Vision changes the world

As we walk through this adoption process I am haunted by the reality that adopting two children is not going to help Congo as a whole.  That's not why we are adopting.  But, the more we learn, and we've been devoted students, we know that we have to try to help in some way.  Congo is an amazing country with so much potential.  However, Congo is broken.  The brokenness is not really even their own doing.  The history of what has happened to that country is appalling.  I don't believe it is going to be fixed by us Americans.  I believe it is going to take someone with a big Congolese heart from that country to make changes.

I saw this video today and it sparked something in me.  It reminded me of the beginning of Martin Luther King Jr's speech "I have a dream..."  That phrase alone holds so much potential... so much power.  Vision changes the world.  Without vision people suffer.  It's not just the big dreams, it's the little ones too.  This video shows teenage girls who have never thought about what they wanted to be when they grow up.  They didn't even know that thought was possible.

Let's dream.  Dream Big!  Let's teach our children to dream.

Siblings and a Garage Sale

I haven't written on the blog in awhile.  There has been so much going on.  So much that I either can't write about or just don't have the words to.

I guess the first update is that we officially requested 2 children.   Three weeks ago we spoke to our case worker at our adoption agency and officially requested "boy/girl siblings ages 0-3."  We were told that it's a pretty specific request and we need to be prepared to wait awhile or make it a little broader.  For now, we wait.  After all, everything else has been thrown in our laps in this process... why not go for what we truly desire, right?

The other thing that a lot of people don't know about is that Congo is not letting children out of the country right now.  You may have seen news stories about it.  It's heartbreaking.  Children are being taken through the entire court process, being given legal custody to their adoptive families, but then denied exit from the country.  This has been going on since last Fall.  The Congolese government has said that they will continue this until September.  We are praying for big things with this.

We are praying that Congo will start issuing exit letters before September so that these precious children can get home.  I would love for y'all to join us in praying for this.  Right now we are watching families weep over not being able to get their kids.  For some reason we are still drawn forward in this process.  We aren't moving forwards blindly.

We have started the fundraising portion of adoption.  Good grief.  The expenses for adopting are outrageous.  It's humbling for us to start fundraising.  We started this whole process with an idea in mind that we could pay out of pocket for the whole thing.  We could've figured that out with adopting 1 child.  But, now that we are adopting two...  Well, it's a lot.

We were blown away last week with the number of friends and family who helped us with our first garage sale.  I've counted 19 families who helped us by donating items, folding tables, or helped us set up and sell.  We raised almost $1900 for the adoption.  Holy cow!

Then, in the middle of the garage sale, I got an email from our agency letting us know that a friend had sent in a check for $2,000!  What?!  Needless to say, there have been a few tears shed over here.  We feel honored that people care.  We feel like we have a small army behind us on this whole journey.  We know we aren't going at it alone.