Monday, December 23, 2013

The tricky Travel approval!

Many of you saw on face book that we received ANOTHER miracle of a quick TA! Last Friday I received an email saying that our TA was on the way from China. Boy were we excited! That is an understatement, really you can ask my children about the hollering in the car after we left the barber shop..That was at 9 days. Average is a week and half to 3 weeks for TA. The tricky part was that it wasn't at the agency yet and to get even trickier the agency is now closed for the remainder of the week until next Monday.. December 30th. We had been praying hard for TA to arrive at Lifeline today. From the time it arrives we request the first available Consulate Appointment, the last thing you do in Guanghzou before you come home, your whole trip is built around this date. The agency then felt like a Gotcha day of 1/13 was a strong possibility and still does although they'll never say anything is final, well, until it is.. It takes 1-2 days to get a confirmed CA so we were hoping the TA would come today and then although they would be closed they could communicate via email about the CA date and we could book tickets and be ready to go on 1/10!!! Well... sadly no TA came today.. Odds are it would've come tomorrow but they're closed.. TA comes via DHL delivery and those are being held until Monday. So... what do we do now.. well after I worked through the disappointment I felt a peace, a peace that passes all understanding.. You see, I really have NO reason to question God's goodness at this point. Nope.not.one.reason. God doesn't see dates on a calender. It doesn't matter to him that Lifeline is closed for the rest of the week and that our TA is sitting somewhere waiting on us. God is already working behind the scenes to secure a super fast CA appointment, to super naturally save a CA appt for us the week of 1/20 ( they'll be filling fast before Chinese New Year) and those tickets that could be sky high  booking a mere likely 7 days before we leave the country, nope, they will come under our budget of $7K. Honestly when I feel down and worried I look back on what God has done over the past 11 months. Our adoption start to Finnish with Molly in our arms on 1/13 will only be 11 1/2 months. Ya'll that is super fast for an International Adoption. I look back at what happened with our Article 5 and what he did there, I look at our fast TA and how God knew I was pleading with him for news prior to Christmas and he blessed us with that. I am claiming now that God is already getting everything in order for us to leave on 1/10, a super fast confirmed CA, a CA the week of 1/20 and our tickets to come in within our budget of $7K. Please join us this Christmas in praising him for all he has already done and will do to work this all out so we're holding our baby on 1/13. I CAN NOT believe we are nearly finished. At this point it's pack, buy tickets, get cash in order and go get her! We'd like to thank you all for your amazing support this year in helping us bring Molly home. We could not have done this without your prayers and help. Hopefully this time next week we'll be getting ready to have a confirmed CA and buy those plane tickets!!! God is able indeed!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The Christmas miracle!

We were blown away a week ago Thursday! We were working all week to get our Supplement 3 completed and to secure our new 800 approval to move forward with our article 5 on Monday. At 230 in the am Thursday an email came through saying our article 5 was ready to be picked up?! I thought for sure this was a mistake, more like a mass email that went out to several. After some emailing with our agency we were told it indeed was NOT a mistake and we were picked up! WOW!! The article 5 process is a two week process and we had just jumped forward 2 week and 2 days! Now we were in the Travel approval wait. Typical TA wait is 1.5-3 weeks although some in our agency had gotten TA in 7 days last week.. Once we get TA we will request our first available and then book tickets and hopefully head out soon! ( after Christmas for sure) We are really feeling hopeful that our TA will come this week and we would be able to get a 1/6 Gotcha day or more likely 1/13.. Would you please join us in praying for this TA to come tomorrow or Friday? It can come by phone anytime from 1030-530 our time, Alabama is an hour behind us and they work 9-430... I'm a cleaning, organizing crazy person right now. I am keeping my car spotless and you should see the bags for goodwill tomorrow. Do you think I can re paint my cabinets and my bedroom before we leave?! Nesting is in full.swing.. A lot of people have asked what exactly happened with the article 5? The truth is we don't know... Maybe they just held everything and when the new info came they just pushed it through quickly? Maybe they used the medical expedite and that helped or maybe and most likely this was a God thing and he loves Molly more then we ever could and wants her home asap also.. We are beyond thankful for the ability to catch up and please, please join us in praying this TA in over the next 2 days.. God IS able!!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Heres where we stand and PRAY

Once again we are back in the final stretch. Lord whiling for the last time this time. As you know, or if you don't know, please read the post before this, we were delayed. Hopefully, prayerfully, this delay will be over on Monday and we can get back in the article 5 process. Our supplement 3 is in the building and we just need the new 800 approval, new GUZ # and new PDF and we'll be back in business! The article 5 process normally takes 2 weeks and then we begin our Travel Approval wait. These are coming anywhere between 1-3 weeks, one came in today at 7 days!! This is great news. We also will submit a medical expedite letter for Molly and PRAY it works.. This "could" move us through the article 5 and TA process more quickly but there is no guarantee. Our agency feels we have a 50-50 chance of it working.. Once we get TA we will take the first available CA, consulate appointment and board a plane possibly in just a few days and be outa here! Things get tricky though.. real tricky.. because of a holiday called Chinese New Year .... The country literally shuts down for 14 days. Ya'll I'm going to be honest. If we don't get in before Chinese New Year you possibly will have to come and pick me up off of the floor- I do trust God's time is the right time, I do trust that God is in control. BUT, God's plan is not for Molly to continue to sit in the orphanage without us, his plan was not for her to orphaned in the first place! It's just not.. I know he's holding her in his hands and protecting her but we're done- This momma is ready to have her home. And with Chinese New Year upon us we need your prayers. We need you to pray specifically for;
-Article 5 drop off on 12/16 and pickup on 12/30
-we also need you to pray her medical expedite works
- and that we get a super fast TA
-Indeed that the Lord would hold her in his mighty hands and protect her until we can get there..
Dates could work like this;
Without the expedite-
1 week TA we leave on 1/10 get her on 1/13 and home on 1/24
2 week TA we leave on 1/17 get her on 1/20 and home on 1/31
3 week TA pushes us into CNY:( which means we wouldn't leave until mid to late February..
with the expedite it's any ones guess..
Please join with us as we pray these things. You all have been so, so supportive of us and we are so thankful! God has been faithful and I know he's working over time behind the scenes to get her home timely.. Bless you all in this advent season as we seek our Lord..
xo,
 Brittan

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Final update!

These were words I was not expecting to read today! Sitting in the Drs office with one child there for a check up who also happened to have strep and another who started vomiting on the way to the Drs office I was once again feeling weary.. Although thankful all the shoes were falling off at once and that we weren't in China yet I was kinda ready for things to resume to normal.. All the sudden I see an email come by and it says Final update! I could tell there were pictures and my phone couldn't load them! Ahh!!! Finally the loaded and boy did my heart smile..

 Hello sweet girl.. Boy have I missed your darling face!! Your hair is growing longer and you look so good! Sadly, I can tell your back at the orphanage now which likely means you've left your precious foster momma.. I am so sorry you have to endure yet another change before we come! I promise you we are working as fast as we can and that I along with many, many others are praying so hard for your tender heart! All these changes now and to come.. You are so, so loved my sweet girl! The God of the universe is working around the clock to fix this paperwork issue and bring you home in his perfect timing.. Our hearts and arms long so badly for you though and we are pleading with him to do all he can! I know he is love, we're coming soon, I promise.. Hold on just ta little longer. Your FAMILY is coming!
 We love you so..
 xo momma...

