October Fundraising Update

Y'all!! We are a tenth of the way to our puzzle fundraiser and 40% of the way to our LARGE fundraising goal that is due when we accept our child's referral!!
Watching as SO MANY people step up and donate to help bring our sweet love bug home is so incredibly humbling. God has proven Himself as our Great Provider!

If you would like to sponsor a puzzle piece, click here to get the rundown on how it works.

God has been teaching me SO much through this process of adoption. Here are two things that have stuck out recently:
1."Just us what you have, do the best you can, and trust him to fill in the gaps. In other words, our scarcity + tenacious faith in Jesus really will = more than enough." - Lisa Harper
2. "There are cowards, there are regular people, there are heros, and then there are parents. Parents are not really on the spectrum from cowardice to courage because if your child is in jeopardy, you simply do what it takes to save them." - Tim Keller / If we are pursuing our child so fervently, HOW MUCH MORE does God pursue us?!

Also, we are chugging away on our homestudy that will hopefully be done by December!! SO MUCH paperwork and so little time, but I am praying that God will not only provide the money needed to bring our sweet babe home, but for the time we need to complete the paperwork, doctor appointments, homestudy meetings, etc.! (Please pray along with us!!)

Another reminder, I am taking custom orders for fall and Christmas decor!! You can take a look on Etsy or a few of the custom orders I have done over on Facebook. I love watching God turn a hobby I love to do (and talent HE gave me) into a way for us to bring the newest Smith home!!

Fundraising update and our newest fundraiser

Y'all! We are standing AMAZED by God's faithfulness. We are already 35% of the way to our biggest fundraising goal of the adoption! (We have only been working towards it for less than 2 weeks!) Glory to God in the highest!!

If you haven't realized this, we have been working towards our $40-50k goal since mid-June. That means The Lord has raised OVER FOURTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in THREE MONTHS. He has been so good to give us confirmation after confirmation that we are following His will and it is such an honor to watch His mighty ways unfold. 

OUR NEWEST FUNDRAISER:

We are selling puzzle pieces!

This is how it will work:

1. We had a 1000 piece puzzle purchased from a Korean artist. "Spring in Korea" 

2. We are “selling” each piece for $10. You can buy 1, 2, 3, or 10! There is no limit!

3. To purchase you can send money through my paypal link: paypal.me/alexrileysmith, mail a check (send me an email at Mrs.AlexRileySmith@gmail.com for address), or send it through the Square Cash App to $alexrileysmith

4. Once you purchase a piece, we will write your name on the back of one of the puzzle pieces! 

5. Once every single piece has been “sold”, we will put the puzzle together and hang it in a double-sided glass frame for our babies’ room so that they can always look back and be reminded of who had a “piece” of bringing them home!

I love a puzzle fundraiser for the fact that it represents how our baby will be brought home, one piece at a time. And it will always be a reminder of how many people played a part in bringing our sweet child home. We are so thankful for the support that has already been shown and I know God has more in store for us, because He withholds no. good. thing!

One more way for you to be able to show your love and support... please share this post with family and friends!!!

Our Yardsale Fundraiser

This weekend was our HUGE adoption fundraiser yard sale that our sweet, amazing, hardworking small group held for us. We have been collecting from friends and family for about 2 months now and filled 2 garages completely full!! Over SIXTY families donated goods for us to sell. God totally blew us away by providing so much merchandise. Like totally blew us away. 

The last 2 months have consisted of collecting, organizing, more collecting, and more organizing...

We decided to have a "pre-sale" on friday evening and an all-day sale on Saturday. We started pulling everything out on Friday around 1pm and seriously had a constant stream of people until dark. My prayer was for God to show up in a massive way this weekend, the way that he has shown up with providing SO much for our sale. Well, He totally outdid Himself!! On Friday night alone we pulled in almost $1700!!! (Needless to say, I ugly cried when we found this out.) Well, after a couple hours of sleep, we got up to do it all over again. And we were slammed! People were so generous and kind! God provided times for us to tell of His wonderful love and pursuance. He used His sons and daughters to encourage us and push us along on our journey. God was totally glorified. And at the end of the weekend, He provided $4,466.55!!! (If you include the amount Todd and Andrew have sold on eBay from the donated goods, it puts us over $5,000!) We are simply speechless. God is a good good father.

And we seriously couldn't have been able to do a fraction of these without our amazing small group! What an immense privilege it is to do life with these families and how incredibly humbling it is to watch as they selflessly spend HOURS & HOURS working this amazing fundraiser for us! 

The love we received from those who donated SO much, who came out this weekend and purchased items, who have prayed for this event, helped take care of Madilynn, and helped us stay sane during this process... we are so thankful.

To our future baby: You will never understand HOW MANY people can't wait for you to come home and HOW MUCH these people already love you. You. Are. So. Wanted. 

Our 2nd Fundraising Goal, Or As We Refer To It: The Big One!

So our homestudy is underway!! We have to have 4 meetings and we are halfway through with those. We had our initial meeting and I have had my one-on-one meeting. So that leaves Todd's one-on-one and our home inspection. We also have a TON of paperwork to get through, psychological tests, fingerprinting, and a few more surprises, I'm sure. We are hoping to be done with our homestudy by December! (What a Christmas gift that will be!)

But now on to our next fundraising goal!!! This is our BIGGIN. 

$22,500 due when we accept our child's referral for the adoption program fee!

