bringing our kid(s) home from Ghana

donkey

2008-11-02T23:56:00.000-08:00

ok so i keep puting off posting on here cause.......i dont know, im lazy? we had our homestudy. all done! waiting for a referal. as soon as we get our homestudy approved we can start applying for grants. i dont really know what else to say. maybe im just not in a blogging mood. i had to write something though.
night

ya ya yard sale!

2008-07-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

craziness! thats what yard sales are. pure craziness! you know a couple of days before the yard sale God gave me peace about not making any money. i just had this feeling that i should be praying more broad than "help us raise lots of money!". i really just want God to be glorified in all that we do. so, we made around $300-$350. its not a lot for some but you have to remember EVERYTHING was donated. it was basically free money. all we had to do was sort it out, sit outside and get a sunburn. i have to say also that it was just a really good day. we got to talk to quite a few people. we are still waiting for our big check to come in the mail from aarons old jobs retirement account that he cashed in. i have started helping with the jr. high at church. its so crazy, i really feel more encouraged by the kids than they probably do from me. my next fundraising task is cookbooks. yikes! thank you so much to everybody who donated to the yard sale. if anybody has stuff that they still want to donate,the connerlys are having a yard sale to raise money for their adoption too. off to sew....again

one more thing

2008-06-22T23:03:00.001-07:00

we have raised enough money (in combination w/aarons old jobs retirement account cashed in)to start our homestudy and get the process rolling. yippeeeeee!!!!!!
eban house (our adoption agencies home in ghana) now has 30+ kids. thats quite a jump from 12 a week ago! they need beds and a place to eat. please please pray for these kids!!!!!

i know im a lazy bum

2008-06-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

a lot has been going on but i haven't been disciplined enough to get on here and jot it down. the krispy kreme thing was really fun! i got to know some of the junior highers a little better. thank you naomi, bethany, j.p., aspen, shaun, and of course my little sister tay tay. these kids are soo stinking funny! my friend sarah came and helped for round two of selling. that was great! the questads and ourselves made $490ish profit each!!!!! i was pleasantly surprised. especially since we had about 40 dozen leftover. i never want to eat a krispy kreme ever again! yucky. i got a pretty bad sunburn and my lip gloss only magnified the burn on my lips. i looked like i was wearing wax lips for 2 days, then came the blisters. combine that with a sinus infection and a salivary gland infection, i didnt feel very good. i started on antibiotics 2 days before my cousin heidi came down for the weekend. i have seen her only 3 times in the last 15 years. she is the absolute coolest cousin ever. she came and spent the entire day friday roasting in an ice cream truck with the tune "do your ears hang low? do they wobble to and fro?" blaring and making change just so that she could spend time w/my mom and i! i love her! i have a new appreciation for the ice cream man! it is hot and some kids test your patience! it was totally worth it. i laughed so hard at all the kids freaking out jumping around and chasing the truck. so so so hilarious! im so glad ill have that memory. i got sick the first night from all the exhaust and heat. i got sick again today. i have gotten no sleep and my immune system is just run down. on saturday we got a flash storm. it just came on suddenly. the rain poured, unfortunately the windshield wipers didnt work. that was .......funny and stressful at the same time. my mom looked a little stressed so i secretly took a picture of her driving nervously in the rain (notice the white knuckles).

aaron and bill sat w/the kids for the lemonade stand across from all the classic cars at the park in richland. they made $49 dollars and taylor decorated the whole thing herself (axle painted the sides where you cant see). they looked so cute out there. it was a weekend to remember. next weekend will be our first free weekend. our next event is a big yard sale the second weekend of july. oh and i finally got our adoption letters out!! if you want one, email me your address. we will take all the prayer we can get. hhhhhmm yeah i think thats it!

thuper duper ecthited

2008-06-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

well i think we are done with the hot dogs for at least a week or two. it was soooo cool to be a part of the action. i got to meet quite a few people who ive gone to church with for years but never "officially" met. in total i think we raised about $1000 for the adoption ministry. im not for sure where that money will go. i think we will get to use some of it towards our ghana baby but im not totally sure. we had a potluck at the vickermans which was really fun. theyve adopted from china and are just really encouraging people to be around as are the macduffs. the macduffs are courageous beyond my understanding. they have about 2 million children three of which are adopted from ethiopia. anyway we were able to sit around and yack w/a bunch of people whove adopted, are adopting or want to adopt. crystal and i are going to sell krispy kremes on friday. thank you God she and her husband decided that it would be "fun" to ride up to spokane at 3am to get the doughnuts w/out me. fun? you guys are crazy! but im happy! i am not a "fun" person anytime before 9am, so thank you crystal! i signed up for a lemonade brigade fundraiser and was among the first 1000 people to sign up so they are gonna send me a lemonade stand for free along w/100 cans of natural environmentally friendly pink lemonade for my little sister and my son to sell on the 21st for the adoption!!!!! heres the site with more info on it http://www.drinkcrayons.com/pinklemonadebrigade/.my mom and i are gonna juggle that with selling ice cream from the flannigans ice cream truck at cool desert nights. crazy! ive got my letters printed out finally. and im going to try and mail them this weekend while aaron and axle go to nathans graduation. im hoping to let everyone know that we are adopting so we can tell everybody who hasnt heard and hopefully EVERYBODY will be praying for our family. God answers prayer! if anybody has ANY fundraising ideas, let me know! im highly motivated. ok ive got a zillion things to do. i guess ill go get busy.

