded.

$300.

In the past 8 months alone, The Lord has provided us with well over $8,000!

We are still amazed.

This past Saturday, we held a car wash at our local KFC parking lot.

That car wash brought in $820!  It was so evident that people were not coming just to get their car clean...I'd say maybe a few were there just for the wash.

But the rest were there to give to Tobias.

And our hearts are overwhelmed yet again.  We had family and friends there helping us and working HARD!

Then I received some REALLY exciting news from a good friend of ours.  This special friend wanted to give us $800!!!!

THEN a family member handed me a check for ANOTHER $100 the next day.

We are so humbled.
The Lord is guiding and leading others to give.  We can't look back at this past year of fundraising and think that we had much of anything to do with raising all this money.

I mean, we have definitely been "fundraising," but we can't force anyone to give.
The Lord has provided!
He has moved others and that's something that we don't have the power to do!

So we look forward to the day when we can explain to our son how much went in to bringing him home.  How many people love him and were moved by their love for The Lord and His people to assist us in rescuing him from such a dark place.

So, as we are in the "home stretch" of fundraising, we are also in the "home stretch" of waiting for Tobias!

Things keep changing on us, but right now we are looking at November or early December. Remember me talking about the "field investigation"? If you didn't read it, you can read it here.

Well, the Embassy WAS scheduled to send people out to Lubumbashi for investigations this month. But they have postponed that to October or November. (probably means November).

However, because Tobias was abandoned, I am told that the investigation is very brief for him. It is more involved for children with living biological parents.

Sooooo, prayerfully, soon after they go to Lumbumbashi they'll give us the "go-ahead" to travel to get him!!!

Tobi will be headed to the Love Beyond Borders transition home pretty soon here. Probably within a couple weeks.
(You can read about that in the same previous post here).

They'll get him started with applying for his passport and then once he has that, they'll apply for the Embassy visits and try to get him his visa.

Then we'll just be waiting on that investigation to be done in Lubumbashi!

(hope the timeline is understandable...I've gone through it about a billion times in my head!)

So, we're moving along!
Very excited!
Thank you again for praying.
Thank you again for giving.
Thank you again for loving our family and our son
even though none of us have met him yet.

We're so close!!  
 

T-Shirts!

So, I shared recently

that I will now be traveling with

Chris to Congo.

This increases our cost by a few THOUSAND dollars.

(you can read it here if you missed it.)

I also shared that we need to have one

last fundraiser to help raise

the remainder of the funds!

Well, while browsing through some random

adoption blogs, I came across an idea that was

perfect!

T-SHIRTS!!!!

We all love t-shirts and I really

enjoy wearing ones that have a meaning to them.

So Chris and I designed a shirt that

shows where Tobias is coming from,

and shares with others

our heart for orphans.

And whoever has supported us in ANY way

has shown that they have a heart for

orphans as well!

They have "taken up their cause"

or "defended" the orphan

as Isaiah 1:17 tells us to do.

I've included pictures of the front and back 

of the shirts,

or you can see them on the website 

by clicking here.

Do NOT buy the shirt straight from the website.

We receive no compensation from them!

But if you'd like one,

you can order directly through us.

We will order in bulk and pray that we sell

them all!

They will be selling for
$20 per shirt
or
$75 for 4

and if you aren't local,

I can ship them for an extra $2 flat

(NOT $2 per shirt).

We will also be having a car wash soon

and hope to sell some there,

as well as at our church's Car Show!

So here's how to order.

You can either

a) comment below with your sizes and quantities

b) message me on Facebook or write on my "wall"

or

c)email me at livn4hersavior@aol.com

We are really excited about these

and think that it's a great witness that

can be used to share with others

WHY we care for the orphans.

And I love that by wearing it,

you are showing that you have supported us!

Now order away!!!

Matching Grant???

Matching Grant?

Remember when I mentioned that?

How we had the opportunity to earn an

extra $1,000???

Well, that's HISTORY!

As in,

IT'S OVER!

Because we raised the $1,000 in the

FIRST DAY!!!!

Wow.

I need to use my thesaurus and find more words

that mean

THANKFUL.

and

GRATEFUL.

Thanks be to our Lord who has provided yet again.

And thank you SO much to each and

every person who gave or helped

us in any way to make this

happen.

This is not the end of our funding,

but we have made huge strides!

I'll say that not everyone who pledged has

fulfilled their pledge online yet.

So, we'll see how things look at the end of the week.

But as of right now,

our total in ALL accounts is

$15,681.00

That leaves us with somewhere around

$3200 left to raise!!!

AND, there is somewhere around $500 that

hasn't been entered online by pledgers yet.

So look what just a short week has brought us!

Check out this post to see where

we stood financially just a

few weeks ago!

The Lord is doing mighty large things.

Much larger than we could have hoped for.

$3,200 is still alot for our family.

But, goodness gracious, 

LOOK AT WHAT HE HAS GIVEN

so far!!!

We are not at all concerned about this remaining dollar amount.

1 year ago we started

pursuing adoption.

And now we have a son.

We looked at the huge cost of adoption back then.

To be honest, it's a little overwhelming

to parents looking at options for adoption.

But a year ago,

Pastor Paul told us,

"I'm not worried about it,

God has alot of money"

That is so true!

And He has now chosen to again show His

faithfulness to us in a financial way.

So again,

Thank you.

We are still asking for support if God has

laid that on your heart.

If you haven't fulfilled your pledge yet,

you can do so here.

And we can't wait for the post that will be titled,

"Fully Funded!!!!"