Meet Christie

I would like to introduce you to my new friend Christie from COMPASS IN MY HEART.  She took a trip to Uganda, fell in love with a village where they still practice witchcraft, and came back here to the US determined to make a difference for them.  She has helped get the village people clean water, helped build a new school so that 100 more children can attend school than were able to before, took on the task of finding sponsors for the 120 children who were already enrolled in school who had their sponsorships pulled this year (plus the 100 NEW students the school will have), and did I mention she has given up everything here in the United States to MOVE to that village in Uganda?  In fact...she leaves TOMORROW!  I am giddy with excitement for her....it's not an easy path to follow and go to the hard places for Christ.  But she is doing it.  And we can help her.  AND we can help the 103 children that still need sponsored for the school year that starts sometime after the first of the year. 

First off....go to her blog and spend a few minutes reading.  Get to hear her heart yourself.  Other ways you can help is with her jewelry.  She is selling Ugandan bead jewelry as fundraising for the village.  Currently she is giving some away for FREE!!!  Definitely go learn how you can do that.  The next thing you can do is sponsor a child for the school.

Sponsorship is only $100 for the whole year.  That will give the child education, school supplies, uniforms, new shoes, medical and dental care (for the first time ever for most of them) a chance to hear the gospel and how much Christ loves them, and best of all that child will get HOPE.   

HOPE that they can do something with an education to hopefully help impact the poverty they live in. 

HOPE that they can change the country and world they live in.   

HOPE for an amazing future.

Don't have $100 to spare?  Do you and 9 others of your friends have just $10 each?  How about at work?  Think you can get enough co-workers on board for $5-$10 each to sponsor a child?  Make this Christmas count.  Invest in a life instead of investing in something that you will need to keep buying batteries for every month or two....or something that will end up in a closet never to be looked at again....or something that will just end up being re-gifted because the recipient never really wanted it in the first place......  

Invest in a life and give these wonderful children hope.

 

And the winner is.........

Hello from Seattle!!! 

We had to leave about a day earlier to come visit family for Thanksgiving because of BAD weather conditions, so sorry I didn't get a winner posted this morning.  Now that we are here and settled in, my beautiful nieces helped me pick a winner.  I can post pics once I get back home, as I do not have a USB cord with me.....but after putting all the names into a shoe box (and I threw one extra entry in for everyone just because...haha) my dear Monea pulled out.............

LARA from The Famer's Wife

Congratulations Lara!!!!  Let me know whether you want the LOVE or the BUY LESS.  Also chat with me about size/style!

Recycle Love Orphan Sunday

I just wanted to share a few of the videos from our Recycle Love Orphan Sunday event over the next couple days. This is Aaron and Marcy and their two amazing treasures. We were blessed by this wonderful family coming to share some of their story and heart. And as many times as I have seen this, I am moved to tears every time...... Take a few minutes and listen to how God worked wonders in their hearts as soon as they let Him. (and no commenting on bad the camera moves around....I was multitasking....haha!)

Give-Aways and Shopping!

Have I ever said I love give-aways?  Hehehe...if not, I DO! 

First off, a reminder about the RECYCLE LOVE TEE give-away here on my blog....GO HERE for a refresher about it and to ENTER!  Only a few days left to enter and it is SO EASY!  Your choice of the Orphan Sunday tee or the Buy Less Give More tee.

After entering that give-away, hop on over to my friend Lara's blog...The Farmer's Wife.  She is doing an AMAZING give-away to raise funds for bringing their little one home from Ethiopia.  Seriously, the amount of stuff being given away is sheer craziness!!!  Go. Enter. Now!  :)

Now about some shopping.... Erica, over at The Road Less Traveled is hosting a "Shop Hop"....there are links there for adoptive families that are selling things for fundraising.  Go do some Christmas shopping there... not only do you get your shopping done, you help bring an orphan one step closer to their forever family!!

That's all for now!!  <3

Win a free Recycle Love shirt!!!

