God is good at breaking down walls!!

Let me take that back…God is GREAT at breaking down walls! Over the last few months, Chris and I have been pretty adamant that a few things HAD to change before we began the adoption process, two of which are getting our debt down and moving. About a week ago I finally sat down and created a “plan of action” and basically budgeted every cent that we will bring in for the rest of the year! It looked like we would have about 1/3 of our CC and student loan debt paid off by January! So Chris and I decided that was that and our plan was to pay off that debt and then re-evaluate where we stand in Feburary and begin the repairs we needed to make for our house to sell quickly. Once all that happened then we could FINALLY apply to adopt.

Well, I think God has other plans! I have been feeling God push me pretty hard for the last week to move. Monday I prayed and prayed and prayed some more for God to reveal His timing. I asked Him to give me a glaring sign I couldn’t miss. Later I was reading a blog and took this pic and texted it to Chris:



Do you see it?? Chris’ text back was this: “That is a pretty big sign. It even has a glare on the picture and everything.” I started tearing up, God has a great sense of humor!

Because we are human, Chris and I still couldn’t get passed the fact that there are walls that are between us and starting the process…and God showed us just how mighty He is!

Wall #1 Last week I just happened to see on the AWAA.org site that you could pre-apply to see if you might qualify to apply. Tempting as it was, I decided that it wasn’t the right time and just closed the page. For the next two days I just kept thinking about it and wondering if maybe we should just try. Finally Thursday I prayed about it and then after filling out some info about us and our finances, I submitted it. I was pretty certain that there was NO way we were going to get approved. Friday morning I got a call that said we were approved!! WHAT?!?!? How is that possible?? I called them back Tuesday (we were camping Friday and I forgot Monday) and asked what all this meant. The lady explained to me that financially we looked great and that we may just have to explain how we have so much debt and a “plan of action” to pay it off! Wall #1 down!!

Wall #2 Our next issue was that we didn’t know how AWAA would feel about the fact that we live in a 2 bedroom house with a child already occupying the 2nd bedroom. I was told to contact the Texas AWAA office because it all depended on state regulations. After emailing the office I received an email back saying “Yes, your new child can share a room with room with your son indefinitely if you adopt a boy (we are sure yet if we are going to pick one or the other or just say “random”). If you adopt a girl, you would need to separate them by age 5.” WOW!! Im starting to realize that this might have been a “duh” to others but to us we just assumed they would want separate rooms! To make things even better, Chris thought of a great plan to turn the loft study/room into a true room by closing in the arch. Why the heck did we NEVER think of this?? Its not even that expensive (compared to selling the house). Wow, wall #2 down!!!

Wall #3 Money, money, money. I know this one is a no brainer but to be more specific, we need a certain amount pretty quickly after we apply. When we apply we have to send in $250 and then if we are approved we will need to pay $1500 for the First Installment Program Fee to AWAA. Then we will need to start compiling our dossier which will cost anywhere from $2700-4700. And this isn’t even half of all the adoption expenses!! (I will probably do a blog later about all the adoption expenses for anyone that is interested) But I know that what God favors, God funds! I have no idea how we are going to fund this adoption, but I do know that God favors adoption and God is calling us to it, He is not going to let us fall. I can already feel God working on blasting this wall down! Our plan is to do anything we can to help. A few ways that we are trying to fundraise are below:

Just Love Coffee: https://www.justlovecoffee.com/newtonfamily Love Roasters takes the two passions of its founder, ORPHANS and FAIR TRADE COFFEE, and incorporates them into one company. Their mission is to offer quality Fair Trade coffees and to use these coffees to help orphans and their forever families. They’ve created a fundraising program where we are able to set up our own online store! I haven’t tried it yet (waiting on our order to come in) but Ive heard it is VERY good! With each bag sold, $5 will go directly towards our adoption. Your coffee is delivered to you by USPS and you get to help us adopt or child (or children)!Proceeds to Our Adoption:
• Coffee: $5 will go towards our adoption
• T-Shirt: $5 will go towards our adoption• Travel Mug: $3 will go towards our adoption• Tote Bag: $3 will go towards our adoption• Hat: $3 will go towards our adoption• Coffee Scoop: $1 will go towards our adoption

Our Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ANovelIdeaCrafts I have been making jewelry for about 8 months and now all proceeds goes into our adoption fund!

Garage sale: We are going to be hosting a garage sale in the very near future and already our friends are blowing us away with their generosity! Thank you so much for those that have already commited to helping us with this! If you would like to help, we are taking donations of pretty much anything, just give us a call (or email) and we will haul it away! All proceeds will go toward our adoption fund and anything not sold will be donated or saved for another garage sale.
-Abbey

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” --Luke 12:22-24