We're having a Rummage Sale!

Come one, come all! 

Thanks to the generous donations of our friends and family,

 we have lots of quality items to sell!

     Our garage is almost full!  We have been collecting items for the last few weeks to raise money to help defray the enormous adoption costs.  I have been vigorously selling shippable items on eBay and other larger items on Craigslist.   But there are lots of things that will sell better in person, so we are now to the point that we are ready to have a super rummage sale.  We have clothes, furniture, baby items, toys, bikes, golf clubs, and much, much, more.  We will have all of these items for sale at our house on Friday June 14th and Saturday June 15th.  ALL of the proceeds will go to our adoption fund.  We will also have a representative selling 31 Bags at our sale and she is donating half of her profits to our fund! If you are in the Muncie area, please stop out and visit!
      If you would like to donate items, we are still taking anything you are willing to give.  Thanks to everyone who has already donated so selflessly.  We are blessed to know so many wonderful people!  It just confirms what I have known all along about the big hearted people of Indiana!
    On the paperwork front, we are still waiting for our Home Study to be finalized.  Our report is currently at our placing agency receiving approval. We should be hearing something from them in the next few days.   After that, we send a bunch of documents off to Indianapolis to be authenticated and we apply for an immigration document.  After that, our paperwork goes off to Poland where we are eventually matched with a waiting child or two!
    Thanks for your prayers as we continue through this process. Please pray that the Rummage Sale goes well and that I keep my sanity in the next few weeks!





  

Home Study, Classes, and more

  

   I can finally say that spring has come to Indiana!  I know it has been a while since I posted, but there has been a lot going on and I have been outside enjoying the sunshine!    We had our home study visit a few weeks ago.  If you are not familiar with the process, part of the home study consists of collecting paperwork and writing an autobiography, and the other part is having a social worker come to your home for a visit.  We prepared for the visit by cleaning the house from top to bottom.  We needed to do some spring cleaning anyway. I wish my house could stay that nice all the time! 
     When the social worker came, she interviewed Kevin and I together. She asked questions about our families, why we are adopting, our history together, our views on child rearing, etc.  She then interviewed us separately about our personal histories.  After we passed that (whew!), we showed her around the house.  Our daughters' room is still a guest room for now.  It didn't need to be set up as a child's room for the home study, they just need to see the room to make sure it is a safe environment. She requested a few more documents that we just needed to make copies of and that was it.  The whole thing didn't take very long and we were happy with how it turned out.  The social worker writes up a report then and sends it to our home study agency and our placing agency.  I haven't heard yet if they have received it, but I'm sure I will hear something soon.
   As part of the adoption process, each country requires so much training for adoptive parents.  Adopted children, especially those that have been in orphanages, may require different parenting techniques.  These classes help equip parents to deal with any challenges they may face.  Poland only requires 10 hours of training and although Kevin and I had already met that requirement we wanted to attend the 4th and last class of the series that our first agency teaches. We are always glad to attend these classes and meet other adoptive parents because we share advice and valuable support.  Part of this class was about whether or not you should rename your child which has its pros and cons because your child is probably already responding to their name.  Kevin and I talked about how we are hoping to Americanize our child's Polish name so that it will be similar, but not the same. We are not sure how close we will get since the Polish language has so many different characters than our American alphabet.
    

Once we get a copy of our home study, I can start working on applying for grants.  Until then, our Ebay/Craigslist fundraiser is going really well!  I cannot thank enough all of our friends who have donated items for me to sell.  We have been so blessed by your support!  As you are spring cleaning this year, we are always taking donations.  I am continually putting things on Ebay and larger items on Craigslist.  We will also be having a rummage sale this summer for any extra items.  Items that sell well on Ebay include electronics, cell phones, video consoles and games, and kids items. Thanks for thinking of us!
    
We have also had a very generous offer from our friend Beth Kresja, a hairstylist at The Salon and Spa here in Muncie. She is donating $5 for every service to our adoption fund.  So if you need a new hairdo, call Beth at 744-8788!
  








 God is still moving and we are feeling His blessing. Thanks again to all of our family and friends. We couldn't do this without your support!
    

Learn to do good.

Seek justice.

Help the oppressed.

Defend the cause of orphans.

Fight for the rights of widows.

