Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Remember when I mentioned we had received a matching grant for $8,000 (if we raised $4,000-they'd match it dollar for dollar)? We got our final update email this past Friday of people who had donated and the amount we had total. Oh. My. Gosh. We are amazed. God is amazing, those who read this blog, our family and friends, are all amazing (about half of those who gave were people we sent letters to-the other half simply read the blog and donated and we are completely blown away). Below is the email we received on Friday. Look!!!!!

Oh my gosh. I am struggling to find words, because this is completely overwhelming. But, do you know what this means? This means that if we received a referral tomorrow (or the next day, next month, next year, or 5 years from now), we will have enough money to accept it. To accept a referral-it is $11,000. Seems like so so much-I know. It covers in country care, legal fees of court, in country medical care, paying all the people in the US and Ethiopia that will work on our documents for their time, etc. It means that with this grant and our recent T-Shirt sales, we should also have enough for the most of the first trip to Ethiopia.  **if we would happen to receive a referral for TWO children which is always a possibility-it would add $11,000 to our total costs We had absolutely NO idea how God was going to make it possible for us to adopt but we jumped and trusted He would-because there was no way humanly possible for us to do it ourselves. Now we are standing back saying "thank you thank you Jesus". 

 I know that there are plenty of people that struggle with the idea of adoption fundraising and I get it. I understand that struggle-I find myself struggling with it at times too. But, again, I want to make you completely and totally aware- we are NOT, will NOT, live in a way that is assuming your fundraising money will bring our baby home without us doing everything we can to do it ourselves. We are living on the bare minimum of everything we can think of and will continue to do so (and will accept any additional ideas that we might not have thought of!). We do not believe that it would be acceptable to ask you to give up a few Starbucks coffees, nights of eating out with your family, or a weekend vacation to help support our adoption without doing the same. Our baby is worth so much more than all of those things to us-we are also giving them up and saving money everywhere else too (even if that one car thing was driving me CRAZY this weekend ;)).  We take your donations so very seriously and lovingly accept and appreciate each one. We are in awe of God and how He is showing off through you all right now. We feel so unworthy and so honored that He would put us in this place, with nothing but lots of love and a family to offer a baby, and then surround us with all of you-ready and willing with fiances, prayers, and hugs to help us bring our baby home. We can not wait to send you an email that we were able to accept a referral, with travel dates, or with the time we land in the airport at home-with our newest family member(s). Those are all days that would be completely impossible without your help and we can not begin to say thank you enough. 

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, 

Derrick and Anna