 Friends please pray our medical letter will work to expedite the end of her adoption.. There are no guarantees.. She's teeny tiny but oh so beautiful!
 18.7 pounds 29 "( keep in mind measurements are not always accurate)
 Also please please pray for Molly's tender heart, what a lot of changes she's had especially now leaving her foster momma:(




Saturday, November 23, 2013

"God has allowed this to touch your process"

After a rough 2 weeks, especially this last one with Thomas admitted to MUSC for several nights I was feeling pretty worn down. Really worn down actually:( Tired, emotionally exhausted from some other things going on in our life and then we got the call. Our agency just doesn't call to shoot the breeze. And when I answered the phone and knew it was Karla and Emily on a conference call I knew it wasn't good news. At this stage of the game I didn't really worry about paperwork but about Molly! Although the news wasn't good, wasn't good at all, at least it wasn't about another one of my babies being sick! Turns out that our article 5 process was flagged because the names didn't quit match up I have a hyphenated name on my passport and my licence but on everything else during the normal day to day living I just sign my usual name. Somehow we didn't realize it would be a huge deal and it turned out to be:( The bottom line is this "could" add 6 weeks. Which could be more with Chinese New Year. Which would not be early Jan late Dec but mid Feb!:( The morning had been emotionally rough , then a dr's appt for Thomas wasn't ideal ( still running a fever, no swimming for the rest of Nov at least, no school Monday if not better, this will be the 3rd week out etc..) then the call. As Karla prayed for us I just cried silent tears, streaming down my face, I'm so fragile right now, so worn down, so tired. Other times in the process we've not quit stayed on track losing a week of two, looking back I know now that God knew that Thomas would be so sick and we'd need to be here for him. I'm ok with that but 6 weeks and the thought that God knows something I don't know about the next weeks when we should be traveling honestly frightens me. We've believe whats going on with Thomas to be an attack on our family. We've stepped out in faith and proclaimed God's faithfulness through this whole process. God has been so faithful to us and things were going so well. After we hung up I called my officer and explained the situation. She was so kind and said once she got our supplement 3 she would do it right away and if I sent her an over nigh ted envelope she would over night it to our agency. We'll over night the supplement 3 to the lock box and then if she'll over night the new 800 approval we'll likely only lose 3 weeks not 6.. This weekend I will also get a medical expedite letter together for Molly. We had not needed this in the past and there is no guarantee that it will make a difference but we can try. The truth is that she is un repaired and needs to come home. If she is experiencing nerve damage, which is highly likely, then nerve damage is unrepairable. I'm looking for an MD to sign the letter for me which we'll send it to China to try to expedite the article 5 process and beyond. God whiling these 2 things will catch us back up where we need to be. I'm so thankful that God loves Molly so much and wants her to come home, I'm so thankful that he's on top of this even when I feel so weak. Thomas looks pretty good although he's pale and run a fever often right now. Stomach pain is minimal since we came home which is great. We're awaiting the 12  biopsies and other test results that will hopefully explain a little more. If it is HSP it can takes weeks to recover. Our Dr says it's a significant systemic illness and we just have to watch him, HSP or whatever it is. Please pray for us, pray for healing for Thomas, protection of the others and Tommy and I. And for the remainder of the process- that we could catch back up quickly and at this point have her home BEFORE Chinese New Year if not sooner. Throughout this whole process We have proclaimed God is able, I know he is..

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Article 5 process

Big milestone completed last night as we recieved our GUZ # and our PDF from the NVC. Now all of our paper work goesto Guanzhou to begin the article 5 process. Everything should be dropped off on Monday 11/18/13 and picked up on 12/2/13. Once that happens we start our wait for TRAVEL APPROVAL! These are coming between 1 1/2 - 3 weeks right now on average. A three week TA wait would put us recieving it Christmas week. We then get in line for CA, consulate appointmnet and once we have that we book our flights and GO!
 We're trying to pack as much as we can,  and go ahead and buy Christmas presents so that the month of December can be spent focusing on the children and not stressing about all the last minute things we need to do to leave:) With West's birthday today, then my sister's wedding, Thanksgiving, and the celebration of our Lord all month in December things can and will go fast! We haven't seen Molly's sweet face since late July nor any new videos.. So so ready to have her home! We're coming sweet girl!!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Nearing the END!

It's hard to believe that we're nearing the end of our journey to Molly. I'm waiting on my PDF from the NVC as we speak, then we complete the D260 and begin our article 5 process. Things are b.u.s.y here.. Christmas is 7 weeks away and Molly hopefully 8! We're planning West's 6th birthday this week, then Thanksgiving, and Christmas and China all at one time. Fundraising has been going well and I think we are sitting in a good place to travel with some grants coming in these past few weeks. Christmas travel is pricey.. Real.pricey.. The good news is though that God is bigger then those pricey flights and he wants Molly home more than we do! God is faithful! Through this whole process we've wanted to glorify God and keep pointing back to him. We never want folks to not step out bc of finances if HE calls you to adoption HE will provide. Please keep praying for Molly and this big transition ahead of her. It's very possible they will return her to the orphanage from her foster family before we come, please pray for that and her tender little heart.. Please pray for traveling mercies and things to go as smooth as possible. Hartley is going with us and although it will be much harder for her to go we def feel like it's what we need to do for her and her transition as well. She is very attached to me and Tommy, and the Lord has clearly spoken to us that she needs to go. She's excited to go and has been helping me shop and pack! My boy's tender hearts and for them to stay healthy while we're away! No ER visits, sicknesses etc. After article 5 we begin our Travel approval wait! We're almost there!

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A piece of my heart...

A piece of my heart is living outside of my body.. And not just outside of my body but across the world from our home.. Most days it's OK, we're busy and life just moves along. I treasure these days with Thomas, West and Hartley knowing all to well the reality of what lies ahead. The immense blessing but also the reality of the challenges that will come. I'm Christmas shopping, preparing a Thanksgiving menu, preparing for Trick or Treating and in my mind, and sometimes actions, beginning to pack..  I was pretty bummed last week when we were unable to get new pictures and video of Molly. I had hoped it would help me hold on this little bit longer. We did get some questions answered and although I'm super thankful for them they have made me long for her more, and be a little sad for her. I had tried really hard to get info on her foster sister.. Sadly we never got any and now she's been adopted. Sweet Molly has suffered another loss.. Although it's wonderful she's with her forever family Molly must wonder where she is..I had hoped to know where she had gone so I could keep them in touch.. no avail so far.:( We also learned that Molly was with her birth parents for nearly a year, then in a foster home, then the orphanage for a year and now this last foster family for the past year. Once with us that will be 5 major transitions in 2 1/2 years. I had honestly become a little relaxed about attachment disorders since she was with a foster family, hearing this has made me more alert and will have me working extra hard to bond with her. I'll do a big attachment post later and what that looks like for adopted kiddos but it means that Tommy and I have to be her main caregivers/comforters etc for a long while. What it looks like for each child is different, but I would guess a solid 6 months of just us meeting her needs, no gym nursery, babysitters etc. No one else can feed her, even if she wants food from you,you have to direct her back to us lovingly. I won't be a nervous Nelly about it. and honestly I've parented all my children like this to a certain extent. Kept them all close and still only leave them rarely. It's different for these kiddos though, caregivers have been interchangeable and she's been through a lot. She needs to know who her family is, mom, dad, 2 brothers, a sister.. I'm excited for Halloween tomorrow, West turns 6 in early November, we have swim meets coming up, then my sister is getting married, Thanksgiving, Christmas and we should be on a plane shortly there after! I know it will go fast and I don't want to rush it but my heart aches for our Molly.. To hold her, to hug her, to smell her, stroke her dark hair.. It's like a little switch has gone off and I'm ready to get off of this train..
 Paperwork wise we are waiting on our 800 approval. This approval gives us permission to bring Molly specifically into the country. Once we get that we move onto our GUZ and PDF then our article 5 process and then our TA, travel approval. After that we wait for our CA, consulate appointment and then we hop on a plane! We have some big news to share early next week regarding fundraising.. stay tuned! Right now we are praying in a few more grants to help us with our tickets specifically. God is faithful and I know his timing will be perfect for all of this here at the end.. We're coming sweet girl!!!!!
                                            Our visas heading off to get a Chinese stamp in them on top and our official LOA on the bottom from China!! Both say "extremely urgent.."

