Chillin' out and Interesting Links to Read!

I am off for 7 days and loving it!  Just chillin' with the kids today; Legos all over the living room mixed with Littlest Pet Shop; getting ready to take James to basketball practice and the girls to dance rehearsal.  I was surfing the net and Facebooking today and came across two neat links:
http://thewriteheart.com/help-a-family/   by a friend who's been trying to help us fundraise and:
www.jeremystatton.com/the-question, a gentleman whose blog post continues to answer the question of WHY people adopt, and adopt, and adopt.......

Also, we heard from our agency today that they were able to speak to someone at the CCCWA and while on the phone, that person did locate our dossier (so it has arrived!) and will ensure it is marked "expedited".  Yayyy!  I really can't believe May is already almost over; things are starting to go so fast now!

Weekly update on Kindle giveaway!

A friendly holiday reminder to get your chance to win the Kindle!  $10 for 1 chance, $25 for 3, $50 for 6, and so forth.  As of today, we're about halfway to being able to actually buy the Kindle (unless someone has one they would like to donate :)!)

Disclaimer: in the event we don't raise enough to purchase the Kindle, the actual proceeds will be split with the winner.

Thanks and have a super Memorial Day!

Why do we adopt?

I was pondering a negative reaction (from a professed Christian) I got to our adoption, especially of a teenager, today and came across this blog, http://rylandsfamily.blogspot.com/.  This family recently brought home two older boys who had their first opportunity ever to celebrate a Mother's Day.  The family is now adopting yet another older child, a 9-year old boy.  The same people who encouraged them before now can't "support another one". Why?  Go to this blog and read the post from Saturday, May 12.  Like all adoptive families, we don't adopt to "save" a child or "rescue" them.  If we happen to bring them out of a bad situation, then so much more the better.  We adopt because this is how God wants us to build our family; He commands us to care for orphans and widows.  Like the mom on this blog, I, too, cannot understand how anyone, especially a Christian, could judge another harshly for wanting to be Mom and Dad forever to a child, no matter what country they're from or how old they are.  Teens need parents too, and in my opinion, even more so.  The cute, young, cuddly ones are the first ones to find families, while a child who slips through the cracks get older and older, diminishing their chances for a family.  There are several older boys and girls in China right now who are close to losing their chance of having a family forever at the tender age of 14.  Does this mean everyone should rush out and adopt one of them?  It would be great, but in reality, it is not a journey for the faint of heart.  We've researched and read, and asked, and talked, and researched some more to prepare ourselves.  And then you have a person, who thinks they have all the answers, say "why on earth would you do that?"  "You are crazy to want a teenager" and my personal favorite "I can't believe you're doing this again!!"  Well, we think we'd be crazy NOT to follow God's plan, to thumb our nose at His architecture of our family.  And to those who've said "it's great you want to help these kids by adopting them, but.......", I say it's the kids who have helped US.  Our two little ones, Jazmin and Judi,  have enriched our lives beyond measure and I marvel every day that God allowed us to be their parents and we are so looking forward to having Jaxon be part of our lives.  And I have to give credit where credit is due; Jessica and James (our current teenagers) have embraced our adoptions from Day 1 (2003) and were willing to share our love and attention and welcome their new siblings with open arms and hearts.  We are a unique and diverse family and our biggest desire is that we inspire others to open their minds and maybe even their homes to adoption.

KINDLE FIRE Fundraiser!!

Our second agency fee is due and our LOA fee will be coming due soon also, so we are adding a KINDLE FIRE fundraiser to the mix!  See the instructions to the right for donating.  $10 for one chance, $25 for 3 chances, $50 for 6 chances, and so on.  Post a link to our blog on your Facebook or on your own blog, comment to this post, and you get one free chance for each posting!  Tell me you forwarded the fundraiser info with our blog link to 10 of your friends and you get another free chance!
In the event, we don't raise enough funds to purchase the Kindle, we will split the final amount with the winner.
Thank you for helping to bring our Third Amigo home!

Roller-coaster week! - update - see end of post!

We have had quite a week in the adoption process!  One of the steps in an adoption is to apply through US immigration (USCIS) to be approved to adopt an orphan.  The application goes to a lockbox in Dallas, Tx, and is then sent back to Lee's Summitt, MO to the National Benefits Center where it is processed.  They then schedule fingerprint appointments and you can walk in early; then you get approved.  This process can normally take from 4-8 weeks.  We didn't have that much time!
This is our USCIS timeline:

April 30: our I-800A was received into the lockbox system.  I contacted the NBC and spoke to a wonderful officer who was willing to help us move things along.  She watched for our file to pop up in her system.

May 2: we received our receipt # by email.
May 3: we received our paper receipt in our mailbox
May 4: emailed our Officer with SS#s and scanned our paper receipt to her.
May 7: received BAD EMAIL!....our Officer had put us in the fingerprinting system only to be told by the computer that the KC office had "NO CAPACITY" and would not issue appointments for us... Yikes! No one knew what this meant and no one had encountered this before!
May 7, P.M.:  I did the following....a)called our agency, b)found an email for the KC office from 3 years ago and emailed them, and c)called our Senator's office in Jeff City.
May 8, 12:30pm : after some serious prayers Monday night, I did something totally out of character for me Tuesday morning.  I called no one, emailed no one.  Did nothing until 12:30pm when I checked my email.  Imagine my absolute shock when I found an email from our Officer with our fingerprint appointment notices attached! Have no idea which phone call or entity helped do this, but I am not questioning God's intervention!
May 9: went up to KC and was fingerprinted in less than an hour!  Yahoo!  Come on, approval!
May 11: I-800A approval!!!!   We are rollin' now.......

In the meantime, the rest of our documents are currently at the Chinese Consulate being authenticated; as soon as we receive immigration approval (the I-797) and get it certified and authenticated, our dossier will be ready to go to China!

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Current Fundraisers for Lucky AND his friend (see end of post)

Thought to avoid confusion, I should list what's going on as fundraisers for Lucky's Fund and I wanted to also post a fundraiser our friends are having for Lucky's friend.

Lucky Fundraiser #1 - ThirtyOne Fundraiser -
 http://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/catalog.aspx?eventId=E1694455&from=DIRECTLINK
 - ends May 28th

Lucky Fundraiser #2 - Bake/Garage Sale, 200 West Kelley, Leeton, MO  Saturday, May 5th, 7am - ?

Lucky Fundraiser #3 - LifeSong Grant =  http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html
WE ARE only $60 away from matching the grant and being able to use the funds!  You get a tax deduction for this one!  Choose the "One-Time Gift" option and continue to PayPal...put "CAVENDER #2792" in the Purpose field and be sure to receive your confirmation # at the end and print your tax receipt.

Ned's Fundraiser - in my blog list to the left, click on "Hang On"; they are having an Ipod giveaway, 4th gen, 8GB!

Thank you so much for your generosity!