We feel blessed...and still patiently waiting!!

We feel so blessed!!!  The Chili's Fundraiser night was fabulous.  There were 27 families that participated and we had so much fun visiting with everyone.  The funny thing was that from the hours of 4:30 pm - 10:00 pm, I counted only 6 families in the dining area that were not with our group of supporters.  We feel blessed to be loved and supported by so many people.  Within two weeks, Chili's Corporation will let us know officially how much money we raised.  Many people that attended requested that we do this again.  Also, the management staff at Chili's invited us to do this again.  We will let you know if we decide to do another Chili's night!  Thank you for everyone that took time out of their busy schedules to come eat at Chili's and support our fundraiser. 

Our next adoption Fundraiser will be Feb. 9th from 6 - 8pm at our home.  We will be having a Thirty-one party.  10% of sales will go to our adoption fund.  If you are not able to attend, we are accepting catalog orders.  Thirty-one just came out with their new 2012 Spring catalog and February is the first chance to order these new products and patterns.  Please let me know (karlamtaylor@hotmail.com) if you would like more information or would like to place an order!

We did have two blessings over the last week.  Two precious families donated a total of $300 to our adoption fund!!!  We are truly grateful.

Update on our adoption process:
1.  We are in the final days of having our home study report finished.
2.  We were approved by our adoption agency and sent in our Special Needs Application.
3.  We are patiently waiting on our agency for some feedback.  At this time, our adoption attorney is in contract negotiations with the agency.  We pray that our agency will get back with us promptly and with news we desire to hear!

Please continue to pray for our contract negotiations to go well and our adoption fundraisers to be a success!  God has GREATLY blessed us in the area of donations and fundraising success.  We are close to being half way to our goal.  God is so good! 

January 2012 Fundraiser - Chilis in Gallatin

We are excited to announce that our January Adoption Fundraiser will be January 23rd!!!  Below are the details:

Location:  Chili's Gallatin (600 Village Green Drive)
Date:  Monday, January 23, 2012
Time:  Anytime between 4 PM - 10 PM
*bring in flyer*

Invite friends and family!!!  Chili's will donate 10% of what you spend on your meal to our Adoption Fund.  Just bring in our flyer and give to your server on January 23rd. 

*Please email karlamtaylor@hotmail.com to request a flyer.  You are welcome to make as many copies of the flyer as you want and pass out to friends, family, and co-workers.  This is a great opportunity to eat great food with your family and friends while helping us raise money to bring Melanie home from China! 

It looks like we have been approved!!!

As of last week, we completed our required Hague China adoption training (12 hours).  We were determined to get it done.  It only took until 3:30 AM one night!  I have to say it was pretty interesting to find out about how our little Melanie may see our world when she arrives.  We are excited to make the adjustments and to include some Chinese art and culture in our home.  Cohen and I plan on attending a Chinese New Year celebration at the local library this month.

So today, I talked with Linda at our new agency.  We are excited to hear they are sending us their contract to sign.  That means it will be official...we are approved!!!  Tomorrow, we send in our Special Needs Application and Special Needs Medical Check List.  

Our home study social worker, Karen Nixon, is working so hard to complete our home study.  Once we get that document, we can start applying for grants and working on our USCIS I-800A...which means a lot of paperwork and notarization. 

At this time, we are working on our next set of fundraisers.  They range from eating out with your family, mother's day gifts, to feeding hungry children around the world!!  We will keep you posted on our next fundraising event!!!!

Please continue to pray for funds to be provided, paperwork to flow where it needs to go without complications, and our little Melanie that may have already been born.  We are excited to meet her!

4th and last Home Visit complete!!!!

Tonight, we met with Karen Nixon from New Beginnings to finish our 4th and final home visit of our home study process.  We met at Panera Bread in Hendersonville.  Karen has been wonderful to work with during the Home Study Process!  She has been a wealth of information and encouragement...and she knows her stuff.  We recommend Karen and New Beginnings for Adoption Home Studies!!!!  They were awesome!!!  If anyone needs a Home Study...let us know...we will give you Karen's information! 

It was such a blessing to be able to pay the remaining balance of our home study and our six post placement visits.  Yes...China is now requiring six post placement visits.  It will be neat for Karen to come out and visit us for six years and see Cohen and little Melanie grow up! 

It is official...we have decided on an adoption agency!!!!  We are going through Living Hope Adoption Agency in PA.  They were recommended to us by a family friend.  After talking with them today, I felt complete peace with them being our agency during this process.  We send off our application tomorrow!!!