sunny and lovely

2008-05-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

oh its sooo pretty out today! axle graduated preschool today. i have been searching for grants and filling out forms like a mad woman. i have to keep reminding myself not to focus on it and just remember to be prayerfully doing all things. sometimes i get so caught up trying to do what i think God would have me do, that i forget about even asking Him first. He showed me something today that i thought was really cool. "God sent Jesus into the world: "that we might receive the adoption as sons." (Gal. 4:4-5) "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12) Adoption is a living example of of God's love !" this was on the site http://www.hfgf.org/index.html . a super informative site about starting an adoption ministry at your church. i wonder how our little Ghana kids are going to react to ferdie? i better get back to filling out forms and sewing up stuff to sell!

barf dogs

2008-05-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

well aside from the hot dogs looking and tasting nasty, the orphan/adoption ministry fundraiser was a success! it was really nice to talk to people and let our church know that there are a few couples in or about to begin the adoption process. Aaron and i both feel pretty strongly about the church being our family and we want as many people as possible praying for our future kiddos before and after they come home. we want our church family to be involved in the process. it was nice to answer questions and meet with such enthusiasm. i love our church!! we got off to a shaky start. if you know me or my mom than you probably guessed that we were late (of course!). it was pouring down rain and so we were going to be outside in the rain under a 10' x 10' canopy. i don't do well in the cold and neither does my mom. we thought wed have to bag it because of the rain but bonnie (the encourager) told us to go ahead and we'd just trust God to meet us there. He sure did! my mom had a lead foot. i think i said "you're speeding" or "SLOOOW DOWN!" like a hundred times. we got there and decided not to cook the dogs early Jeff had a cook station waiting for us at pasco rentals to pick up so we could just boil them on demand. they turned out sick! but at least we didn't waste any. we sold all the muffins too. luckily when we got there, they let us setup under the overhang so we wouldn't get rained on. I've got to say God totally blessed our efforts. when we got there we all prayed that God would have his hand over it and the rain stopped, clouds dried up and the sun was out and shining by second service. yeah God! we raised a good amount for the ministry but more importantly i hope we raised awareness and God will remind people to be praying! all this with no announcement and basically last minute prep. Marty announced at church last night that we'll be selling them again on Sunday and then went on about how the dogs tasted and looked so gross. thank you for spreading the word Marty! we are for sure getting Nathan's instead of the yucky dogs we got last week and i think we are going to grill them this time instead of boiling. we got our home study contract but haven't raised enough money to mail it in yet so, we're praying! i need more patience.

here goes nothin

2008-05-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

so here's my first post. if you are going to read this you will just have to look past my bad punctuation and grammar. i'm a very lazy typer. i do it one handed so you won't be seeing any caps. sorry! my name is Melissa. i've been married for seven years this august to the most wonderful husband ever! his name is Aaron. we've got a little girl named Harley she'll be two in September and our boy Axle turned 4 in January. We've got a dog named Ferdinand (after the bull from a Munro Leaf book). so, the reason we are posting this blog is so that everyone can read updates on our adoption progress. we also wanted to keep record and bear witness to all the crazy, amazing things God is doing in and around our family. up to this point it's just too much to list in a single post. i am sooooooooooo anxious and excited (and maybe a little impatient) to get my kid(s) home , whoever they are!! we are going through the adoption agency Adoption Advocates International for many reasons. i'll be honest the amazing Anita sealed the deal. God's timing is perfect. long story. we are adopting from Ghana. if you don't know anything about Ghana, it's a small country in West Africa about the size of Oregon. UNICEF estimates that there are over 1 million orphans in Ghana. AAI's orphanage is in Accra and is called the Eban House. i have been learning so much lately, thanks to AAI's Yahoo group (i love you people!). one woman is in Ghana right now and posting blogs about her trip. every time i read about these sweet little ones i'm holding back tears. i want them all! this Sunday we are going to be selling muffins and hot dogs at church on behalf of it's brand new adoption ministry for lightening the financial burden on parents who are adopting. separately i will be selling my tees, dresses, pants, dolls, hair clips, and diaper bags on etsy. im still working on my etsy shop, so if you go there you wont see anything for sale yet. my wholesale site is up! harleyandaxle.com. i don't have adult shirts on there yet but i'm trying! well that's all for now. i have to go work on the adoption ministry flyers.
Please don't forget the little ones in your prayers. also pray for Steven Curtis Chapman and his family especially his son. his youngest adopted daughter Maria was killed in a car accident in the families driveway on Wednesday. Steven's son was driving. It makes me absolutely sick to think about the pain they are going through and the guilt his son must be feeling.