Peanut butter is back!

Last time I did peanut butter fundraiser, I ordered my peanuts online and saved some money by using a "subscribe and save" option meaning they would automatically be delivered to me every 6 months. My intent was to cancel after I got the first shipment.

I forgot to cancel.

Consequently, 9 pounds of peanuts were delivered to me a few days ago. And since I had a few free minutes this weekend, I whipped it up into some more peanut butter.

I found these perfect little containers at Hy-Vee, which were much easier to work with than the old ones. So, if you wanted to try some last time but didn't get around to it, let me know. I've got 9 pounds of in my fridge just waiting for new homes! Suggested donation: $10.

Ingredients: Valencia peanuts, honey, pastured butter (used in roasting), coconut oil, Real Salt.

The things we go through

Wow...it has been over a month since I've had enough time to sit down and write anything. The last few weeks have been absolutely, completely, ridiculously busy. I mean BUSY. We've pretty much had something going on from early morning until 10 pm every day. And any free minute in between, I've been trying to keep up on paperwork and fill out grant applications.

So that's my excuse. We've been busy.

But, I'm hoping to get back to normal soon. I've got several Real Food posts started, and just need to finish them off. Until then, here's a quick update on our adoption process.

We sent our paperwork to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) several weeks ago. This set of paperwork is basically us asking the US government for permission to bring an immigrant into the country. Once this paperwork is received at the USCIS lockbox in Texas, it triggers a fingerprint appointment. We received notice that our fingerprint appointment is scheduled at the USCIS office in Sioux Falls for May 23rd. This is good, since we were actually available that day and rescheduling these appointments is extremely difficult. Once our fingerprints go through, we will get a document showing USCIS approval (I-797). At that point, if we are ready, we can send our dossier to China.

I think I've mentioned the dossier before, but just in case you're wondering, I'll explain it again. The dossier is a collection of ALL our paperwork that is sent to China. It's basically the Chinese government's application to adopt. It includes 22 documents (or sets of documents) total. Some of these are: application letter, certified birth and marriage certificates, financial statements, verification of employment, passport information, photographs, police clearance letters, reference letters, the home study, I-797, psych evaluations and certificates of health.

There are several others, but those are few of the big ones. All lumped together, they don't sound TOO complicated. HA! Let's just take, for example, the certificate of health...

We had to schedule appointments with our doctor and have physicals (the 2nd one!) and several blood tests done.  Because we have both had surgeries (Jon and appendectomy and me sclerotherapy) we had to get notarized letters of support from our doctor as well. The dates on the letters had to be written in a specific form, every letter had to be legible, including our doctor's signature. It needed to be notarized on the same day it was written by a notary whose term does not expire for at least 12 months. It needed to address our surgeries, their outcomes, follow-up treatment, medications, their usage and efficacy as well as our ability to parent. Thank goodness neither of us have ever been hospitalized or had a serious illness, because all that information would have to have been dug up and reported as well. And nearly every document has requirements like this. Ugh.

Now I just have to share a little story about my husband. (And yes, I have his permission.)

They had to draw a significant amount of blood for all the tests.

To say that Jon doesn't like blood & needles would be an understatement.
A HUGE understatement.

We started out side-by-side in the blood draw room at the clinic. I'm not thrilled about blood either, but if I look away, I'm fine. Jon warned them he was squeamish.

Fifteen seconds in, he started to get light headed.

Thirty seconds in he lost all color in his skin and had to put his head between his legs and they had to stop the draw.

Two minutes later, I was done and they had to roll him onto the floor!

Ten minutes went by...he was still on the floor.
(At this point, I'm feeling horrible for him, but thinking "maybe I should take a picture...")

Finally the phlebotomist who did my draw (and happens to be a friend of ours) returns with a wheelchair! (Still feeling horrible for him, the ONLY thing that keeps me from taking a picture now is that she encouraged me to be a little more respectful toward my sick husband :) )

They wheel him - greenish-yellow skin and all - through the clinic in the wheelchair, into an exam room and get him up on the exam table.

I just had to ask him if I could start taking pictures, because this was definitely a blog post in the making! He agreed it was a little funny and might be worth documenting. Luckily, he didn't actually vomit in the bag, but I think he was pretty close!

Can you see the yellowish tint of his skin? It was a color I'd never really seen before!

After several minutes without improvement, they brought him some VERY store-bought-boxed stuff. I cringed. Austin crackers and boxed juice...gross! How about an apple or something instead?

Twenty or so minutes later, he was feeling good enough to at least finish the draw. Thank goodness they were able to get it all before he passed out!

The whole deal took 3 minutes for me about 45 for him.
Our very helpful doctor did his portion of the work quickly and 3 days later we had ONE of the documents for the dossier done.

Next week, our agency will review the sections of the dossier we're done with so far. They'll look for errors and make sure we're on the right track. We're hoping to be DTC (dossier to China) by mid-June.

We're also hoping we're done with blood draws :)

Because of our crazy last 4 weeks, we decided to hold off on our fundraiser garage sale so we can get caught up at home this weekend. I'm now planning to have it June 8 &9, so if you've got stuff taking up space in your house and you'd like to donate it to a good cause, just let us know!

