Final Fundraising Update

We are down to the final five days of the financial part of our adoption journey and I’m both excited and humbled to share this update. Excited, because I know it may help at least one of you reading this to know that if we can adopt, so can you. We’ve had countless conversations with so many of you who have told us you’d love to adopt, “but it’s just so dang expensive!” Well, hopefully this update gives you some encouragement.

We are also humbled because we aren’t quite to our goal, yet. And honestly, if you would have told me back in July that we would still be fundraising up until our (rather large) final invoice, I would have shook my head in disbelief and probably would have questioned if this was really what we were supposed to do. Like, as if the financial challenge of adopting really was bigger than the blessing it brings (to the baby AND to us)! I’m kind of embarrassed to even admit that.

But the truth is, we never intended on doing what has seemed like so many fundraisers over the past 11 months. Our plan included having our businesses fund it entirely … With maybe just a smidge of fundraising because we had some stuff to sell and knew some close friends and family may want to make a small contribution.

Well, fast forward to today and we’ve had quite a few heart-to-hearts with God asking for clarification on what His plan is for funding this. Because apparently it has been different than ours.

I’m not gonna lie – It’s been exhausting. In every way. Just when we think we’ve been humbled, we’re humbled and overwhelmed again. And just when we think we’re out of ideas, one of us gets another one. We promised ourselves at the beginning that we’d move forward with any and every business and fundraising idea that God put in our minds. No matter what kind of return we thought it might bring, we’d open that door. And no matter how large our invoice was, we’d be grateful for every dollar that we earned or we were gifted to put towards it. And every time an invoice has been due, we have enough. Like, exactly enough. Every.Time.

So we’ve learned (and maybe been reminded a few times too) that bringing home this baby girl isn’t just about our family of five-going-on-six… God wants more people involved in this baby girl’s life than just us. He is even already using our precious Hannah to impact others in ways I can’t even begin to explain at this point. But trust me, it’s big. And hence, some more humbling. We are SO humbled to be on this journey.

Last week, our pastor Andy Stanley taught that, “What God originates, God will orchestrate… IF we do not doubt.” Of course, it was exactly what we needed to hear and it’s what prompted this post. We want to be as honest and transparent with all of you who have been faithfully following along our journey. Your support builds our faith and it feels like we are all in this together.

So for the next five days, you’ll watch this final chapter of ‘Operation Bring Home Hannah’ unfold as we gather the remaining balance due … Somewhere and somehow. We are expecting miracles and awesome stories and we cannot wait to experience them and then share them with you all!

You can follow us on our fundraising page at YouCaring.com/ilgfamilyadoption.