I am so excited......it's the very first give-away for this blog!

This is your chance to win a Recycle Love shirt!   The shirts are American Apparel and printed on their SUPER SOFT and comfy tri-cotton blend.  You will have your choice of the Orphan Sunday "Love" tee...or the Christmas "Buy Less Give More" tee.

 

I am new to this give-away thing, so bear with me...haha!  I've tried to make it really easy to enter for you.  Here are the ways you can earn entries.....

• Facebook about the give-away. For each day that you do it, you get an entry.  ( I will need to be your friend so make sure you friend me...)
• Blog about it and get an entry
• Become a follower of this blog and get an entry.  If you already are, you get an automatic entry.
• Buy a t-shirt and you get 5 entries for a chance to win an additional shirt. (that way you can have one of each if you want..haha!)

Leave me a comment about what you have done/are doing so I can start adding the names to the hat!  :)  This give-away will run until Monday the 22nd of November.   I am so excited to see who wins and meet new people!  <3

T-Shirt Reveal!!

Okay, not really....haha.  The shirts are already on the Recycle Love website, and I have been posting them for days on Facebook....I just liked how exciting that title sounded! 

Here is the deal....shirts are only $10 again!  WooHoo!!  They are currently only on a pre-order basis.  As soon as we have sold enough shirts to fulfill the printing requirement, we will have the first set of shirts printed up.  Hurry over to www.recyclelovefestival.com to order one, or two, or three....  Great and VERY affordable present idea that gives twice!!  (and those who order more than one shirt will have some of the shipping charges refunded back to you!)   If you are local and won't need anything shipped, contact me and we will get you taken care of!

The "Love" shirt that is representing our Orphan Sunday event will have proceeds go to the Visible Grace house and school in Kenya for abandoned children, and Show Mercy International to sponsor children in Uganda.   The "Buy Less" shirt representing our Advent Conspiracy event will give clean water to 3 children in Africa for a year with each shirt sold.   Here are the designs....

Adoption Spotlight......Starkey Family

Meet the next family in my series of Adoption Spotlights. I first stumbled upon the Starkey Family blog when they were in the process of getting their homestudy done, and have been following along ever since!  Here is what April had to say.......

~What led you decide on adoption? What role did your faith play in that process?

We had known since before we were married (we had dated since we were 15) that we wanted a family and could not wait to have children. We got pregnant a month and a half after being married and were delighted and even got to see Jeremiah's precious heart beat but right before heading into the second trimester we miscarried. We went on to have three more miscarriages and go through multiple doctors, tests, months of waiting for the next 4 1/2 years. We finally found out from a doctor in Chicago why I kept miscarrying but at the same time God started working on our hearts. We started praying that He would change our desires to match His desires for our lives. That is when He started laying adoption STRONGLY on our hearts. So we spent time praying and researching about it and finally made a decision weeks before the end of 2009 and decided to officially begin our journey on January 1st, 2010. Our faith had the BIGGEST role in our journey because we decided that we wanted God's plan for our family and gave it and surrended it completely to Him. It was VERY hard and I remember the day, I remember the tears as I gave it over to Him and said here Lord, even if it means me never having children, I want your plan for my life. God knew all along the plans He had for us and for Isaac and because of His amazing plans, we are now united as a family and give God all the glory for orchestrating it all out. In the beginning of the journey He gave us a verse that carried us through the whole way and He proved it to us time and time again...Ephesians 3:20!

~Did the fact that there is an orphan crisis have anything to do with deciding?

A little bit. It didn't make the beginning/first decision for us as only God working in our hearts did that but after we said Yes to adoption and started the journey, we found out more and more about the orphans, how many there are and from there on until this day God has not stopped breaking our hearts for the orphans.

~How long did you "contemplate" it before actually starting the process?

I would say a few months and then when we really started praying about it, probably weeks to a month or so!

~If you were to give one thing of advice to someone *thinking* about adopting, what would it be?