Isaiah 1:17

 

 

Easy Opportunity to Help!

     I've recently caught the ebay bug.  I know it's been going around for quite some time, but I never thought I would get it.  I was cleaning out our spare room the other day and came across some items that I didn't use anymore but didn't want to just throw away.  So I listed them on ebay and they sold!  I couldn't believe it!  So now I'm looking around and trying to figure out what else we can get rid of that might be worth something to someone else.  My husband even sacrificed his old Xbox to the cause. But I'm running out of things to sell.
     Here's where you come in. Have you wanted to help support our international adoption but not sure how you can help?  Ebay can be a great fundraising tool!  All you have to do is find items in your house that you are no longer using, but might be useful to someone else.  Items that sell well include:  digital cameras, camcorders, ipods or mp3 players, game consoles, small kitchen appliances, hand tools, e-readers, and electronic toys.  While you are spring cleaning this year, will you please put some of these things aside?  I will pick them up and sell them on ebay and all the money will go towards bringing our daughters home.  Just let Kevin or I know or you can contact us at beachadoption at gmail dot com.  Thanks for your help!

Please be praying for us this week because our home study is Saturday!  We are very excited to finally get this part done.  A lot of things can't be finished until the home study is completed, so this will move us farther along.  Please pray that everything goes smoothly.  Thanks!

Home Study and Dossier

     We are finally ready to have our home study!  When we switched agencies there were some details that needed to be worked out before we could complete this part of the process.  But now everything is sorted out and we are ready to move on.  The home study consists partly of collecting documents (which we have already done) and partly of a home visit from a social worker.  We are hoping to get this scheduled with her soon.  As with everything in this process, this is an important step that needs to be completed before we can move on.
     I also received instructions on filling out our dossier.  This is a formal presentation of our documents that will be given to the judge in Poland when we go there to adopt our daughters.  It is a lengthy processes of authenticating all of the documents we have collected.  There are some things I have been able to compile but everything else has to wait until the home study is complete.  I was a little overwhelmed when I received this latest round of work.  I have some times when I don't feel like doing this at all, and other times when I wish I could just finish it all at once.  I am working through it and Kevin is helping where he can.
     In between all of this, we are working on some fundraising ideas.  I had some luck selling a musical instrument on eBay so I have scoured the house for other items to sell.  I think I will try a few small items and see how it goes.  My husband is currently cleaning up his Xbox to sacrifice to the cause.  He even volunteered to play it to make sure it works properly...We have also considered hosting a 5k among other things.  Although it is hard to think about a 5k when there is currently up to a foot of snow headed our way.  What happened to spring?
     I have also tried to buy some things off of eBay but have not had any success.  One of the things I was bidding on was a Rosetta Stone Polish language course.  The Polish language is not something that will be easy to master so I thought I would get a head start and at least learn enough to help us get around when we are there.  I was hoping to save some money by finding it used, but I will just have to keep looking,  I have some time before I will need it.
     I know this will all be worth it someday!   I keep reminding myself that we are getting closer with each document!

Please pray that the home study goes smoothly, that the papers won't overwhelm me, and that our children will be safe in our arms soon.

Thank you!

Spring Forward

     I love this time of year!  I am so excited that the sun will be shining longer in the evening.  I am so much more motivated to get moving after work when it is still light out.  I have been running on the treadmill more these past few months but I am looking forward to being able to run outside. 
      I have been spending my time after work either exercising or working on paperwork.  With the switch to a new agency, there has been some additional paperwork to do.  Each agency has their own forms and procedures based on what the adoptive country requires.  This has been a little frustrating for me since I had hoped that part was behind us.  Every time I think we are moving forward to a new part of the journey, it seems we have to back track and start over.   But I am relying on God's timing and am trying to take this one day at a time. 
     So one of the things Kevin and I did this week was go down to City Hall and get fingerprinted.  We have never been fingerprinted before so that was a new experience.  We then sent our fingerprints off to the FBI and they will send us an "all clear" letter to prove that we are not criminals!  We also had to get more copies of our birth certificates and new medical forms.  St Mary's Adoptions has been very helpful and willing to keep in touch and answer any questions that we have.  They are currently working to get our home study ready to be scheduled. 





