A Good First Meeting

Nick and I had our first meeting with our social worker last Friday and it went splendidly superb! We met with her at our house right before we moved on Saturday, so the apartment looked pretty crazy. I thought it was going to be a short visit, but it ended up lasting a couple of hours (it felt like no time at all though). We went through all of the paperwork that we needed to finish, and what type of adoption classes would best fit our needs. After getting all of our questions out of the way, she started asking us a few questions about how Nick and I met, why we want to adopt, ect. Just by talking with our social worker, we found so many things in common. It was crazy cool.

After the meeting I felt so relieved, like this huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I mentioned that we just moved, and we are actually downsizing a bit to save money for the adoption. This was a concern after realizing that our living space needs to be baby ready now for the home study, and we just signed a one year lease to a new apartment. Our social worker reassured us that it is just fine, and that the space will be enough for our baby (YAY!). It is really nice to know that someone else is on our side through this process, and is willing to assist in anyway they can to see us succeed.

This is just another step in the process that reassures me that this is God's plan, and He will help us overcome any obstacle that we will face.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Yard Sale = Sucess

After putting up many flyers and getting the word out as the best we could (Facebook, Craigslist, and word of mouth), our yard sale turnout was amazing!

*The flyers we posted.

*Us by our signage. Nick can never take a normal picture....

*Our yard sale from the sidewalk. We had a table and boxes set up on our lawn too.

 

 

We decided to set our yard sale goal a bit high ($800), because we wanted to stretch our expectations for the sale and see what our God could do. Even though we had a few big items, we lacked quite a bit of smaller/regular yard sale items. Still, we ended up raising $788! Woohooo! The money made from the yard sale will be directed to helping pay for the rest of the home study program (approximately $1700 due).

I just want to take a moment and recognize all of the wonderful friends that Nick and I have made in Baltimore. Thank you for your donations of items, time, and money! A special thanks to Brian and Victoria for all of the wonderful items that you donated for the yard sale. Ashley, with your bottles of water and baked cookies, you were at the yard sale in spirit. Dan, for lending us the table that helped keep our yard sale items off the wet ground as well as the items you donated. A large thanks to all our friends that came out and supported us by buying items and donating to our cause: Angela, Kimi, and Jon.! Everything that you all did helped make it a big success, and it would not have been the same without you. Thank you so so much! And of course, a sincere thank you to all our neighbors that stopped by and contributed to the success of our yard sale.

 

The first meeting with our social worker will be this Friday. We will be going over all the necessary documentation required by the agency to go ahead with our adoption. Our home study has official begun!





Fundraising like crazy!

With the large numbers looming ahead for how much this adoption process will cost, Nick and I are trying to do as many fundraising things as possible! We are having a garage sale on July 13th. We are hoping and praying for a good turn out! Our goal is going to be $800, which is very possible! These funds will help us get through the home study process that we just got accepted into! The agency that we are doing the home study with is called Adoptions Together. Since our adoption agency (Children's House International = CHI) is not located in Baltimore we are having to do the home study with them. We need $3000 for all of the interviews and such with the home study (pre and post adoption) before this process can be completed, and $1900 of that upfront to get the process started before our application can move forward with our agency (CHI).

So please pray that God meets and exceeds our needs! Keep our garage sale in your prayers, and pray for favor that we exceed our goal of raising $800!

For those of you that are not located in Baltimore, MD, you can help us by buying coffee (if that is your thing), mugs, and apparel from Just Love Coffee Roasters. A percentage of what you purchase will go to help fund our adoption!


Here is the link:  https://justlovecoffee.com/nickandeliserichard

All of this information is also available in the "How you can help" tab on the top of our blog page.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28