Don't hesitate, don't wonder if this is something you should do or not and don't worry about the finances because there are over 147 million orphans in the world and if God has laid them on your heart it's for a reason. If His plans are for you to adopt then He will provide. When we started our journey we had NO money and had to come up with $27-$30,000 and God did it all. First we got a $13,500 grant, second we had amazing fundraizers and support from our friends and family, third friends of ours lended us the $10,000 we needed to get on the waiting list so we didnt have to get a loan and have interest and told us we didnt have to pay them back until we get the adoption tax refund back and fourth another person who we had never met sent us a check for $600 to cover the attorney fees we needed to finalize Isaac's adoption. God definitely did what Ephesians 3:20 says!

~If you were to give one thing of advice to someone who has just started the process, what would it be?

Cling to God, ask for a verse from Him to carry you through, seek out other adoptive families to walk the journey with, start a journal or blog to share your thoughts and feelings as you go through the journey and know that the waiting will be long sometimes but OH SO WORTH IT!

~What else would you like to share?

I feel like I love Isaac more than if he would have came from my womb...that is how special, how great the love that we have for him because of Gods plans to put Isaac in our family. Isaac was going to be aborted, that was his birthmom's original plan but God has greater plans for Isaac and they included life and we feel so blessed and are so grateful to God for choosing us to be Isaac's parents!

Meet Suzanne!

I LOVE the blog world and how people are so easily connected! Suzanne stumbled upon my blog one day last week, so of course I had to check hers out....and I LOVED what she is doing! I just had to introduce you as part of my series of adoption spotlights!  :)  Here is her story in her own words......

Hello! We are Phil and Suzanne and were soon to be empty nesters, my youngest is a senior in high school. WERE is the operative word here! While most of our friends our age are looking forward to their kids going off to college, becoming empty nesters, and retirement, we are starting all over again! About 12 years ago the Lord placed adoption in my heart [Suzanne] and I knew that I knew that I knew that I had another child, perhaps children, somewhere on the other side of the world.

As life sometimes does, a curve ball was thrown at me and my family as I had known it was changed forever due to infidelity. Our family was destroyed and I became a single mom to my two boys. Yet the desire to adopt never left me. I’d pray, ‘Lord, if this is not from You, please take the desire from me.” The desire never left, it only became stronger. But I had no idea how to make it happen. I was a single mom - that is hard work!

Then the Lord brought a wonderful man into my life and we fell in love. We talked of marriage. I was completely up front about adoption and how I felt the Lord placed it on my heart. I told this wonderful man that adoption was in my future, and if this wasn’t something he was interested in, that was ok, it’s not for everyone, especially at our age. But I wouldn’t be able to marry him – I needed to follow where the Lord was leading me. He liked the idea of raising another child, but he felt strongly that he needed to finish his military career before we adopted. He missed a lot of his children’s growing up years due to deploying all over the world protecting our country and he didn’t want to miss out on another child’s life.

We married on Christmas Eve 2005. My husband finished serving our country in April 2010 and we’ve started our journey to find the little person the Lord has hand picked just for our family. When we crunch the numbers and see in black and white how much this adoption will cost, it is mind boggling. We serve a mighty God and we are stepping out in faith and following Him on this journey.

I feel led to pay it forward as I fundraise for our own adoption and started a fundraising blog onelessbrokenheart.blogspot.com where I plan to partner with another adopting family and help them raise funds for their adoption also. My first highlight family that I am working with are Bryan and Kim Young. Their dossier has been in Ethiopia for five months now. One Less Broken Heart is having it’s first give~away and is also selling Family Values canvases and aprons. Will you join with us and help us bring our little guys home?

~Suzanne

Team One Less Broken Heart

Bringing them home, one orphan at a time.

 I love how they haven't even adopted yet, nor have they finished fundraising, yet they are already paying it forward!  Go check out her blog and enter the fabulous give-a-way!  There is some great stuff up for grabs!