Friday, January 27, 2012

God's provision through strangers

Hello friends and family! I wanted to share with you a VERY cool thing that happened yesterday. Each time a repeat this story, I'm so overwhelmed by God's grace and love towards us. I hope you will praise God with me as you read about what happened...

Yesterday after lunch Dave and I decided to go for a walk in our neighborhood. The weather yesterday was beautiful and sunny, so we just couldn't resist! We decided that while we were talking we would place garage sale flyers on peoples doorsteps as a way to spread the word for the sale next weekend. We finished our walk and came home. Then, I had to teach piano for a few hours. Dave got called into work for a few hours, and so after I was done teaching piano I was home alone. The door bell rang. I answered the door to find a woman on my porch about the age of 40. I said "hello" to her and then she began to tell me "My name is "Sally" and I live around the corner from you. Did you place this flyer on my doorstep?" She then presents to me the flyer that we had indeed handed out. "Yes" I said. Sally then tells me that she was born in Uganda and grew up in the town called Jinja (which is close to where David and I will be when we go to Uganda to bring home our Ruby). Sally then handed me a plastic bag that was holding a huge box of butter... she explained that she had been to Costco to buy butter and accidently she bought the wrong kind. She noticed on our flyer that we were having a bake sale and didn't want the butter to go to waste so she thought that we might be able to use the butter in our baking. I just thought that this was the sweetest thing. I told her "thank you" and then began telling her a little bit about the adoption process. The conversation was rather quick because she seemed in a hurry. But before she walked away she handed me something and said "I can't be there for the garage sale, but I wanted to give you this to add to your funds." I opened my hand and unfolded a $100.00 bill! My heart welled up, and my immediate reflex was to give Sally a hug- and so I did! Sally responded by saying something to the extent of "You are so welcome! But, please if you see my husband and I outside sometime please do not tell him that I gave you any money. I don't think he'd be happy." And with that... she left. I came back inside just staring at the $100.00 and praising God for His providing for us through a complete stranger.

It has been so neat to see God use the body of Christ and also unbelievers to bless us in our adoption journey! We feel so loved by Jesus, and by each of you!

Thanks for being excited and praising God with us!

All is grace,
jess

Thursday, January 5, 2012

adoption update



Hey Everyone!

A little bit of an update for ya.... we are almost done with the hardest part of the paperwork. We still have to go get physicals done, but then after that things should really get going. We have 2 adoption classes left to take, and also at some point they will assign us a social worker. I just really want things to get going so we can bring our baby girl home quickly! :-)
Dave and I will be putting on a garage sale  (early Feb... probably the 3 &4) to help raise funds to bring home our daughter from Uganda. We could use your help… If any of you have stuff that you’d like to donate to help us, please send me an email or comment on this post. If you have heavier items that you’d like to donate but you do not have a truck, please let me know and we can come and pick it up. We will also be doing a bake sale at the garage sale, so if any of you do not have stuff that you could donate to the garage sale, but you enjoy baking we'd love you to donate baked goods for us to sell! 


We really covet your prayers. Please be praying that:
-the process would go smoothly and quickly
-that God would provide the funds needed
-that we would have LOTS of opportunities to advocate for adoption, and with that be able to share the gospel and how God has adopted us. 

lotsa love,
jess