We feel so blessed!!!  Continue to pray that things will go smoothly with minimal bumps in the road!

Our prayers have been answered!!! God is Jehovah Jirah!

The Taylor household is singing God's praises!!!  He has answered our prayers!!!  No only did God provide the funds we needed to move forward to the next step of our adoption process, we went over and beyond.

While Jason and I have been sitting and waiting this past month, due to not having the funds to move forward in the adoption process, we have realized that we have experienced a test of faith.  We claim on our blog and to others that we know God will provide the adoption funds and He is Jehovah Jirah (provider).  This past month, has been a test on whether we really "believe" what we say.  Yes...we believe!!!  It would have been easy to go take out a loan and just push forward in the process.  However, that would go against our convictions about debt.  We know many families that have taken loans out for their adoption process and we are not saying that is wrong!!!    We see nothing wrong with people taking out loans to adopt if that is what God leads them to do.  We believe that you should obey God and what He places on your heart.  However, God has placed on "our" hearts to not go into debt and to trust Him to provide through donations, fundraising, etc.  This is the conviction God has placed on our heart.   Since God put the desire in our hearts to adopt, we trust He will provide!

Over the last two weeks we have been blessed with incredible donations to our adoption fund.  We are humbled and greatly thankful!!!  The donations received came from families that would like to remain annonymous.  The total donated since the last blog post is $7,450.  The total raised/donated so far is $12,895.  Our deepest gratitude to those that donated!!!  Thank you for being obediant to God in your giving!!  Praise God for providing our needs and beyond!

So what is the next step...
1.  Tuesday, Jan. 3rd, we have our final (4th) home visit with Karen.  Once she concludes her report we will have officially completed the home study process of the adoption. 

2.  We have contacted two agencies (BAAS in CA and Living Hope in PA).  Once we personally chat with them on Monday over a couple questions, we will officially make our decision to which agency we will be going with for the remainder of the process.  There is one agency we tend to be leaning toward...not do not have a complete peace until we talk with each of them.  Both are GREAT agencies with wonderful reputations!!! 

3.  The month of January we will continue our fundrising acitivies!  Stay tuned for the next event!

4.  When our home study report is complete, we will begin to apply for adoption grants.

5.  After applying with the agency we pick next week, we will start our 31 page paperwork process.  Once we complete this...we send it to China and the waiting process starts again!

We are excited to report our adoption updates and the next timeline of events!!!  Please continue to pray for us to be obediant, make the right choice in agencies, and for the remaining funds to be provided.  We are looking forward to finding out who our little Melanie will be!!!

Patiently waiting and thankful!

It has officially been a month since we had to make the decision to stop moving forward with our home study until additional funding comes in for the adoption fund.  We are still patiently waiting for God to provide the remaining funds for us to make the first installment with an adoption agency. 

This weekend we have been humbly surprised with additional donations for our adoption fund.  Jason's co-workers, a dear friend, and some members of our church family donated a total of $500.  What a blessing!  We are truly thankful! 

As of today, December 18, 2011, there have been donations and/or we have raised a total of $5443.50 for our adoption process.  Praise our Jehovah Jirah!!!

For us to move forward in our adoption process, we need approximately $2000.  Please join us as we pray for God to provide these funds. 

One funny thing to share from this week...  Cohen and I were watching a video about Big Bird going to China.  I checked this video out of the library so that Cohen could be prepared for how physically different his sister would look from him and that he could see how her culture is different from our.  He made the decision after the video that he was going to go to China with us to pick up his sister.  How adorable!  I pray he can go with us.  Cohen really understands the concept of the adoption.  He was explaining to me the other day that he came from mommy's tummy, but his sister is in China and we are going to go get her.  Cohen seems to have a great concept of the adoption process and is SOOOOOO excited about having a sister when he turns 5.  He tells everyone he sees that he is going to have a sister named Melanie when he turns 5.  I pray that his wish comes true and we can bring Melanie home next Summer... 

The Winner is...

Today is December 10, 2011...the official day of our American Girl Doll Raffle Drawing!!!

We GREATLY appreciate all the donations that came in for our adoption fund.  The total raised was $550!!!  Thank you to everyone that donated.  You helped us get one step closer to bringing our little Melanie home from China. 

The winner of the raffle is Juliana Heisey!  Congratulations Juliana!!!!

So far the total amount raised is $4906.00. 

God is our provider!  Jehovah Jirah!.