It usually takes about 4 months after your home study is submitted to get assigned to a child. We will receive a photo along with a description and medical overview of the child. We should have a couple of days to decide if we feel capable of caring for said child. The adoption program fee helps cover the cost to facilitate the adoption in South Korea and the needs for our little one prior to bringing them home (food clothing, shelter, etc.). 

This is a huge goal, but we have a HUGE God!

We already have $867 raised towards our next goal!! And we have a massive yard sale fundraiser (on September 10th) followed by a silent auction dinner (on October 21st) coming up that we are so excited about!!! Also, let me know if you would like a custom calligraphy sign (especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner!) 

Please continue to pray that we will have every. penny. we need once we receive the referral and that God uses His amazing works to glorify Himself and show others His great love! We cannot wait to meet our sweet baby and are so thankful for God's provision!

Our First Homestudy Meeting

Yesterday, we had our first homestudy meeting!!

We met with our social worker for the first time. Several of our friends have worked with her on their adoptions and had nothing but amazing things to say about her. And let me say, she did not disappoint. Her passion for adoption is so apparent. Knowing that this one person will be creating a report on your family can be a little intimidating, but Janet completely put us at ease. When something is God's plan, He can bring the right people to encourage and help us along the way.

I expected to leave with tons of paperwork, but it is now all online and we are waiting on that email, so the overwhelming panic has not set in... yet. ;)  

I know we have a LONG road ahead of us, but we find peace and comfort in Psalm 128:2 "You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How joyful and prosperous you will be!"

BIG NEWS: we can start our homestudy!!

So, in 2 months and 12 days GOD has raised the over $7,000 needed to start our homestudy!!
This covers our application, homestudy, (a homestudy is required by law. A social worker visits our home and will interview each of us, and make an overall assessment of the life, home, environment our adopted child will be entering into. This takes around 2-4 months to complete.), and our U.S. Processing Fee (covers our agency's cost to facilitate our adoption with agency and government officials in both the United States and Korea. Processing expenses include — but are not limited to — personnel costs, administrative overhead, operational costs, staff training and education, communications and publications costs. This fee also covers all registration and translation costs related to submitting our dossier once we are matched with a child.)

We are meeting with our social worker on Monday, August 29th for our FIRST HOMESTUDY MEETING! (Man, that seems so surreal to say!)

Watching The Lord provide in such a BIG way is such a HUGE honor!!

Since our last fundraising update, we have placed another t-shirt order, made a whole lot of custom calligraphy signs, and been blown away by the generosity of our brothers and sisters in Christ! 

It has been an extremely busy month and things are just going to get crazier with all of the paperwork and an even higher fundraising goal to hit! But we know God has called us to this journey and we know that our sweet babe is so, so worth it!

Text to Todd

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, Calvary had a Ladies' Night and God used it as a night of realizations and encouragement. When I got home, I sat down to text Todd (since he is on a mission trip right now) and this is what poured out. I wasn't going to post, but I figured, our future child will want to each step of our journey and I know I will love to look back on how God spoke to us and how our journey led us to the baby we will be holding in our arms.
So here is my text to Todd:

"Tonight was the ladies night and man did God use it to speak to me!!!! First of all, while we were worshipping He BROKE my heart for our future little one. Our baby is going to ABANDONED. Left without a parent, shuffled through so many hoops by the government. They will not have an easy beginning. In fact, it will most likely take a hard toll on them in one way or another. My heart hurts for our baby. I pray that God will step in and hold him/her tight. Protect them, love them, comfort them until we get there. I knew what their first year and a half or so would look like theoretically but tonight the weight off it hit me hard... Like holding-back-an-ugly-cry-because-I-was-in-a-room-of-about-250-women hard.

Then the teaching for tonight was on "joy." And I thought, "I have been pretty joyful lately, I'm not sure where God is taking this." And oh boy did he reveal my struggle, my weakness. She taught on John 6: Jesus feeding the 5000. A story I have heard a million times. But I heard it in a way I have never heard it before. Verse 5 says that Jesus asks "where shall WE buy bread that they may eat?" - He had compassion on these people. For their needs. And in verse 7, Philip answers that everything he has or could hope to have wouldn't be sufficient for what they need. The speaker said that Jesus' question went way over Philip's head. And then she asked us a question "who has a situation that is way over your head?" And I wanted to leap out of my seat with both hands up. I. AM. PHILIP. This adoption and the money it will take is so over our heads. It is not something we could ever do on our own. But then she said "well aren't you lucky?" 😭 We are in a situation for God to show his amazing glory. He literally took 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish and multiples them to feed FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE!!! This is not a fairytale. This is not a story to teach someone a lesson. This truly truly happened!! If he can do this with food, you better believe it is possible with money. I am so quick to say "what is this among so many?" But what are we to do in our situation?? PUT IT IN HIS HANDS. He is so far beyond capable. In verse 11, Jesus gave thanks for the tiny amount of food He had AND THEN he multiplied it. We are to give thanks for the $3000 that God has already provided and then when we put it in His hands He WILL multiply it into the $50,000 we need. 🙌🏼

Psalm 51:12 says "restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by your generous Spirit." God is GENEROUS. He wants to give us our needs and wants. We need to honestly, wholeheartedly ask the Lord for what we need to pursue of child. My heart aches knowing that we will not get to spend their first days with them but God called us to rescue them and He will reward us for our obedience. That is a God-given promise and peace."