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Have we raised all of our money?

This is a question we get a lot.. Are you finished fundraising, how much more do you need.. ? The short answer is no.. We still have a good bit to go and it's going to cost a little more to go at peak travel time in December then another time of the year, almost double what a normal ticket cost x4... When I feel nervous about how we'll make it I think back on how faithful God has been on this journey he has called us to. We started 8 months ago and through fundraising and grants we've brought in $24,000.00. That's a crazy amount of money, more than some folks make in a year!! We've done a lot of really successful fundraisers and had some generous grants. To date I am waiting to hear from 4 grants that I am super, super prayerful will make up the last bit of our funds to help us bring Molly home. Because we personally raised $17K of the $24K we don't feel led to do another big fundraiser right now. This has been fast! If she's home in December that's only a 10 month process for an International Adoption, not much down time, which is great to get her home, but tough fundraising wise because folks need to rest in between hearing from us asking them to donate. What can you do? Please join us in praying these grants in and that God would do immeasurably more then we could ask or imagine to bring Molly home. We are faithful that God loves Molly more then we ever could and he will continue to provide to bring her home to us. God is able friends.. xo
 ( certainly if you feel led to give you can give through our site on the main page)

Thursday, October 17, 2013

LOA!!!!!!!!

BIG, BIG, BIG news came today. We have our Letter of Acceptance from China which means we'll have Molly in our arms, our arms, WOW, probably by the end of the year! 8-12 weeks is the estimate. Christmas will derail us a little but if everything goes as planned we "might" could leave December 26 or 27th!!! I'll write more later but wanted to share this big news now. Requesting new video, pictures, measurements and questions tonight. Hopefully more exciting news to come! Please begin praying now for all the little details. Molly's heart to be prepared for this big change ahead, my sweet boys whom we're leaving behind ( have never even been away for a weekend..) our health and the Grants to come through to make up all the extra money we need here at the end! God is able!

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Where are we in the process?

Hello faithful followers. Just checked out stats and since we started the 2-26-13 we've had 16K hits on our blog! Isn't that incredible? Things are going really well. We received our LID (Logged in date) and am now waiting on out LOA (letter of acceptance) from that we could travel in 2- 2 1/2 months! Our LID was 9-16-2013 and from then begins the wait. China was shut down for a Holiday last week but will resume this week as normal. We were OOT ( out of translation) before they shut down so hopefully soon, very soon we'll be LOA. Once we receive LOA we'll submit our 800 paperwork to immigration to bring Molly into the country then a few other steps like PDF and Article 5 pick up and drop off, TA ( Travel approval) and CA ( Consulate appointment). There is a slim chance we could have her by Christmas but not likely now. We don't have a peace about being away from the boys for Christmas and in China. Gotcha days are normally on Mondays so the only days to have her and be home by Christmas are December 2 or December 9th. If those don't work out hopefully we can leave right after Christmas or once the boys get back to school. As much as we'd love to have her here by Christmas, it's also not ideal for her to transition in at that time. Christmas, although I try to be as prepared as possible, it's still a busy, stressful time.. Ultimately we believe in God's perfect timing and know that she will come home in HIS perfect time, not ours... It does help to know she is being loved and well taken care of.  2 big prayer request are outlined below;
 It is a common practice in China to take the children back to the orphanage before their adoptive parents travel. As you can imagine this is very traumatic for the little ones who have come to know and love their adoptive parents. There is a small chance she "might" be able to stay where she is until we come and that is our big prayer right now..
 Secondly we do still have a ways to go with fundraising.. We have three big grants, possibly 4 out there that we hope and pray will work out for us. One did just deny us but said we could apply again, which we have. The information they had was not as up to date as it should have been and they wanted us to have 50% raised before they would help us, we have and so hopefully now they will help us. They will review on November 6th...

 Thank you for your prayers and your support, we'll also get another update with pics/videos/questions and measurements once we have an idea of travel time!! Woohoo!!!!

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Great news!!!! We made our goal of another $2k!! This means lifesong for orphans will double it and it is really $4k!! The other exciting news is that we were also awarded a grant for $5k from show hope!! To date and with the grants we are at $24k in 7 months!! Well on our way! Thank you all for your prayers, donations and shares!! We are so thankful!!

Sunday, August 4, 2013

New fundraiser, matching grant!

Faithful friends, we have been awarded a $2K matching grant through Lifesong for Orphans. We have until September 22 to raise $1980.00. Once we raise our $2K they will award us $2K, making a total of $4k! Taking our total raised thus far to $19K!!! We are so thankful to Lifesong for helping us bring Molly home and I'm confident we can once again meet our goal! All monies have to be made to Lifesong for Orphans, NOT US! Here is the paypall info, if you would like to send a check please include Gotbeter #3795 in the memo line and make out to Lifesong for Orphans, you can mail here and we'll send all at once. Thank you in advance for supporting us and making Molly one less. We are in the homestretch to bring her home now and praying her here by Christmas!! https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Update on sweet Molly!

So sorry for the delay in getting this to all of you. We left Friday for a 2 week vacation and this came right before we left. What a blessing this update has been to us! Molly is doing super super well! She is very happy, talking up a storm and potty trained during the day! She has a foster sister who is 5 years old and they all sleep in the same bed. They say she sleeps very well and all night, loves anything delicous, enjoys going shopping and is afraid of anyone in a doctors coat.. The changes in her over the last 4 months have been remarkable! We are very, very thankful! Her password to her video is molly2.
http://vimeo.com/70629135 ( copy and paste this link and then use the molly2 password)

Monday, July 1, 2013

Sweet Summertime

Hi! We haven't forgotten about you all.. We are enjoying sweet summertime with the children and taking a break from fundraising. We are also in one of the many quiet waiting times for adoption. Our home study was approved by SC DSS, our 1800A immigration application was received at the Homeland security and we've walked in early for our Biometric finger print appointments. Now we just wait for approval from them. The 1800A approval is the last piece of info we need to get our Dossier off to be authenticated and translated to head over to China. DTC, Dossier to China. Once we are DTC we wait to be logged in and then we wait for LOA once we get LOA we are about 3 months from traveling to bring Molly home. Praying her home by Christmas! We plan to request new pictures and videos and ask more questions in August so that will be really exciting! How can you help? Currently we are collecting airline miles... Traveling at Christmas time intertanionally is estimated to be $2500.00 per round trip ticket, we need 3 and Molly's one way ticket home. The miles are estimated at 70K each. I think we have enough for 1 so we still need 2 more. Do you have any airline miles you could donate?  Please feel free to contact us anytime with garage sale items or questions. We'll have more soaps soon and will get fundraising back up and running full time in the fall. We still need;

$3300.00 or so at LOA
$12K to wire to China for our in country fees
Flights estimated at $7500.00 plus Molly's 1 way ticket home, or 70K miles per round trip ticket
$3K spending cash in China

We have applied for several grants which we hope will make up our $12K in country cost but still have a ways to go with the rest. I know God is faithful and it will all be taken care of one way or another to bring Molly home! Thank you for your prayers and your support! We are getting closer!

