Always a Daddy's Girl

Had a busy day today ...

Church
Baptism of a previous little one of a good friend of ours
Visiting briefly with friends from our of town (and our godkids)
Nap
Attended the funeral of a Godly man, the father of a good friend
Then to dinner with the new Paster and his wife.

...After all this Kiera begs for Daddy's tie and wants him to put it on like he does. I think she just wanted to be close to him in this busy day. As soon as she had it on she was happy the rest of the night.

I love my family!

Perfect Love: Answered Prayer!

I didn't want to post the same thing on both my sites, but this is such great news I just had to share.

God is so Good!

We received a grant for the exact amount needed for Silas' referral fee. Now everything can continue to move forward to bringing him home.

Praise be to God.

See the full post at: Perfect Love: Answered Prayer!: God answers prayers!!! I am totally convinced of this. As I posted a few weeks ago, we accepted a referral of a baby boy in Ethiopia. T...

Blessings!
Joel and Mandy

We Have a Son!!

Yes, that right!

We have a son ... Silas Timothy

(we cannot share his Ethiopian name or picture online until after we pass court)

But believe me ... he is cute, just like his proud big sister.
He has beautiful big eyes and cute curls.

Silas is 14 months old, born May 2, 2011.
Our initial papers say he is 18# and 27"... he was pretty malnurished but is gaining strength fast.

Please pray with us for our son, that he would continue to gain strength and be healthy and happy until we can come meet him and bring him home.

Blessing,
Joel & Mandy

Happy Summer Vacations

So, we have been having a lot of fun the last few weeks ... I thought I should post some pictures. 

For the 4th fo July we went Grandma and Grandpa's on the lake...

Kiera and Daddy went kayaking ... Kiera liked to "row the boat"

   

She went swimming anytime we would let her 

... and she loved that she could do it "all by myself"

On Saturday we headed up to Camp Luther for the week. Joel was blessed again this year to be selected as pastor of the week and we get to go with. Kiera loved playing with the water balloon during church. 

We are having a great time.

Hope your summers are blessed too!

Mandy

Perfect Love: And the total is ...

Check out our fundraising blog to see the results of our 1st event. It is exciting to see how God is providing for us as we journey to bring home our next child.

God is Good ... All the Time!


Perfect Love: And the total is ...: $ 3,205   Yes that is correct...  We made over $ 3,000 at our garage sale fundraiser this last weekend. Everything has been depos...

It All Begins Tomorrow ...

We could use prayers ... the sale starts tomorrow.

See our blog perfectloveunafraid.blogspot.com to follow along. 

Thanks!

Happy Father's Day

My daughter is very blessed to have a wonderful, loving, fun, faithful dad. I wish I had some pictures to share of the two of them together, but being Father's Day is on a Sunday, my pastor husband did not get home until we were after we were all out of our nice church clothes... I guess Kiera will get used to being a PK, right? Kiera loves her daddy. 

Happy Father's Day Joel!

Can't believe I am saying the word ... Fundraising

As many of you already know, Joel and I are on the waiting list to adopt another child from Ethiopia. We are very excited about this and are "patiently" waiting to receive the phone call and pictures of our new son or daughter. Kiera keeps talking about her sister, but we will just have to wait and see. 

Anyway, this time we will have to do some fundraising. We have been continuously praying for our child. We know from our experiences with Kiera's adoption how impossible it would be to go through this process without giving God full control over it and now we realize we have to hand over the finances to him as well. 

And so we pray. 

And we trust. 

It has been such a humbling experience for both of us to ask for help, but God has already opened up many doors and given us great friends for support. 

Our good friends, Dave and Chris, are in the process of adopting from China for the 3rd time! So... we are teaming up to fundraise together. 

After more prayer, we have decided to focus not only on fundraising, but on adoption awareness in our community. We want to get people talking and asking question. We want to provide answers and resources. 

And our overall goal???

To raise enough money, not only to bring our children home, but to create some sort of fund that can help future families bring home their children too. 

Cool, huh?

Chris and I, together, have a blog that will follow along on our fundraising journey. 

Perfect Love....Unafraid

Check out her blog, too!

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Our first fundraiser is a a huge garage sale...I mean really huge. We have been working for over 3 weeks now, collecting donations, pricing, organizing, advertising. We will even have our local Christian radio station, 89Q, present for some time on Friday. 


It starts this Thursday, the 21st and goes through Saturday, the 23rd. 

Check us out and follow along on the blog for other opportunities to help. 

But most importantly, we are asking for prayers. We are very overwhelmed and nervous about how all of this will come out, but we know that with God all things are possible. And as my prayer warrier friends have been saying:

"His hands are all over this!"

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"There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casts out fear...."
1 John 4:18 

Happy Mother's Day

I love my family. I have a wonderful husband, who sent me on a scavenger hunt all week to end up with flowers, a pedicure and a picnic in the park with family and friends. And I have a beautiful daughter who is such a joy. The Lord has truly blessed me with this family.

But there are a few people missing in this picture...

First, is our next child. We do not know if he or she is born or conceived yet, but we continue to pray for health and a happy start to life. We pray for his/her birth family as they struggle through this difficult time, which should be joyful for any family with a young child.

Second, is Kiera's birth mother. I feel for her especially on this day as I know she loves Kiera. She made a huge sacrifice to give Kiera a chance at life that she would not have had if she had stayed with her in Ethiopia. We pray for her and thank her for entrusting us with her daughter.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

Layers of Life...: Give - Away time.....just because.

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to pass this along. A good friend of mine is having a give-away on her blog. She is giving away Wild Olive Tees, which are amazing tees for a good cause ... adoption. Click the link below and see for yourself.

Layers of Life...: Give - Away time.....just because.