I hope everyone has had a wonderful day! We got the t-shirts ordered today and the shop stated that they should be in next Thursday or Friday. I will update you as soon as I have them. We ordered extras and hope to be putting in more orders when we run out of these.
On Monday, we will have a booth set up at the Jacinto Fourth of July Festival with profits going to our adoption costs. We will have jewelry - pendants, necklaces, & bracelets of all kinds. We will also have a concessions stand set up next to our craft booth with snow cones, nachos, & drinks. If you have not ordered a t-shirt, we will have order forms there also. If you don't have plans on Monday, come out and join the fun. There will be political speeches - it's one of the largest in MS. You can also enjoy arts and crafts, music, petting zoo (I think), and food. If you are there, please come by our booth. I know some of you we do not know and we would love to meet you. Please do not think we will try to get you to buy something if you come by or that you need to purchase something. It just makes our day when we hear people say they are following our story.
I would like to share something with you that I told a friend in a message. Maybe it will help you all to get to know us better.
I see already that we are changing. Phil & I are very quiet, private, and independent people. We never want anyone to help us & for this to work, we have to raise some funds or grow a $ tree - & I can't find any seeds for those. lol It is making us so humble and grateful for all the people that are supporting us! Not just in the fundraisers, but with prayers, love, support, encouragement, etc.. Most people don't know Phil & I because we are quiet and private. We help others when we see a need, but are always behind the scenes not wanting to be noticed.
I've never been one to just sit down and write nor have conversations with people I don't know. I'm not a snob, but shy and feel so awkward around people I don't know well. However, I felt so strongly about our adoption that I felt the need to share God's work in us to others so that is why I'm writing about our journey. Maybe it will inspire someone or someone will see God's work and follow His way, or maybe somebody will feel blessed in some way. Maybe it will help us all see each other as ONE in the same and bring some unity. I'm not sure why God wanted me to open up to others. It's typically out of my comfort zone, but I knew I needed to do it for some reason. Who knows what people will get out of it. This journey has taken me out of my comfort zone on so many levels, I cannot even explain!
Let's see how I can start to explain some of the many ways I've been out of my comfort zone:
1.) I'm very shy, awkward & often feel uncomfortable around people - especially people I don't know. (This is all me and rarely ever - if ever- the people that I'm around.) I'd much rather people not notice I'm there than to stand out in a crowd or be the life of the place. Well, by God's plan, this adoption is definitely drawing attention to us through our journey and I'm meeting people that I would have never met. I know I could have been this same mysterious & private person and gone through our entire adoption without writing about it. That would have been the easy way out for me! I feel I am suppose to write this journey as it goes and maybe this is God's way of working on me and making me more comfortable.
2.) I can be a germaphobic - especially when my kids were younger.
Well, our child(ren) is going to be in an orphanage for atleast his/her first 6mo. of life --need I say more on this? lol Not to mention all the foreign diseases that we don't have over here and that we could catch - not that China is nasty, but we are not use to the same diseases/sicknesses here as they are there.
3.) I HATE to fly
You cannot get any further from us than China! I'm thinking about starting to dig a hole to get there, but Phil thinks people will think that is too weird (and trust me I know people probably think we are weird! We do march to the beat of our own drum!) or that there is some kind of law against that sort of thing. I don't know what he is thinking?
- oh wait, did I mention I really HATE to fly! No joke! You can give me the stats all day on how much more likely you are to die in a car, but it doesn't matter!
4.) I'm the type of person that likes to know where things are headed; not necessarily a control freak, but just a general direction.
With adoption, you have to be ready for anything. There is no "general" direction other than the end result is holding your precious baby! You may run & run only to wait a week or weeks for someone else to return a signed form. You may have all your forms completed and then the agency may call & say can you have this one redone or we also need this, this & this. I never know which direction I'm going!
5.) Patience - not my best virtue & probably my worst! And also, we have no idea when things are going to happen. I have people ask me all the time "When will you get your baby?" or "When will they match you?", etc. I don't mind at all the questions, but I never know the answer. It's all a wait and see, but I know it will happen. I check my email numerous times a day to see if the agency has sent a match for us. Once we are matched, we will have to WAIT until China invites us to come get our child. God is definitely teaching me a thing or 2 here!
6.) Phil and I are very independent people! We don't like to ask people to help us!
We've had so many wonderful, wonderful people that are always willing to help, but we like to do it all on our own. Not always a good thing.
7.) As I said above, Phil and I are very private people. Few people know a lot about us. We lean on each other and don't let others in. It's good for us to be strong, but we need to let people in to know us better. We are kinda strange (o.k. I know a few of you are thinking real strange.) and don't do things like everyone else. I think we may seem stranger to a lot of people because we are private and quite leaving others to sometimes draw their own conclusions about us rather than getting to know us. At least I'll say that is why they find us so peculiar - I know we are different and that's o.k. with me! There are wonderful people, but we like to make our own way.
O.k., I could give you all my downfalls, but we'd never get to China to adopt & I'd have to charge you for a book. lol
I never would have thought God would have called us at 36y/o & 40y/o with 2 kids to adopt more nor did I expect Him to want me to open up to people. It's all in His timing and He uses situations, people, etc. to prepare us for His plan even though we don't know it at the time. Thank you so much for all your support - I feel like I've said that a million times and the words aren't justification for how grateful we are by each of you! You have no idea how much it means to us!
We hope to figure out how to get our blog up so people can follow there - it's gonna be kinda strange for our blog to be on all these t-shirts and no information when people go there. I've never done a blog so I'm lost! lol I'm going to make myself uncomfortable here and ask for some help on this. If someone knows how to set up a blog or what I need to do it, please let me know. I've read up on it, but I'm confused. I don't want someone to do it for me, but to help me with things like how to put pictures on it, change the background, theme, etc. I know nothing about HTML codes so you might as well be speaking Chinese if you come to me starting to talk about those things! lol So any of you that know how to do a blog, I would appreciate so much some help on where to get me started. I've searched the web and cannot tell if I need a program for this or what I'm doing. Any help, would be appreciated. I just need to get it together soon since we are using that blog spot for people to follow us - I don't want them to think we are being our normal private self by not putting any information on there! haha
If I'm not on here before Monday, please everyone have a safe and wonderful 4th of July weekend! I hope to see you at Jacinto!
"This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."
John 15:12