Friday, June 14, 2013

$10,000.00 challenge recap!

So remember that time when we had that crazy idea to raise $10K in 60 days? Remember how impossible that seemed? Remember how I posted on facebook 2-3 times every day for 60 days, fearing that I'd have no friends by the end of it? Remember how I private messaged everyone on my friend list if they hadn't commented on a status, remember how I thought I am driving everyone crazy! Remember how our friends shared and shared and kept sharing our story. Remember how I came to realize that we were fighting for one who was unable to fight for herself...? Remember how our friends and family and total strangers stepped up and blessed us more than we could imagine? Remember how God took that mountain of $10K and exceeded it...? Yea, that all just happened.. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

 We started the challenge because we needed to make some big money. We've said it before, but adoption is costly, and we don't have more than enough.. $31K is the estimated cost to bring Molly home. What the challenge has allowed us to do now is to rest for the remainder of the summer. We need to rest, and our friends need a break from us fundraising constantly. Resting is a Biblical  princaple and we have decided that the summer is a great time for us to break. Our next set of fees, our Dossier fees will be paid out of the remainder of the Give $10. From there we will have LOA $3K fees in the fall, then once we receive TA we have to wire $12K to China for in country cost, flights estimated at $5500.00 and spending money to have in China estimated at $3K. If you've been reading for a while you've seen me mention grants, to date we've applied for 7 grants and we are looking into some more. We are prayerful that those grants can make up our in country cost of $12K and maybe even some if not all of our flight costs. Leaving us to raise our LOA fees of $3K and our spending money of $3K. Come the fall will be in the homestretch. We're looking into some fun ideas such as a family Barbecue, selling tickets and things like that. More garage sales & soaps etc! Honestly though, I'm not worrying about it, we need to be smart with our time and fundraising but God has this totally under control! Look what he's done in the last 60 days!  So probably no fundraising over the summer, I always have soaps and  we'll probably have a garage sale at some point but over all we'll just rest, enjoying our kiddos and the summer! We'll keep blogging and your certainly welcome to contact us at any point with donations, encouragement, questions etc.

 The fall will bring lot's of excitement! Thomas goes to 2nd grade, West starts all day K5 and Hartley will begin her preschool journey 9-12 Mon, Wed and Friday. Hopefully things will continue to move quickly for us, grants will be favorable, and we'll be home with Molly to celebrate our saviours birth in December! We truly can't thank you enough for your support, your prayers, your love and your donations. Just as a friend's story was an inspiration to me when they were fundraising, I hope that ours is to someone else. Please don't let $$ be a stumbling block when you decide to proceed with adoption. God is able and he will provide to bring these precious babies home. I'll leave you with a sweet story today. We were in Publix and the cashier ask how the adoption was coming along, we tell everyone about Molly!, Anyway we were talking and I was telling him about the awesome things God has done with the challenge. The bagger then tells us he was in foster care as a child and separated from his sister for a while. He said  "mam, what your dong is really amazing, some kids never get adopted.." Right before my eyes was a precious 20 year old who was in foster care and knew first hand how important is was to be adopted. I proceeded to tell him our story and listen to his as he loaded my groceries into the car. ( LOVE PUBLIX) Bless you all, enjoy your summer and let's get ready to bring Molly home this fall/winter!!

Monday, June 10, 2013

LAST 36 HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ending the day with another $20 donation! Down to an even $1400 with 1 hour and 3 days to go! Keep sharing!! Let's pray this last little bit in , look how far we've come in 56 days! $10K in 60 days is nothing to our God! Give $10 change a life campaign! Raising $10K in 60 days, 1 $10 donation at a time all to bring sweet precious Molly home to our family. Bless you all for your help!! 

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

9 more days!!!!!!!!

Down $100 this am! Keep sharing! The countdown is on! 9 more days!! $2820.00 to go! $120 in donations over the night! Would you please help us by sharing this status and donating $10 towards our goal. Give $10 change a life campaign. Raising $10K in 60 days 1 $10 donation at a time! Your donation directly impacts the life of an orphan in China. Molly has unrepaired spinabifda and a club foot, we are working towards bringing her home so we can get her the health care she needs and to be a part of our family forever! www.gotbeterstochina.blogspot.com

Monday, May 27, 2013

Here we go!

We're in the home stretch! Would you please share and donate to our Give $10 challenge? God IS able!!

 Day 43!! 17 days to go!!!! We have $3700.00 to go to make our goal. Please donate $10 and share with your friends:) God IS able! Give $10 change a life campaign! Raising $10K in 60 days!!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

How can you help and what are we up to?

There are several slower periods in the adoption process and we are in one now.. I'm thankful for slower because I worked like a crazy person getting our documents ready, reading and doing all of the things we had to do to get ready for our home study, passports, etc. God gave me 2 promises starting this journey and one was that things would go fast, they have but I never want grass to grow under my feet and we have a hold up because of it. That means I try to turn things around as fast as I can. We have finished our home study in record time, have applied for both of our passports, and having to reapply for Hartley's, a couple hic ups on her application including the fact that she had a bow in her hair when the picture was taken, um of course she had a bow in her hair and a big one at that! lol We are waiting on our home study to be finalized and head to Columbia to the DSS office there. We have filled out our Immigration paperwork and it's ready to go, The home study and Immigration paperwork will meet up together at Immigration. Once we get all of that back then we are working on our Dossier. Lifeline already has everything they need for the Dossier minus those two things so once it gets back there they sent it through the state of Alabama to be authenticated and then we are DTC. Dossier to China. We hope to be DTC no later than August 1st but hoping it could be sooner. Then after that we wait to be Logged in , which is normally 30 days, so September 1st then we wait for LOA, Letter of Approval, typically this was taking 90 days to get but for families who are already have PA pre approval  they are seeing it come a little sooner like on the 30 day side of things. This "should" be the longest wait for us here on out.. If it really comes in 30 days we'll probably be in China in December, if it comes later it could be February. This part of the process has very little do to with myself or my social worker. No matter how quick I can turn things around I can't make all of that go any faster.. God's timing is perfect but of course we want Molly home with us as soon as possible!! How special to have her here for Christmas!! God is faithful friends and we are believing for just that! As many of you know  we are in the middle of a Give $10 change a life campaign. Each day we are asking for $10 donations to raise $10K in 60 days! Today is day 31 and we really really need your help! If you've been reading for a while and wishing you could help sweet Molly, this is what we need! Please share share share share on your social media. Don't just share though talk a little about Molly and why your friends should help? Here is our status from yesterday! Please help us friends! We literally can not do this without you all!! Make sure you share our blog link when you do:)
                                                HALF WAY THERE!!!!!! IN DAYS AND $$!!

Day 30 and we have raised $5k and have $5 to go!!!
Give $10 change a life campaign. Raising $10K in 60 days, 1 $10 donation at a time. Would you please donate today & share with your friends? 

Friday, May 10, 2013

New pictures!

Yay!! Happy early Mother's day to me! This am we got several new pictures of Molly and a video! Thank you Lord!!! Isn't she precious?





Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Have you seen Pure Charity?

