Lotion Bars Fundraiser

Thanks to everyone who has helped us raise funds to bring our girl home! We're almost halfway there!

Over the past couple months I've shared a booth with a dear friend at a handful of craft fairs. I enjoy working at these shows because it's given me a chance to meet many wonderful people. I love hearing your stories and to share my family's story with you. Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your lives!

Some of you have asked how you can order more of the solid lotion bars you sampled at the craft fairs. Because we're running this as a fundraiser and not a for-profit business, here's how it will work. Go to our donation site here and make a donation to our adoption fund. As a thank you, we will send you a gift. The gift designation will be as follows:

For a gift of $15, you'll receive one solid lotion bar in your choice of scent.
For a gift of $25, you'll receive two lotion bars in your choice of scent(s).
$35 = three lotion bars
$45 = four lotion bars
$60 = five lotion bars

After you make your donation here, please email me with your address and the scent(s) you'd like to receive. I'll mail out the lotion bars weekly on Saturday.

Thank you!!
Julie

Lotion bars...
- are made from natural, food-grade ingredients (coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter, cocoa butter, essential oils)
- do not contain any preservatives
- are gentle on sensitive skin
- help preserve your skin's natural oils
- create a moisture barrier that allows for multiple handwashings before requiring reapplication
- won't get tossed when you pass through an airport security check
- are about the size of a bar of soap, just thinner
- come in four scents (shea butter, shea with cloves, cocoa butter, chocolate peppermint)
- last for about six months (when used 1-2 times a day)

***DISCLAIMER***
These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or skin condition. However, if my hands could talk...

Hope

I'm amazed that a month has passed since our last post! At that time, we had just sent our dossier overseas to have it translated. It was submitted to our girl's government on Oct. 14th, so we should hear within the next two weeks whether or not we've been approved to adopt in her country. Then, we wait another month for an invitation with an actual appointment date, at which point, we'll make our first trip. It is so hard to wait!!

Here we are with our completed dossier packet - the kids were troopers!!

Patience is such a tricky thing. We want it and we want it now. We ask the Lord to help us be patient, and what happens? We are made to wait!! The wonderful thing about learning to be patient is the opportunity to find contentment, and even excitement, in the waiting. As we wait to be reunited with our girl, the Lord is growing our faith in Him (and He is so faithful!!), our contentment in the midst of our circumstances and our hope in what the future may hold for our family.

The idea of hope is not generally nurtured in orphanages. Why would it be? What do most orphans have to look forward to? A life of crime on the street? Prostitution? Drugs and alcohol? Sadly, that is a reality for the majority of orphans in our girl's country. Yet, in the midst of such cruel prospects, hope shines through when a child is told she is wanted. 


At the airport, meeting "A" for the first time

A caregiver, Svitlana, who chaperoned the orphans during their travels to and from America, recalled to me an ongoing discussion she had with our girl, "A", during the flight here. Svitlana said that when she read our introduction letter to "A" ("A" cannot read or write) and showed her our family picture, "A" just kept repeating, 'They want me? Do they really want me?'. In the airport, after being reassured of this repeatedly on the flight, she ran to us and started hugging us and pulling her friends over to meet our kids. She was so proud and so full of hope because someone wanted her!

We have been given an even greater hope than that which an orphan desiring a family could ever imagine. We have the hope that we can become the eternally adopted sons and daughters of the living God, who loved us before the foundations of the earth were laid and who gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace by which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:1-5

Hope is a product of God's great love for us. It is because of that hope that we are able to extend grace and love to a child in need of a family...and that fills her with hope. What a beautiful thing!



At the Adventure Science Center in Nashville