Honesty

Because I'm a wear my heart on my sleeve kinda girl, I feel the need to be honest about my whiny day. I've spent the majority of the day having little "chats" with God about how this journey he has us on sure isn't comfortable! How it would be so much nicer if we had $30k sitting around in the bank and didn't have to fundraise or wonder how the heck we're suppose to come up with the next adoption fee that's due. But I'm realizing more and more that the comfortable way isn't typically the way He works. It seems to me that He uses unlikely situations (or people for that matter) to accomplish His work so that we can't take the credit, so that He gets the glory. Because let's just face it, a stay at home mom and a high school history teacher/coach, are not the obvious choice financially to accomplish a 30k task! But that seems right up God's alley for a way to show off what He's capable of! In order for us to pull this adoption off it's going to require that we realize this is His story.

Just when I was about to really give God my piece of mind today about all my fears and insecurities, He gently reminded me that He's got this thing!  Remember Carla? My sister's sweet friend (now my friend too) from college who let me know back in September that she was going to start collecting items to sell and the profit she made, she was going to send to us? Well she emailed me today letting me know that the resale went great and that she was able to make another $72 on top of the $35 she had already sent us! She even wore our shirt at the resale! Here's a gal in North Carolina that is selflessly helping us get yet another step closer to turning in our dossier! If I had that "comfortable" 30k in the bank right now- I'd have missed out on the blessing of Carla's involvement in bringing our babe home!

Remember Lindsey? She is a dear friend of mine from high school who now lives in AZ and is a photographer. She generously gave of her time and talent for the whole month of September to have 100% of the profit she made from photo sessions to be split between our family and the O'Neals (another dear friend from high school, who are also adopting). She recently sent us a check for $170 because of her selfless generosity! Over the weekend I got an email from her saying  that she had a few last minute requests for more photo shoots to help support the fundraiser! The photo shoot she had just done donated $160 to be split between both our families! Again, simply amazed at who and how God is providing! 

Here's the deal... our daily "manna" is being provided. Each step of this adoption journey has been a step of faith and He's yet to let us down! I need to stop whining about being scared and uncomfortable! Thank you ladies for being a reminder of His faithfulness in my life! I'm truly thankful! Joshua and I often joke and say "One day when we're rich (stop laughing) we're totally going to do something super awesome for people like ya'll!" Until then, THANK YOU!!!! 

And as far as being comfortable and safe in life... here's a fresh perspective! Check it out: 

New Look and New Blessing!

So have you noticed some changes on the blog?! First off, totally new "look" that we're hoping is a little more us, or as a friend put it, "helmsy"!  AND we hope that we can make a little more user friendly as we continue to play around with it.

Second, as I'm sure you noticed, our new photographer friend Liz (that we met at our yard sale), is offering a photoshoot raffle in support of our adoption! How incredible is that?! God is bringing people we've never even met before into our lives and blessing this journey we are on! Best of all, I have a new friend!

Check out the raffle if you live in the North Dallas area and we'd be so grateful if you'd help spread the word! Tickets are $5 each, unlimited entries ($10 gets your name entered twice into the drawing and so on). 100% of the proceeds will go towards our adoption and one lucky winner will be announced on November 1st! She is offering an amazing package that truly would be an incredible deal for anyone! Check out her talented work at www.still-moments.com! If you want to see the family photos she took of us a couple weekends ago, click on "client viewing" and then on "An Inexhaustible Love".

Guess what came today?!

That's right folks! Our FBI check that we sent off a little over 10 weeks ago came back today! I saw the FedEx truck pull up and wondered what he was delivering, thinking we still had a couple more weeks before getting this- but sure enough, it came! Yipee! It's all coming together! Now the wait is on the passports in order to complete our dossier! 

I LOVE the FedEx and UPS man these days! 

The two pieces of paper we've been waiting for! 

Not every day you get mail from the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Exactly what we wanted to see! 

A taste of Ethiopia

 So we ventured out to an Ethiopian restaurant last night to experience a taste of our what our kiddo's culture has to offer! My sweet parents came along too, because they're good like that! We went to a restaurant called Queen of Sheba (I'm not sure if it's a chain or not, because my friends Joely and Kelly Jo went to a Queen of Sheba too, but in OK?). Anyway, it was a really nice place and the gal who owns it is from Ethiopia and was so kind to order everything for us since we were clearly "newbies". We decided to just go with a family style platter that had a combination of chicken, lamb, and beef as well as veggies. In Ethiopia they don't eat using utensils, rather they eat using this injera bread to scoop up the food and eat it with their hands. I'm a fan of this because I can't tell you how often our silverware holder in the dishwasher is the first thing to fill up when we load her up! The injera bread was actually pretty good, not as tangy as I thought it might be. It's kind of spongy and crepe like. Mom, dad, Joshua, and I liked everything pretty well. Jude on the other hand must have said "It's spicy!" a hundred times! Notice his facial expression! To his credit, a lot of the stuff did have a bit of a kick to it. So just another step in figuring out a little more about where our babe is from!  

Sometimes it's hard for me to wrap my mind around what it's like there, the smells, tastes, sights, sounds... but I'm trying, and now I can say I have an idea of the tastes.

