husband for hire

Well since my last blog we are deep into our paperwork and  just about ready to send in our first batch of assorted papers and fees.  YEAH!!  Now, I imagine if you are reading this that you may be slightly intrigued by the title of my blog.  So, here's my explanation and it's especially for all of you Cincinnatians.

  We are starting the first of a few fundraisers  in order to raise part of the money we need  to bring our new child home.  This is kind of the hard part for us because we are not used to doing anything we can't afford on our own. BUT, while we do have an extra bedroom, plenty of yard space, great schools and teachers and are lucky enough to have decent medical insurance that will cover our new addition (even pre-existing medical conditions if ya'll are wondering) we do not have the 25-30 thousand sitting around that is needed to bring her home.  There are an estimated 147, 000,000 orphans (that's millions in case you lost track of the zeros)  in the world and this is the one of the issues that every adoptive parent faces.  Part of the reason we have waited so long to do this is that we knew the costs were large and weren't sure how we were going to finance everything.  Finally though we just decided to do it, knowing that if we waited until every single piece was in place that we would never actually go through with it.  Luckily, we are able to cover the majority of our expenses associated with bringing our child home, and all of them once she is here, but need to have a few fundraisers to help us with about 7 thousand which will be used for all of our Ethiopia fees and some of our travel expenses. 

Anyway, I am officially lending out my husband, Jeff, for weekend "handyman" work.  For all of you that know us, you already are aware that he can fix almost anything and has gutted out our first home and completely refinished it and has slowly been doing the same thing to our current one.  So if you  need help hanging drywall, installing a  new floor, fixing squeaky doors, laying tile, refinishing hardwood, cleaning out gutters etc., this is your opportunity to get some work done! Jeff is available on the weekends (sorry he still has his day job!) and the best part is that you can decide how much you will pay; all of the money will go towards our adoption.  We're only going to run this fundraiser until the end of February, so call us soon so we can schedule you in quickly! 

moving ahead

It's scary to move forward sometimes.  Jeff and I have been thinking seriously about adoption for about 10 years now.  I mean, really seriously- all of the time.  I think life just kept getting in the way.  If you have ever looked into adoption yourself, you'd see that it is a completely overwhelming process.  Hundreds of pages to fill out, forms to notarize, more governmental red tape than I know what to do about, money to come up with. . .  Then there are our current children to think about, and making sure our home is "ready" (whatever that means to a child who doesn't currently have one)!

Finally, we just decided to do it.  Now. Today.  Well, actually we decided last April.  However, deciding is a little different than actually getting started.  So the biggest question for us was, where should we adopt from?  You can adopt privately, from the foster care system and internationally and each one has a different process.  Something I read recently from the grandson of Jacques Cousteau, Fabien Cousteau, went like this; "It's funny how so many people think of the world as countries- these political lines on a map.  Nature doesn't care about these invisible lines on a piece of paper.  Everything that goes on in nature affects everybody regardless of where you live. .. "  Now, he was referring to ocean restoration, but we think that it is equally as powerful in regards to international adoption.  So for a variety of reasons, we chose Ethiopia. This is a  proud country that is known around the world as the birthplace of civilization, for their discovery of coffee (thank goodness!), home of the Queen of Sheba, and the only country in Africa that was never under colonial rule.  However, they are not without serious problems, some of which are out of their control. This is a country almost twice as big as Texas with 4.7 million orphans.  Most children are available to be adopted due to the Aids epidemic, malnutrition/starvation, lack of basic needs like clean water, and other communicable diseases that would be easily treated in the United States. This is a country that children are born into without things we take for granted every single minute of every single day.  Water. Food. Medicine. Shelter. Education.

Maybe we can make a small difference.  A one child difference.  She probably won't care that we're forgoing granite countertops or a new car.  So I guess our home is ready.  I know we're ready for her!