Goosebumps

I debated for a while whether or not I should write this post.

Not because I didn't want to, but because I'm still trying to figure out what details I'm OK with sharing with the entire online world.

However, I've found that when I read blogs written by others (especially adoption blogs), that it's when they're open and transparent that I can relate with them and learn from their experiences.

And sometimes, God just does something so cool, that it would be a shame not to share it.

When we started the adoption process in November, we had $0 in our adoption fund. We did have a fully funded emergency fund (which we consider about 4-6 months of living expenses) and some money in investments that we could get out if we really needed to, but absolutely nothing allocated toward adoption expenses. Jon was pretty nervous about this, which was a switch for us because usually I'm  the nervous one and he's completely calm and collected. But we both believed the timing was right to begin the process.

We spent several days praying about it and I really felt God was asking us to trust that he would provide. Being a type-A, I-need-everything-planned-out personality, I usually have a very difficult time with taking a giant leap and having faith that that God will take care of the details. But once again, He made it abundantly clear that that was what He wanted. I decided to bring it up to Jon and not-so-surprisingly, he had the same experience.

Earlier that week, he had done a study on 2 Kings 3:9-20. In these verses, four kings and their men have been marching through the wilderness for seven days and have run out of water. They call upon the prophet Elisha to help them. Elisha says "Dig ditches all over this dry stream bed. You will not see any rain or wind, but they will be filled with water." The next morning, water flows in and fills the ditches. And (I love this part) Elisha says in verse 18, "This was an easy thing for the LORD to do."

We had a ditch to fill. God was asking us to trust him to fill it.

We both earn extra income from side-job type things that we do: Jon's photography and my graphic design work. So we decided that all income from those two things would go toward the adoption fund. Little by little, we began adding a few dollars here and a few there to the big envelope on our fridge marked "ADOPTION." A few people gave us gifts to add to the envelope, once in a while we'd have an extra $5 or $10 that we didn't use on normal weekly expenses that would go in as well. Jon's mom and I had a booth at a craft show, and our tax return went in there too. Any free dollar we had went in the envelope.

Last Thursday, we received our completed home study copies. Included with the copies was our invoice for the first set of LARGE bills. This included the home study fees, mileage for the home study visits and adoption fees in the US.

The total amount was $8565.00.

Jon went to our office to work on the budget and total up all that we had in our adoption fund.
He came upstairs smiling. "I have goosebumps" he said.

We had $8575.00

Ditch filled. And an extra $10 for good measure.

Thank you Lord!

When God calls us to do something even though circumstances make it look impossible, what should our reaction be? How can we expect to see God move if we never give him room to act? I imagine the kings men weren't thrilled about digging ditches in the scorching wilderness with no water, but they were obedient to God and did it anyway, trusting him to provide. Obedience comes first and prepares us for what God has in store. God miraculously provided massive amounts of water. And Elisha said "This was an easy thing for God."  If that was easy we definitely should be able to trust him with our measly $8500 bill.

All of you who've let Jon snap pictures of your families, or had me help with a small design project, or just given a little extra, thank you. You were part of the plan. Thank you for letting the Lord work through you.

As you can see, every bit was very important.

Home study approved!

Finally.

It took a full three months.

But we now have home study approval!

Three completed copies are on their way to our house. One for our records, one for the dossier, and one for  USCIS.

This is a VERY good thing, because now we can move forward. We'll start by filing the I800-A (USCIS), which is approval from the the US government for us to adopt. We can also start on the dossier paperwork, and the formal application for Bethany's Waiting Child China program.

We also got the bill for the home study. Ouch! It was completely expected, but still, it's the first REALLY big bill we've had to pay since we started the process. Praise the Lord - He is faithful and has provided abundantly for us...this one is covered!

Prayers are appreciated as we move on to the next set of paperwork and continue saving for the next set of expenses.We appreciate everyone's support SO much! Thank you!

Quick China update and possible fundraiser

This isn't going to be a very exciting update, but when a lot of people ask the "where are you now?" question when I see them face-to-face, I figure it's time to write about it anyway.

Currently, we're still waiting on our home study completion. It is taking MUCH longer than we thought it would. A couple weeks ago, it was approved at the local office and sent to the China team at the Bethany Global office in Michigan. They had it for about 10 days, then sent it back to the local office for some revisions. I spent some more time answering a few questions and clarifying some things, and I'm assuming that by now the changes have been made and it's been sent back to the China team. We're praying they'll approve it soon so we can get moving onto the next phase.

I also wanted to mention that I'm considering doing a rummage sale fundraiser in late May or early June. So, if you have things laying around the house that you just want to get rid of, but you don't want to mess with doing a rummage sale yourself, I'd love to take them off your hands. If you'd be willing to donate items (clothing, kitchen equipment, furniture, etc.) please let me know and I'll make a note to contact you when I get everything organized. All you'd have to do is drop off your items, I'd take care of everything else, and all the proceeds would go toward our adoption fund.

One last thing; my uber-techy husband convinced me that I need to step into the Twitter world, so if you're the tweeting type, you can find me @outsidethesbbox. Kinda stinks I couldn't fit my whole name on there, but you get the idea, right? Twitter and I are still getting acquainted, but I'm hoping to become proficient soon. :)