This also marked the last page to be done in our Eyes Wide Open workbook (a required education with our agency)! We had finished the whole book but still had stinking pg. 28 marked to come back to on "Experiencing different foods". And last night, we finished filling that sucker out! Woot woot! Our social worker , "B" will sign off on it tomorrow and I can mail that baby in to AGCI this weekend! So all our required education is now DONE, our online courses and this workbook, such a relief!

So yeah, I meet with "B" tomorrow to hand over just a couple things she was still needing from me, Jude's immunization records and a copy of doc visit- but then I think she'll be finishing up our home study report before too long! We're still waiting on our FBI prints and passports, but they're both being processed according to the sweet people I've hounded on the phone to find out from! (o;

Our biggest prayer request is that the remaining funds that we need in order to send in our dossier to our agency would come in all in His perfect timing! Once our dossier is complete (the FBI prints and the passports come back in- which I'm thinking will be a 2-4 weeks), it would be awesome if we were able to submit it to our agency ASAP to be put on the wait list- but it has to be turned in with $5k (Broken down this is what it looks like: Authentication $300, Translation of Dossier $200, International Service Fee $4,500). We currently have $1623.14 in savings, which we know falls over $3k short. We're not stupid, we know that's a lot of money to come up with in a relatively short period of time, BUT strangely, we have peace about the money being there exactly when we need it. We have another yard sale coming up October 23rd , who knows, maybe it'll be a whopper of a sale! (o;

God has been faithful each step of the way so far and we trust He'll continue to provide as long as we do our part! We have been blessed to know God's presence like never before throughout this process and honestly we're humbled and grateful to be in a place of complete reliance on Him. After all, what's better in life than God's presence?!

Family Photos (sneak peek)

  

Can I just start off by telling you how excited I am to catch a glimpse at a couple of the "sneak peek" photo's that Sarah took from this weekend of our family?! I absolutely LOVE how they turned out and I just had to share a few with you!  If you haven't already heard, Sarah and a friend of hers stopped by our adoption yard sale a couple weekends ago, complete strangers to us at the time. Truthfully I didn't get to talk to either one of them very much at the time- Joshua talked to them mostly, letting them know why we were doing the sale and yadda yadda. But you know how some people just stick out in a crowd to you because they seem nice? I noticed their smiles from a distance and how "normal" they seemed and genuinely interested in our story. Once they got back in their cars, Joshua came over and showed me the business card of Sarah's  and said, "Catch this... that gal said she'd be willing to do our family photo's if we wanted for free, in support of our adoption!". We were both blown away and once again taken back how God is clearly using so many other's in unique ways in this journey we are on! 

So long story short, we met up with Sarah this past Saturday for our photo session! She is just wonderful and it was such a joy to meet her once again in person! She is totally down to earth and easy going and super talented at what she does! I'm confident that God is going to bless her for blessing us! The best part about it is, now she's not a complete stranger anymore! In fact, she's one more name written in RED on our calendar of yet another individual who helped bring our kiddo home through generosity and selflessness! I sure can't wait to tell our little Ethiopian boy of all the amazing stories that took place on our journey to get to him! And to think, we could have missed it all if we had said no to the burden of adoption God put on our hearts out of  fear! Remember that God funds His callings and blesses them! 

Another Yard Sale in the Making!

Yay for Kind-hearted People!

I caught this facial expression of Jude the other night and thought it summed up this phase of life that he is in right now as a 3 year old. He gives me this look often if he thinks I've asked something ridiculous of him... you know, like if I've suggested it might be his nap time or time to come in from playing, or in this instance I had suggested that he play with a "girl" across the street! "Come on mom! You've gotta be kidding me?!"

That being said... I might just have had this facial expression a couple times myself here lately. But in a good way! Like when my neighbor, the same one who has the little girl that I suggested Jude play with, handed me a gift card for a one hour massage, just as a kind gesture! I mean, seriously?! (And I'll have you know that I literally had just told Joshua the night before how awesome it would be, that one day when we had a little extra money sitting around, a great way to show his undying love for me would be to buy me a massage package!) And when a complete stranger that came to our yard sale last week handed us her business card and said she was a photographer and would like to do our family photo's for free! What?! Really what this is, is the face of disbelief. That what you just heard seems almost silly because you didn't see it coming. I love moments like these because it once again reminds me how God works through other's and blesses us along the way.

So today is a good day in the Helms house because, #1 we had those free family photo's taken this morning by a new found friend, who generously offered her talent on our behalf! We'll be able to use these photo's too for our dossier! And I'd just like to add here how freeing it was to not drag around a tripod and set the timer on the camera while begging Jude to keep looking at the blinking light! Yes I love photography... but it's pretty darn nice to have someone else snapping away when I'm required to be in the picture! I'll post the pics once we get them, I'm excited!

Today is also a good day because #2,  I'm using that wonderful gift card for a massage in about an hour! Wahoo! I haven't had a massage since before Jude was born and I'm so looking forward to this! An hour of relaxation, here I come!

So a big thank you to kind hearted people that go out of their way to bless other's! Now my plan is to do the same for someone this week and pay it forward!