Seems pretty cool? Just getting involved. You can easily find causes to help fund and all the funds go directly into our agency's account for us. They even move the ticker for you! This week has been filled with getting all sorts of things ready for our Dossier to go to China DTC here in a couple of months. We've finished our home study, woohoo! And am also working on some grant applications, please Lord show us favor! Paying out a good bit of money this week which will then wipe us totally out and we'll start over again. I do like that about China, you know what you need when you need it. Each step of the way God has been faithful and we are believing he will continue to be! Hoping to get that updated update of Molly by Sunday night! I'm so excited to see her sweet face again! Would you please continue to pray for her, for us and for our fundraising? Sharing our blog with a little intro on social media or a mass email is the best way right now. You can even share this link. They make it pretty easy!
 https://purecharity.com/brittan-gotbeters-adoption?aff=empon

 Also to be paid this week..
4634.00 due now  
$225 homestudy fee
$890 immigration application
$2800.00 3rd agency fee
$140 PA fee
$39 Shelby County courthouse
$65 Alabama secretary of state
$150 Cindy Marut
$325 My China Docs

Monday, May 6, 2013

Give $1 Save 1 Asia, it's us this week!

Hi friends. I've come across a great website called Give $1 save 1 Asia. Each week they strive to rain down a crazy blessing on a new family by asking each person who looks at the blog to give just a $1 to help them achieve their goals. Hop on over to the webiste and check it out. Could you give a $1 today to help us bring Molly home? Every little bit helps and we are so thankful!
http://give1save1asia.blogspot.com/

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Update and sweet video( ticker update!)

 This video just warms my heart so! When I watch Jennifer talk about adoption and Wesleigh running around it just fills my heart for such excitement for Molly! Our prayer is that when celebrating her 1 year anniversary home she will also be running around like you see here! Can't get her video to load on the blog so see it here on their blog, top on the side bar:)

http://baseballstobows.blogspot.com/?m=1


Also we are on Day 19 of our Give $10 change a life campaign. We are trying to raise $10k in 60 days to help bring Molly home. Each day we are looking for 16 $10 donations to make that happen. To date we have raised, $3030.00 towards our Give $10, we have 41 more days to raise $6,970.00. Our overall fundraising has hit $6300.00 though! Each step of the way God has been faithful to bring us just what we need at the right moment. Would you help us pray in 630 more $10 donations to make our goal? Would you share our blog with your friends and challenge them?

Friday, May 3, 2013

Could you help?

We are on day 18 of our Give $10 challenge. Would you help us today by donating $10 to our Give $10? We are raising $10K in 60 days with one $10 donation at a time. It's so important that we keep plugging along. $2800.00 due Monday, also $225 to go to Columbia with our homestudy, and an additional $890.00 to immigration. Thank you so much for your help to bring Molly home!

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Molly's Medical Special needs..

You've seen me make reference to her medical special needs before on here. What are they you may ask? First let me say that I have come to learn there are two schools of thoughts on this whole deal. To disclose or not to disclose. Molly doesn't have much privacy and we have mostly been an open book through out this whole deal. For a while we wanted to keep her personal stuff private. And we have.. but as we've been praying about it and reflecting on the situation we've come to understand a few things. First of all, we wouldn't have said yes to Molly if it weren't for other families who had divulged information, opened their hearts, and telephones, for lengthy conversations with me, some all the way across the country, to help me better understand Molly's situation. I am so thankful for them and their willingness to be open about what they had gone through! Second of all, your going to find out anyway, eventually. Molly will need surgery at some point when she gets here and we'll want to share with you & ask you to pray for us. We didn't share right away because it took us a while to come to understand how we were going to handle this and to fully start to  process what our life will now look like with this amazing blessing in our life. So without further adu...
                               Molly has unrepaired Spinabifida and a club foot....
If born in the USA Molly would have been born via c section and would have been operated on right away. This precious angel is now 2 and has been like this for too long... The mass that Molly has is really, really low down on her back near her bottom, honestly we don't know for sure what it is but we have sought the prayers and advice of all sorts of medical professionals. Including but not limited to a Neurosurgeon, a Peds ER Dr. at MUSC, our Pediatrician, OT's, PT's, friends with children who have this and so much more. We did everything on our end to research all we could about the care that Molly would need and what her sweet little life will look like with this condition. Once home she'll need a sedated MRI at MUSC to determine exactly what we are dealing with, from there I am sure surgery will be scheduled to remove it. Our prayer is that it is the type of Spinabifia that is a fatty mass, I do not suspect her spinal cord is in the pouch. A big concern with Spinabifida is paralysis. We don't think Molly is paralyzed.... If you've watched her video you can see her moving her legs, like crazy! She isn't walking unassisted but is trying! Honestly we feel like she isn't walking because of her club foot and because she is most likely developmentally delayed. Most children with Inter country adoption are.. It's going to be a hard year, we are prepared, we have done all we can and will continue to, to prepare for her. Our prayer is at the end of the 1st year our precious Molly will have had her mass removed, her club foot repaired ( this will likely involve casting and or surgery) and that she will be happy, healthy and well adjusted in her forever family. Yes we know it will be hard.. If you've been around for a while you know Hartley totally threw our family for a curve ball. She was really really hard.. Severe colic, reflux, it was not fun. That was really hard because I didn't expect her to be hard. We are expecting sweet Molly to be slightly challenging with her adjusting, and her special medical needs, but hoping it will be a little easier because we are preparing ourselves for it.. The bottom line and the peace that the Lord finally gave us is that she is our daughter & the Lord will equip us in any way that we need! Please continue to pray for Molly, for the process to continue at a swift pace, for her precious foster momma, for our family & for the fundraising. Mollys theme song is God is able, we are proclaiming that moving forward with Molly!
 EDIT* What we know about Spinabifida is that the lower down on the spine the better, hers is as low as it could go! 20% of people walk around with Spinabifida and you'd never know it. Also we created a new video bc we are going to be featured on a blog the week of May 5th called Give $1 Save 1 and I needed a new shorter video more geared directly towards Molly*

New pictures and video coming!! ( & Special needs info coming soon )

Ya'll the precious orphanage lady sent her sincere apologies that we had gotten video/pictures that we already had. She said she couldn't get to her Foster home for 2 weeks but that she would go and get us new pictures and videos. She said she was really sorry. How precious is that? I am so blessed today to know that Molly seems to be taken care of by folks who really care about her. Thank you Lord! So... you've heard us mention Molly is Special Needs. Our sweet little one does have some medical special needs, there are two schools of thoughts on whether or not to disclose them or not. After much prayer and consideration we have decided to disclose and will try to release a new video tonight and post about exactly what Molly has going on. I'll do my best to get it up tonight but have been doing 10 hours of Hauge training and 9 hours of Crossings training to complete our Homestudy, this week! Thank you for praying for us and for donating. Would you please continue to share our blog and donate just $10 to help us bring her home? Our current challenge is Give $10 change a life. We are trying to raise $10K in  60 days to help bring Molly home. Although a big goal all we really need is 16 $10 donations a day or some larger ones to make fewer people who have to donate. We are believing God is able to do immeasurably more then we could ask or imagine, would you join us?

Monday, April 29, 2013

The update!

We got an update from our agency on Sunday afternoon. The 9 questions we had answered warmed my heart so! The best one was when I ask if she had a lovey or a blankie that she was fond of, they answered that no she was very fond of her foster mother and needs her to hug her a lot. This is wonderful news for a child who has been through all that Molly has. Although she will grieve heavily for her once she is in our arms, the thought already makes me want to cry for the both of them, I know that she is capable of forming relationships and is being loved and cared for by this precious women. For that I am very very thankful! We also ask questions like did she have anything with her when she was found and the answer was no, just her sweet little self. In addition we ask what her name means and what they call her? They call her "ZhenZhen". Some of her sweet story I am going to keep private out of respect for her life but I will share what we can, hence the above. We requested new pictures and what we got were picturea shot from the day that the orginal video was made for our agency. I'm sure they had no way of knowing we had already seen that, so we wrote back requesting new pictures and a video, hopefully that will come at some point! We are very thankful for what we did get though!! You'll see it looks similar to the screen shots I took a few days before..



