"no-named" fundraising art project

Thanks to the miracle of Facebook, I've stolen an idea from another adoptive family on a wonderful "no-named" fundraising art project.  They had some fantastic, creative name but I wanted to come up with a name on my own.  So far....nothing creative, nada, zilch, a big fat goose egg has popped into my brain.  Anyway, below you will see a 15x30 canvas.

We've divided the canvas into 1 inch squares.  For each family that does something to contribute financially to our adoption, we will paint a square.  We're letting each family choose their own color.  Once the paint is dry, we will write the family's name (or whatever they want) in the square.  Hopefully, the canvas will be a beautiful tapestry by the time we travel to China.  I can't wait to hang it over our daughters bed once we get home.  We've got some wonderful fundraising ideas stirring around in these non-creative heads of ours so hopefully we can soon start painting.  By our guess, if we estimate that each square is worth $20, then our canvas will be a $9,000 art project.  Unfortunately, that's significantly less than 1/2 of our remaining cost.  But, in the end, it will be such a huge blessing to us by helping decrease some of the financial burden.  This canvas will cover the cost of the orphanage fee we will owe in order to re-pay China for caring for our daughter.  In order to get a square right now, you can either donate $20 (or more if you are interested in more squares) or donate items for our upcoming yard sale.  By the way, if you can think of a great name for this thing I would be thrilled!

Are you serious???

I know that I have posted a lot in the past few months about money.  We are doing great about getting things paid off (car loans, student loans, credit card...) because my goal is to pay a mortgage each month and have NO OTHER debt.  Some people dream of vacations, new clothes,  or jewelry....I dream of no debt.  Boy, did my husband luck out or what????  With that being said, I'm totally bummed about the cost of adoption.  I know there are so many families interested in adoption, but the price just stops them cold in their tracks.  I KNOW that God will fund what he favors, but I have to admit that it's still VERY stressful for me.  We thought our TOTAL for adopting would be around $20,000.  We have paid thousands and thousands of dollars over the past 4 1/2 years as we continue down this path to China, but we recently found out that our remaining fees, travel, orphanage fee, program fees, etc....could still be $20,000.  Then, we found out yesterday that the post-placement reports went from having to complete 2, to having to complete 6.  This adds up to appox. $4,000 more.  The kicker is that you have to pay this when your $20,000 is due, not before, not after.  I'm super stressed about coming up with this extreme amount of money in a lump sum.  We're not sure about fundraising because we don't want to ask other people to pay for our child....when people give birth they don't ask others to pay their hospital bills.  We can afford to care for our daughter, to provide for her and give her the wants and needs she will have.  However, to come up with $24,000 in one lump sum is just HARD!  Please pray for us, to give us wisdom about what to sell in the near future, and to give me peace that it will work out.  He funds what he favors!  By the way, could I borrow 20 bucks?  :)

April Referrals

This just in from China....they have matched log in dates for June 10-15, 2006.  We have now officially made it under the 3 digit mark....meaning, they have to get through 95 more days until they get to us!  We're finally in the 2 digit numbers, woo-hoo!!!  IF, and I say that loosely, IF China keeps at a 6 or 7 day a month pace then we are looking at approximately 14 more months until it's OUR TURN!  I meet with our ADOPT Ministry at church once a quarter for our meeting.  I was calculating that I would only see them 4 more times before we get matched.  4 MORE TIMES!!!  Do you have any idea how REAL this is getting for me now?  I don't even realize how REAL this is getting!  I'm getting so excited that I can't even imagine how I'm going to feel this time next year.  My blog posts may be totally unlegible by then.  I'm not even sure that's a word...I don't care, I guess I'm already unlegible :)