needs

i wanted to give a quick update about where we are financially and hope that someone out there in blogland whether they know us or not might be stirred to help us.

to send off our dossier, we need $15000. here's the breakdown of those costs:

$2500 -- second agency fee to CWA
$1000 --postadoption fee to CWA
$7250 -- international fee to ethiopia for 1st child
$4250 -- international fee to ethiopia for 2nd child

here's the money we have so far to put towards these costs:

$8000 -- homebuyer's tax credit (we should be receiving this any day now)
$600 -- donations to our CWA account
$300 -- chickfila night
$450 -- yardsale profits
$100 -- coffee profits

therefore, we have around $9500 already taken care of. this leaves us with a need of $5500. we estimate that we can put down another $3000, maybe even $4000 out of jamie's paycheck, though $4000 would be pushing us to the end of january and we'd like to send off our dossier before then. we're also planning another yard sale in december because we still have A LOT of stuff. so i hope we could make another $500 that way. we also have some furniture that we've been trying to sell. if we sold it for the absolute lowest amount, we could make another $500 that way. and we'd like to sell another 185 bags of coffee to bring our profits from that to $1000. SO, here's how you can help:

consider buying coffee and/or telling other people to buy coffee. we hope to figure out a better plan for selling a large amount, but for now, we are relying on word of mouth.

consider making a small donation. everything adds up.

pray that our second yard sale will be as successful as i'm estimating. pray that our furniture would sell.

consider linking us on your facebook or blog.

let me say that it is NEVER easy to ask for money. i've said that here before. i know some people think we should be funding this completely on our own since we "chose" to do this. but we do not see it that way. we have been "called" to do this, there is no way we would ever have all the money to do this on our own, and we believe that it is a community-wide effort to care for orphans. even if you are not called to adopt, helping an adoptive family is still orphan care! i should also say that it is NOT easy to give even if you have a heart that wants to help people. we know this all too well as it is still difficult to write a check to our church for our tithe knowing that if we could just keep that money, we might not be having to ask for help. i'm not saying that to sound righteous about our tithing, i'm saying it to say that obedience and sacrifice are HARD. but please, if your heart is stirred to help us bring our two babies home, do not hesitate.