Saturday, April 27, 2013

Day 12!

Only 48 more days to go to meet our goal! I don't have firm numbers this am but we should be right about $7800 from the $10k goal! We raised $2k in the first 9 days! Thank you friends and thank you Lord! Woud you share her video today and donate if you haven't? Here are a few screen shots from her videos, she's pretty sad in them & we're hoping for a new picture or two and a video this week!!



Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Why we fundraise and the next steps!

I have to be honest and say a 60 day challenge is cracking up to be a lot! If we were to ever do something like this again I think I'll stick to 30 days! But here we are day 9 trucking along, God's showing up, friends are sharing and donating and for that I am very thankful! Very! While chatting with a friend today about how uncomfortable I am personally messaging friends and asking them to donate, posting, re posting and posting about the challenge some more she said one sentence that stuck with me and I hope will you also..

                         "We are fighting for one who can not fight for herself!"

Our sweet Molly can not at two years old fight for herself. She just like our other children here depend on us even while she is in China for what she needs. Yes her immediate needs are being met in China but her long term needs, to be in a family and come to know the love of Jesus Christ, to be fed, to be held, to be loved, to grow up in the greatest country on earth, to have siblings and a wonderful family and so much more! Molly needs us and the best way we can serve her right now is to work as hard as we can to get her as fast as we can!! The Bible commands us all to care for orphans, like we've said before not everyone is called to adopt but all are called by God, to care for orphans. Prayer, fostering, adopting, donating to families who are adopting, buying Christmas presents for Foster kiddos, and so much more, everyone can help somewhere! It's been so exciting to see so many of our friends and family rising to the call to care for the orphans, may it be to help us bring Molly home or to serve in other ways!

 We learned some really exciting news about Molly a couple of days ago. Are you ready for it? Molly is not in an orphanage!!! Molly is with a foster family!!! This is really wonderful news for my momma heart!! I don't know much more than that but it's just wonderful news for many many reasons and we are tickled!

 OK the next steps are that our home study is finished by Mid May and heads to Columbia SC with a check for $225.00. As soon as that goes we have a third agency payment due of $2800.00 and our 1800A immigration paperwork goes to the US Government with a check of $890.00.  Once all of that starts to process we will begin to prepare our Dossier to China, you'll see me refer to DTC and that is what that means. Our Dossier is 13 super important documents that goes to the Chinese Government. We hope to be DTC by early to mid August and from then friends the bottom line is that the estimated travel for folks who are already matched is 4-6 months! We could have Molly as soon as November but also as late as January. We are now praying she'll be here by Christmas, can you imagine??

 Thank you for your support, your prayers and your donations. This is been a crazy God ordained journey and we are so thankful y'all are along for the ride!


Monday, April 22, 2013

I'm so excited!!!

Our sweet Molly will get a little treat in the mail tomorrow, April 23rd China time. Molly will lay eyes on her mommy, daddy, two brothers and sister for the FIRST time!! Our sweet angel will see her family for this first time!! We were able to send her 6 pictures through Lifeline's care package program and also ask 10 questions, in addition we reqested 3-5 new pictures and a 1-3 minute video. We should hear back with the pictures and video in 3-5 days from when it is delievered! Will you pray for precious Molly that although at 2 she won't understand, but that her little heart will be filled with such love when she sees us tomorrow!!! My heart is so full these days with you all donating to help bring her home, buying soaps, neckalaces and so much more! We are so thankful that you all are a part of her story and praise God for the ordained path he has laid before us!  Each night I thank God for the 16 who stepped up and pray the next 16 in! We're working hard sweet girl!! We're coming! Your not an orphan anymore! Thank you Jesus!!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Great fundraising day! ( ticker update again!)

Today was the first time I had a table at an event to make money for Molly's adoption. With it being at a church and with lot's of people I knew there, and being the kids preschool, and a church we love and serve at, and where the kids play Upward soccer, I had hoped it would go well! We had sweet little cards that my friend Anne made and our friends at Postnet printed, soaps from Goat's milk stuff, clay jewrly from Compelled Designs and bags from my sister AnnaBelle! I had a fancy card reader and was ready to go! I'd hand everyone a card with a picture of sweet Molly on it and start my speal. This is where all those years of working baby fairs helped me! Put something in their hand, talk fast and hope for the best! Thankfully once they saw sweet Molly's face many of them wanted to bring her home as bad as we do! We did great today and I would love to work more craft fairs if you all have events at your churches or schools that you want to share! The day was also super successful becasue we met our goal again for our Give $10 change a life! To date we've had 16 donors each 5 days which as raised a total of $800.00 so far! We are on our way! Thank you all! Here is our table from today, simple and sweet and my scary Tiger who had a wonderful time at the Spring Fling!  Update! We just hit $5000.00 in our adoption fundraising!! Woohoo!


Day 5

Friends God has been so faithful to bring us 16 donations a day so far for the challenge. If you missed the video, we have just started the Give $10 change a life Challenge. We are asking 1000 of our friends and family, and their friends and family, to give just $10 to help us raise $10,000.00 in 60 days to bring Molly home! As you know adoption is costly and we don't have enough... Although some are against fundraising.. for many folks it is crucial to responding to the call that God has called them to. The neat thing about fundraising is that is allows other to come alongside of the adoptive family and help, to be a part of Orphan care. The truth is that not everyone is not called to adopt but everyone is called by God to support orphans and widows. This looks differently for everyone, some will adopt, some will foster, some will support those who do, through prayer, donations and more! By becoming part of the solution and doing our part we can lower the number of 147 million orphans one at a time. One adoption, one fundraiser, one foster home.. And it's super exciting to support to an adoption, even just in small ways, and then see that sweet baby come home! I can tell you first hand to know that you helped just a little and see that precious child is amazing! We are so thankful for all of you and your help! What a joyful homecoming it will be when Molly is home and an orphan no more!
When you reap your harvest in your field and have forgotten a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be for the alien, for the orphan, and for the widow, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 24:19, NASB)

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Feels so good! ( ticker update! )

It feels so good today to be able to freely talk about Molly and share with you all her picture! Thank you for your excitment, love, prayers and donations today! Tomorrow is day 3 of the challenge and we are praying in another 16 folks who can give $10 to bring Molly home! As soon as our homestudy is finished which is mid May we have another agency fee of $2800 and an 1800A Paperwork fee to the Homeland security for $890.00! Thank you all! Please keep sharing our blog link with her video That really is the best way to make it easy for folks to donate. So thankful for ya'll!!!


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Meet Molly!

