First Fundraiser SUCCESS

OH WOW....is all that needs to be said.

It was alot of HARD work that paid off in the end.

Our first fundraiser was a garage sale.

We had several people donating, helping, buying and praying for this project.

In the end, we raised $1877.76 towards our daughters orphanage.

AND....

In 6 days of being open

(one day off in the middle that I was feeling icky and on the couch),

we didn't even see ONE drop of rain.

On our final day, here's our Fundraiser/Garage Sale CREW!

We couldn't have done it without them!

Thank you so much!

The day was not very busy, less customers than we expected but so much fun just the same!

We were, however worried about what we were going to do with ALL the stuff left.

Jacqueline (Jacques' sister) had a brilliant idea.

Towards the end of the day, we called our local radio station (K93) - who we had been announcing with for our fundraiser all along.  We asked them if they could announce that ALL remaining items were FREE to a good home!

AND...we EVEN had a local celebrity stop by.

THE 'Shane Button' from our local radio station!!!

(OK, well he came by with his fiance to get in on some of the 'free' stuff, but it sounds SO much more exciting when we say that we had a celebrity stop in!!!)

SURE ENOUGH within MINUTES of them announcing it on air, we had a line of customers! YAY!

This is where Roxane worked hard at giving away the remaining items and ended up getting us some MAJOR donations!

Some memories of ALL the donated items and help!

What an amazing day!

Thank you is not even enough to those who helped, donated, purchased, etc!

THANK YOU!

Garage Sale

Well our fundraising garage sale (to raise money for our orphanage donation) is under way, 5 days early.

Being the long weekend here in Canada (with BEAUTIFUL weather out), someone suggested that I open my doors this weekend to our garage sale (considering I already had everything set up) - so I DID!

Wasn't sure how it would turn out, but in the first 2 days we've raised $238.25 + $53.00 for a GRAND TOTAL of $291.25.

Not only this, but our community has been amazingly giving - have had several other's who have hosted garage sales recently, offering the rest of their garage sale items as a donation for us to sell.  I am BEYOND thrilled and blown away by people's generosity!

I've decided that IF the weather calls for no rain this week, the doors to our garage sale will be open.  If it rains, then I'm taking a BREAK!

On the last Saturday, May 26 - the day we are hosting a BBQ and BAKE SALE - all items will be $1 each or BRING A BAG and fill it for $5.

God has truly blessed this project!

OH and by the way, this is a GREAT distraction to our WAITING game!!!

The very next day...

~~~

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.

He has planted eternity in the human heart,

but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT

~~~

So you remember my 'Hurry up and wait' post from a few days ago? 

You know....
when we learned we were about 2 more weeks until our file goes to China
when we learned that we are 1 of TWELVE (rather than 1 of SIX) families waiting for the same needs
when we were really BLUE and down in the dumps

Well...

the next morning as we sat down to do our devotions, I opened the page up to this:



And so we WILL wait on God's perfect timing. 

Only in His sweet and perfect timing, will Faith will be revealed to us.

~~~

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

~~~

Hurry up and WAIT....

SO I made a little boo-boo in all my rushing!

The last two cheques that I wrote, BOTH had issues (the numerical portion did not match the alpha portion) - making them both invalide....WOOPS.

SO...I have to re-send the cheques to our agency.

LUCKILY...this won't hold up our process to have our documents authenticated by the Chinese Embassy.

OH but WAIT a second....

BEFORE our file can be on the way to China....this is what it will look like:

Step 1- from FOI to Foreign Affairs "Lawyer" (2 days)Step 2 - FOI to pick up and drop at Foreign Affairs (p/u Mon or Tues)
Step 3 - FOI to pick up from Foreign Affairs to send to Chinese Embassy (5 business days)
Step 4 - FOI to pick up and send BACK to NB (2-3 business days)
Step 4 - 1-2 days in NB for them to do their thing
Step 5 - then finally DTC OFFICIALLY...which could take 3-4 days before it arrives in China

SO....that means our Dossier may not arrive in China until the END of this Month :(  

OH and WAIT a second....

Come to find out today that we are 1 of TWELVE families with the same needs (we were thought to have been only 1 of 6 until today).  Looks like we could have a longer wait than expected...and I mean a really long wait considering there has been VERY few IF ANY girls referred in the past few months :(


BLUE today :(

Enough pity-partying - nuff said!

Dossier missing a few things...blach...

...got an email that kind of crushed (but just a little) my spirits yesterday from our agency. 

 

It said 4 items were missing.  Initially, I freaked out a bit then I immediately dialed my friend (who has done this 3 times now) and she calmed me down with an action plan!  Thank you, B!

The items missing:

• Three Reference Letters (not included - need to get),
• Non-employment letter for Tara (a letter stating that I am not working),
• Financial Certificate (I guess they only had a copy, and they need original) 
• Chinese Medical Certificates (dates missing on documents).

I think my overwhelming feeling came from a place that I was SO hopeful that our file would be on its way by the end of this week to China.....and now it's not going to be :(

In the end, and one all nighter (well ok...this is exaggerated!  it wasn't really an all nighter but I was up until 1:30am and back up for the day at 6:30am - but it sure FELT like it) to create the documents needed, calls to ask for references, lots of driving to get signatures and money drafts - all will be back in the mail (hopefully by today)!

IF we receive the document today in the fed ex'd overnighter envelope from our agency that they sent, THEN we are ready to ship all the updated docs BACK to them today. NOW...unfortunately our little town has NO overnight service to Ottawa (where our agency is) - so it will take 2 days (still in time for it to get there for the end of the week).

SO...best case, they receive the package Friday and our file gets sent out early next week. 

Fingers crossed for all this to go 'tickety-BOO'!