Lots of Praises

Greetings to you from sunny Florida! As we sit here and notice the early signs of "spring" I am reminded that we have much to be thankful for, much to praise God for, and great reason for hope. Our Valentine's Day experience was also a reason for praise, even though our plans were quickly changed as Satan tried to ruin our day by hindering us sending money to Uganda. But alas, God will overcome!

Valentine's morning we planned to get up early, wire money to Uganda and then head to Tallahassee for a romantic walk around campus and dinner at our favorite place. However, wiring money took us 2 hours. No one knew exactly how to do it since most people don't wire money to Uganda regularly. I'm not even sure that most people know that Uganda exists. One person asked if that was near Alabama. Anyway, our contact in Uganda gave us all the information we needed to wire the money but the bank here wasn't familiar with the Ugandan bank system and how addresses are made (apparently there are no zip codes there).

After a couple hours and many phone calls by the bank teller, the money was wired to Uganda. However, by this point we wouldn't have enough time to drive to Tally and get a table. This restaurant is tiny and if you aren't there right when it opens chances are good you'll have another hour or so wait before a table will open up. So we scratched our plans and went to lunch in Atlanta instead. We both felt like sending the lawyer the money he needed to get started on our boys paperwork and setting a court date was more important this year than dinner in Tallahassee.

We are happy to report that we were able to wire almost a third of the money needed by the lawyer and the orphanage for the boys. It's about 1/5 of the total money we need but we both felt good about being able to wire some of the money and confirm to the orphanage director and the lawyer that we are serious about bringing these boys home.

Speaking of homes, we ~finally~ have a close date on our house! We are to close this Friday morning (Feb 22nd) and will move in on Saturday. We will then be able to have the last piece of our home study completed on March 4th. This is significant because it means our home study will be complete in time to apply for adoption grants that come under review in mid march. Please pray this all works out and that we are able to apply for these grants. If we miss the March reviews we will have to wait for them to come under review in June which means we might not get the funds in time to go get the boys. However, I've known God to come through in the 11th hour so I really shouldn't be worried about any of it.

March will be a month of full on campaigning for funds. We will have 2 consignment sales, hopefully will begin selling t-shirts and necklaces (stay tuned to later posts about these things) and will give one of our donors an iPad. Yes, an iPad to one of our wonderful donors as a way to say thank you for supporting us in our adventure to bring these boys home.

Our personal goal is to raise $10,000 in March which will put us over the halfway mark for all the funds needed. Would you pray about how you might be able to help us achieve our financial goal? Please remember that no donation is too small to help, and every donation is a blessing from God. We have multiple ways for you to donate and we would love for you to be partners with us in this adoption.