What an emotional couple of weeks we have had and really almost a month of crazy emotions... Being in the special focus group through Lifeline we could match at any time and didn't have to be LID ( Logged in) to look at precious children. We would occaonsailly look at the list and inquire or not about certain kiddos. These kiddos go fast.. Early one Saturday am I was up early and taking a nose around. It was about 6:30am and I saw her sweet face for the first time. As you know, she is precious so it was easy to be drawn to her! I have to say I didn't know for sure she was ours but I had a sneaky suspicion. We were the first to see her so we locked her file, when you lock a file it means you have two weeks to research her file and go from there. Over the next two weeks we turned her file upside down, specialist, OT's, PT's, my ped, my friend a peds ER Dr and so many more. At first we said no, then yes, then no, then yes, back and forth, just begging and begging for clarity and peace about what to do. We sent questions to her orphanage and then more questions after that.. We prayed and begged some more..  The biggest question for us was can we be the best parents to Molly and to our other children we already have at home? Could we make her wait another 10 months at least for a family when someone else could get to her quicker and so many more questions.. As we prayed and begged I started to feel some peace, I kept her picture on my phone and would look at it often. Playing out scenarios in my head of having two possibly very very needy little girls... My boys, my husband, oh the questions! Finally at a women's retreat for Good Shepherd one Saturday God gave me the total peace I had been begging for! During worship I was standing in a corner of the room and I was just overcome with emotion. I knew then that she was ours. God would equip us for all that she and our other children will need!!! Leaving Camp that day I still needed to talk with Tommy and see where he was in the process. We drove over to Seacoast that night and in church he leaned over to me and said "yes"! As soon as we got home and put the little ones down I submitted the email for LOI, letter of intent as soon as I could. Silly me thought LOI was just a letter, um, no, it's a booklet.. As soon as I received the info needed I went to work. Because we were pretty early in the process there was a lot to be done, medicals and gathering of more paperwork before we could submit. I think that took a week and half and once we finally submitted LOI I was so relieved! A week after LOI the CCC*A came back with some question for us. My heart sank and thus began the longest wait of my life.. For almost 7 days we had people all over praying for us and for Molly, there were many times where the devil totally wrecked me to the point of thinking it wasn't going to happen.. Thankfully today we got the call from Emily our social worker saying that they had said YES!!!! We were overjoyed with the news and were ready to move forward right away! I had made this video announcing her and our next fundraiser and had everything ready to go! Oh, one more cool thing about saying YES! I knew Molly's birthday was right around that Saturday but didn't know exactly when. The day after we said yes I went back through her file and would you believe her birthday was on the day we said yes, the actual day that God spoke so clearly to me, she was turning 2!!! Many folks may be wondering wow, how are you going to do all of this? How do you have time now, with three busy little people at home, a husband who has work/school/tutoring...  I heard a sermon by Matt Redmen's wife a couple of weeks ago and she talked about hearing the calling, the tug. For her it was the A21 human trafficking and the work she was to do there.. She thought how Lord? I have 5 babies at home, 5 babies!?! I felt the same way also. How Lord?? We don't have $31,000.00, I am sooo busy already, Hartley has and does still consume more of me then I thought possible!! Sometimes girlfriend likes me to hold her hand while she eats!?! How will I do this? Children adopted from institutions have issues, and sometimes Lot's of them! Molly has health issues, she has a club foot, she'll be delayed? How? Friends, I just have to say that God is faithful!!  He has and is and will continue to equip of emotionally, physically, mentally and finically. Sweet Molly's redemption story already is turning hearts for the Gospel! A mother who chose life for her, who then abandoned her, chose life again! Then Molly in an orphanage, no family, is now One less! 147 million orphans minus one... God is faithful, not only will her story be amazing but what others are witnessing through this process and the work God is doing in our life's is equally amazing. Someone once told me, You don't fix them, they fix you.. Oh come Lord, let your will be done!!! You mights say, what do the kiddos think? They are over the moon! They have been talking and praying about Molly for a while now! Of course they want her here now and so do WE! We are trusting though in God's perfect timing for her and much like being pregnant and knowing that things will change for them all I am soaking up as much one on one time, especially with Hartley as I can.. What do we need to do now? Keep fundraising and pray!!! This process will keep trucking along but we need funds to do that. Everything we have been doing has been great! The garage sales, soaps, 300/100 challenge and more! All of those thing are great but honestly friends we need to make some big money.. Our goal is $10,000.00 over the next 60 days. We need 1000 friends to just give $10!  That's it.  I don't have 1000 facebook friends, but together we all know probably 1000 who could spare $10. Would you please please help us by sharing her story and helping us reach our goal? God is able friends and we are overjoyed to share with you our new daughter Molly!!

Friday, April 12, 2013

1st homestudy and 2nd garage sale

1st homestudy visit, 2nd garage sale and 3rd batch of soaps, totally 150 soaps sold so far $450 in soaps! Wow! Just quickly bc it's super late. The homestudy was great, our lady is super nice! We'll be finished much quicker with this process then we thought which is excellent! Having our 2nd yard sale tomorrow and it is HUGE! Hoping for a great crowd like last time! God is so faithful! It's been a stressful adoption week on some other levels, I can't talk about it and honestly really don't want to anymore but please pray for us. God is able...

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Just waiting...

Just waiting.. So much of this process is just waiting.. We are still waiting on news back from the Oprhanage, still waiting on PA, although thats only been a few days so that doesn't seem too long. Just wating. We are preparing for our first home study visit this week on Thursday am, thats super exciting! We are also preparing for our 2nd Garage sale on Saturday the 13th! Already this one has been a huge success so far! We had some really nice items to sell before hand on craigslist and God has been faithful to bring full price buyers for those things! Already we have made almost what we did on the whole sale last time! Thank you Lord! And thank you to those who have donated! Our shed is full, almost to the roof with items. The Lawnmower or 4 wheeler can't even fit in there! Yay! During our waiting our other three little treasures have been keeping us busy. Soccer, piano, compression fractures (Thomas) birthday parties and more! Hopefully this week we'll have PA and can share our sweetie with you all! Eek!!!




Sunday, March 31, 2013

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! My sweet Thomas said we should order an Easter Basket for his new sister so she would have one when she gets here! Oh how I pray pray pray that she'll be here next year this time. My heart is so burdened for her but also for the 147 million Oprhans in the world.. I am so thankful that we serve an Awesome God who is so faithful and although these precious little ones don't know it yet, they are never truly alone. God is always with them. When I think about our daughter's redemption story it is  an overwhelming feeling! I can't wait to share more with you in the coming weeks! We hope you had a wonderful Easter with your friends and family!!! God is faithful!

Friday, March 29, 2013

We made our 1st Goal!!

Yay! Woohoo!! I was so tickled to mail that check off today!! Thank you to all who have supported us thus far in our journey! We are still trying to get our Letter Of Intent mailed off to China for the sweet little girl, once we get finshed we can share with you her beautiful picture and some more information. Silly me thought LOI was just a letter. Um, no, nothing for China is just a letter.. Medicals, vision testing, TB testing, HIV testing, blood work, BMI, a letter outlining how we will care for her, never leave her, harm her, get her the best medical treatment, education etc. All sorts of forms. Because we are pretty new into this journey we didn't have our medicals done yet so we had to scramble this week to get that taken care of.  Also this week were both fingerprinted, got our passport pictures, filled out passport application/renewal and so much more! Right now we covet your prayers for quick Fundraising and for the process to continue to go smoothly. We really really don't want to make her wait longer than she needs to for us to get to her and my momma's heart already just longs for her to be here with us! The children call her by name and we are praying for her constantly! We can't wait to share her name and her beautiful picture with you all!


Monday, March 25, 2013

The time is now...