      Our new T-shirt store is up and running! We removed the Russian t-shirts and replaced them with different colors of the other t-shirts.  Adoption Bug doesn't have shirts for Poland yet. You can visit our new store here.    
    
We are also selling delicious coffee products at Just Love Coffee.


If you are thinking about adopting or know someone who is, here are some resources online that can help with the process and with funding:

www.resources4adoption.com/

http://showhope.org/

http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/

http://www.jeremiah29-11project.com/
 
     http://helpusadopt.org/
 

Don't forget to set your clocks forward tonight

 or you will be late for church tomorrow! 

 

Spring Is Coming

      It always makes my heart happy to flip the calendar from February to March.  I have nothing against the month of February with all of its hearts and flowers and talk of love, but I so look forward to the end of the short month.  March means the loosening of winter's hold and the beginning of warmth and greenery in Indiana.  I already have early spring plants like daffodils and tulips poking up through the cold dirt trying to find some rays of sunshine.  When I saw this, my thoughts turned to what spring in Poland would be like.  So I googled images of spring in Poland, and this is what I got

Not quite what I had in mind....

 

 

 

 

 I wanted something more like this picture of a public garden in Warsaw.

 

Or this picture of a nice Polish man riding his bicycle past some tulips.

 

 

     Anyway, I wish we were going to be there soon.  But we don't know yet what season we will be able to travel to meet our daughter(s).  We sent off the agreement to St Mary's this week.  This is just an official legal form between us and them clarifying our rights and responsibilities as well as the agency's responsibilities.  We are also working on getting new medical forms filled out.  Poland's form is much more extensive than the Russian form. We should be able to send those off this week.  Then we will schedule our home study with the social worker.  This is a major part of the process and we are ready to get his part done.

     Once the home study is done, we can really move forward with getting our grant applications in.  There are many agencies out there that will award grants to couples adopting internationally.  There are many more people applying than money available, so we are hoping to apply to many places. We are looking to apply to agencies such as Show Hope, Life Song for Orphans, and Gift of Adoption Fund.  We are glad that these organizations exist to help couples like us, but all of these places require a lot of paperwork.   Thankfully I am getting so good at filling these forms out I think I could do it in my sleep.

    Kevin and I are hoping to adopt two little girls from Poland.  While it costs a little more money, we would love to be blessed with at least two children and we think the transition would be easier for a child if she had a buddy.  In Poland, you can adopt two children as long as they are siblings.  So please pray that if it is God's will, that siblings are available to us when the time is right.  Please also pray that our grant applications will be accepted.

    We are holding on to the promise that God is already moving in this situation, even when we cannot see it or feel it.  

 

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.   Isaiah 43:19

 

 

 



Multi Cultural Family

    Kevin and I attended a training class on international adoption issues last Saturday.  Anyone wanting to adopt internationally is required to take so many hours of classes.  The topic for this class was how to celebrate your child's birth culture once she is home with you.  We will be a Polish American family!
We got tips on buying souvenirs to put in your child's room. Buying traditional clothing to celebrate holidays.  Maybe even getting presents to give to our child every year on her birthday from her birth country.  Each couple at the class studied some books about the country from which they are adopting.  We want to know as much about the culture as we can when we go over there and would like to bring items home that might have some importance to our daughter as she grows up.  We also learned tips on how to address questions our child might have about why she was in an orphanage and why her birth parents couldn't take care of her.
    Kevin and I really enjoy getting together with other couples that are adopting internationally. We learn from each other and support each other.  We even met some people who know a Polish woman that might be able to help us out and would like to come visit our daughter when we bring her home! Maybe she will help me fix a traditional Polish meal.  I've included some pictures on this post of Poland and some Polish kids in traditional garb.  We will try to get our daughter an outfit like this when we are there.

    On the paperwork front, out previous agency is sending our documents to our new agency.  Our new agency has accepted our application and is sending us an agreement to fill out and return. Hopefully we will be able to have our home study in mid-March.  This is the part of the process where we start to spend a large chunk of money.  I will be applying for grants from various agencies and relying on God to fulfill our needs. Most of the grants require your home study to be completed before you apply.  I am going to go ahead and collect what I can so that we can be ready when the home study is complete.       

    I want to thank those of you who have sent cards and well-wishes.  Thank you for praying for us during this process. We appreciate it more than you know.