It's been a busy night in our house. I was anxiously waiting for an email/phone call all day which arrived at 2:30 this afternoon. Quickly printing papers I rushed off with the two little ones to car pool and swimming. Getting home, dinner, homework, jammies, getting them in bed,  finally able to focus on the task at hand. Tonight, we are working on LOI for a precious little girl in China.. We can't share her picture or details until we get PA for her probably in about 2.5 weeks. (LOI-letter of Intent, which really isn't a letter but a package of papers, and PA is Pre approval) I will tell you she is precious and we are so so excited about her!! Covering her and the process in a massive amount of prayer now that we possibly have our new daughter!
 We are so thankful for the support we have recieved thus far! Folks are always asking though, "What can we do?" There are many ways to help, donating items for the next yard sale on April 6th, Buying Goat's milk soaps, Pampered Chef, Mary Kay etc. But honestly friends what we really need is cash... Toinght we are praying for more friends to step up to our 300/100 challenge. These next steps in the process will all require money and big money at times. Money Tommy and I don't have.. We have said it before but we literally can not do this with our friends and family who come along side of us. The truth is that there is a little girl in China in an Orphange that needs a mom and a day, a family.. In order for us to get to her we have to activeley continue to raise money. If you missed the first post the orginal challenge was for 300 of our friends to each give $100, I couldn't beleieve the math was that simple! 300 x $100 was $30,000.00! If $100 isn't attaintable for you what about asking 10 of your friends to give $10.00 or how about a $50 donation or a $25 donation? Thats 600 friends giving $50 to make $30,000.00 or 1200 friends giving $25.00 to make $30,000.00. We are believing tonight that our facebook family and friends will share our story and share again and again to help us bring our daughter home! Can't wait to see what God will do and to share her with you once PA comes in!!!
 You don't have to have a paypall account to donate through our paypall account just click the button and donate using your credit/debit card. 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fundriasing update

Wow! God is so faithful and our friends amazing! Rarely is there a day that goes by that we don't receive a check or cash, may it be through the mail or in person! The giveaway has been successful and the Goat's milk soap awesome also! I just started selling them about 36 hours ago and have SOLD OUT of the first 50 bars! Thank ya'll so much! I just ordered some more and they should be here early next week. You can read about the neat organization here, http://goatmilkstuff.com/. Neat that we are supporting a good cause while raising money for our "China baby". Which I LOVE by the way that almost every check has that written in the memo line. :):). We are having our first Adoption yard sale this Saturday and once again I can't thank you enough for all of your donations. We said in the beginning and we mean it that we "literally" could not do this without our friends and family! Our house looks like a Goodwill store and I am sure that many many lucky folks will be tickled to buy your goodies your have donated! The give away is still going on through the 22nd so check out the post before this one for those details. Lastly please join us in prayer over a file we have been looking at. I can't share her picture or details here but I'll tell you she is precious.. We've requested some more information from the orphanage and hope to hear back any day now. All of our wonderful Dr friends including our pediactrican have been reviewing her file helping us understand the medical terms and what her needs are.  We are praying that God would make it crystal clear if we are to be the parents to this sweet little darling  awaiting a family in China.. Thank you again for all of your support!! Hope to see you at the yard sale Saturday am! Tell your friends! Also my friend Kristen is doing an online Pampered Chef party for us through facebook. Thanks to all who have ordered there also!!

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Win a Kindle Fire or an Ipod Touch!


Friends we need to raise money for our 1st large agency payment to begin our home study process. We are going to be giving away a Kindle Fire or an Ipod touch. Your CHOICE! I'll draw a name, with a random name picker on March 22 2013. All you have to do is;

 Donate $5.00 for 1 chance
 Donate $20.00 for 5 chances
 Donate $50.00 for 20 chances

Anyone can get one entry just by leaving a comment that you told a friend about this or shared it on your Facebook page. 

 If for some reason we don't raise enough to buy the IPOD touch or the Kindle Fire we'll split what we do make with the winner! $199.00 value! You can donate through our site here to paypall,( you don't have to use a paypall account just your card) or mail or email  me at tgotbeter@gmail.com and I can meet you locally. Thank you for helping us!


Friday, March 1, 2013

4 people needed, could you be one?

It's been an exciting week annoucning our adoption plans and moving forward on the journey to our daughter! Although it may not seem on the outside that things are happening, they are on the inside! My free time is spent with paperwork, researching new fundraising ideas and reading reading reading.. Our initial fundraiser is off to a great start! Let's end the week strong with a solid $1000.00!! We need $460.00 to get there. Just over 4 people who could give 100 towards our 300/100. Could that be you? Could you give $100 today to help us bring our daughter home?

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

"Our China baby!"

If West was to tell you our good news he's say, "We're getting a China baby!" To say the children are tickled pink is an understatement. I'm sure your as shocked as we are/were... Let me share a little background with you. Essentially orphaned myself ( my sister and I) as young children I always always knew that we would adopt at some point. The immeasurable sacrifices that my "mom" made for us as young children and still to this day are unbelievable. She is so dear to me and I can never thank her enough for her selfless love and so much more that she has given to us. Often times, I would think where I would be if she hadn't taken us in after my dad passed away.. Probably foster care,  and most likely my sister and I would have been separated. We always knew adoption was in our future but just didn't know when. After Hartley was born 2 1/2 years ago we knew she wasn't the last. Recently trying with no success we were content.. That all changed about a month ago when a precious little China baby came across my facebook screen. Lifeline was desperately seeking her a home because of some surgery she was needing here in the US. My heart lept as soon as I saw her and I knew, "now is the time.." This sweet little baby will probably find her forever parents before we are far enough in the paperwork to help her, but it was her, that started the journey. The last month has been filled with many obstacles, Lot's of prayers and Lot's of waiting.. I've been so quiet in this journey which is most unlike me. God has been speaking more than I have ever heard him before. Every where we turn there is confirmation after confirmation that we are right where he needs us to be. Tommy and I's hearts have been totally wrecked for the 147 million orphans in this world who need a home. God has also burdened our hearts that it is our time to do something about it. At least for one... a precious little girl we believe is out there just waiting just for us. We don't know her, haven't seen her picture and probably won't for a while. The journey is long, the paper work is mounting and the estimated cost is $31, 000.00. We've already paid out a little and a big payment of $2700.00 is right around the corner. Adoption is costly.. and we don't have enough.. When praying about the situation God has given us an unbelievable peace. I keep hearing, " I will provide...trust me!" So we are! We are moving forward in total faith and obedience claiming that our God is more than ABLE to move what seems like mountains, paper work, home studies, $31, 000.00, leaving my babies for two weeks to go to China. HE is able, not Brittan and Tommy, but God. You may be asking yourself, how can we help? First of all we covet your precious prayers. Prayers for our daughter, wherever she is and whatever her situation, please cover her with us! Prayers for Tommy and I as we begin this blessed journey to her, prayer for our children, my super attached babies will need 12-15 months of prayer for us to leave them for two weeks, and prayer for finical provision.. When reflecting on the finical part of it it was brought to my attention that we only really need 300 friends to donate $100 each. I honestly couldn't believe it was that easy. I even checked the math twice! Now I know that $100 is a big sacrifice, goodness knows it would be and IS for Tommy and I! Maybe it looks like you asking 10 friends to give $10 towards the $100 or maybe having a yard sale, I'm not sure, but we are asking you to pray and if God leads you would you please consider donating to help us bring our daughter home? We promise God will bless you and you'll be inundated with more pictures and updates than you could ever imagine.. My hands are trembling as I type this but then I hear God in that small but so big voice saying "Brittan, I will provide, trust me!" Thank you for loving us, for praying for us and for coming along on our journey to China!!!!!!!
 I will leave you with this amazing quote.. "The Gospel and adoption are beautifully woven together by the gracious hands of God. In Christ, God has shown His love to us as our Father. He has reached down his hand of mercy to us in the loneliness of our sin, and He has raised us up as members of His family. Consequently, one of the clearest displays of the Gospel in this life is when redeemed men and women extend a hand of mercy to children in need and bring them into their forever families." Orphanology
 * If you'd like to donate you can use the paypall link to the right, you don't have to have a paypall account you can use your visa/mastercard etc. Or you can mail checks to us just email me at tgotbeter@gmail.com and I'll give you our address:)