Happy Birthday, Jack!

In honor of Jack’s fourth birthday (February 28), which we will be unable to spend with him, we have decided to create a Bai Jia Bei, or “100 Good Wishes Quilt”, for him to come home to.  We will be collecting good wishes throughout the month of February … but we need your help to complete this task.  We would LOVE for everyone following our adoption journey to participate in this project.  If you are reading our updates, following our blog, praying for us or Jack, helping with fund raising, or simply gathering updates from others out of curiosity you are part of Jack’s story and we want you to be included in this project.  The idea is simple and the directions are very easy to follow.  Plus, the time commitment can be as little as hitting reply and responding to this email.  Simply follow the DIRECTIONS below.  I promise – this is easy!

P.S. If you know anyone else who would like to participate PLEASE pass this on!

The “100 Good Wishes Quilt” Tradition

To welcome and celebrate a new life, there is a tradition in the northern part of China to make a Bai Jia Bei, or “100 Good Wishes Quilt”.  It is a custom to invite friends and family to contribute a square of material with a wish for the new child.  This patch of cloth is then used to make a special quilt for the child.  The quilt contains the good wishes from all the families and friends who contributed a piece of fabric.  The quilt is then passed down from generation to generation.

In addition, another small piece of the same fabric is placed in a special scrapbook for the child along with a written wish or prayer from the contributing friend or family member. This way the child will always know which square came from whom, and which wish or prayer was sent to him with that particular piece of fabric.

Although this is a Chinese tradition, it is a great tradition for any child to be welcomed this way.  What a wonderful blessing to read the good wishes when the child is older and to know how much he was wanted and loved before his actual arrival home.

How to Participate

To be honest, we were originally going to focus on just creating a “100 Good Wishes” scrapbook for Jack, focusing on collecting good wishes and messages for him from all those following our journey to his arrival.  After researching the tradition a bit more, however, we feel that we would be missing out on a great experience if we do not create an actual quilt for Jack as well.  The catch is we do not want anyone to opt out of participating because of the need for fabric.  That said, we have set this up to be as easy or involved as you want it to be.  You can send a message with the fabric of your choice, or you can choose to just send your message and “adopt” a piece of fabric from us to include with your note.  Do what works for you, but please join us in this project – it would mean so much to us to have your good wish included.

DIRECTIONS:

Submit Your Good Wish:

1.      Think about what message you would like to share with Jack.  This might include a poem, Bible verse, favorite quote or saying, advice, etc.  You might mention good health, perseverance, compassion or display your sense of humor.  Just speak from your heart.

2.      Submit your message via mail, email, or facebook.  If you send your message electronically, I will print it out on cardstock for inclusion in Jack’s scrapbook.  If you are mailing your message to us, feel free to embellish or decorate the paper you use in any way you like.  

Mail to:  Deborah Shipley, 4851 Sterling Lane, Fort Meade, MD 20755

                      OR

Email to:  dndship@comcast.net 

**If there are several members in your family, please feel free to send more than one good wish.  Perhaps your children would like to send one wish with the adults sending a separate note.  No wish is unwanted!

Contribute a Quilt Square of Your Own Choosing:

1.       Choose any 100% cotton fabric that you like.  (100% cotton fabric is the best choice as it washes and wears well.)

2.      Cut or purchase ¼ yard of the fabric.  There is no need to cut the piece into squares, we will take care of washing, ironing and cutting on this end.

3.      If you wish, include a note explaining why you chose this particular fabric.

4.      Mail your fabric to us at the address above.  (If you place it in a Ziploc bag, it will ensure that the fabric does not get wet while in the mail.)

5.      Don’t forget to send your good wish with your fabric!

Adopt a Quilt Square:

We do not want anyone to not participate because the “crafty” part of this project slows them down or scares them off.  To make things easier, we have created a way for you to “adopt” a piece of the quilt to accompany your wish.  Simply submit your good wish as described above and let us know you want to “adopt”.  We will provide a fabric square for the quilt, a matching square for the scrapbook and, if you wish, even mail you a piece of the adopted fabric for you to keep on your end.  FYI – This fabric will be selected from fabric already passed down within our family so it is not simply random pieces from a store.

That’s it!  That’s all there is to it.  

I told you it was easy!

So what are you waiting for?  As I stated above, we would really like for everyone following this journey to be a part of Jack’s quilt and scrapbook.  There are far more than 100 people traveling this road alongside us and wouldn’t it be great to have to make a larger quilt due to an overwhelming response?!  If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.  We are SO excited to honor Jack’s birthday in this way and can’t wait to see this quilt put together!  Thank you!

If you need some inspiration...

Sample good wishes:

http://www.babyjellybeans.com/web/do/site/photo;jsessionid=AE2E07DAF24155B698D105B37E2A7CDA?ID=415361

 Sample quilts:

http://members.cox.net/~joannanorman/quilt/photos.html

Laugh or Cry? Which Type Are You?

Personally, I don’t know how people do it.  I don’t understand how people without faith in Christ make it through the day when things get rough.  How do they survive?  How does that things-are-overwhelming feeling not just eat them alive?  I’m not trying to be flippant, I seriously do not understand.  And it makes me a little sad for them.  I know that today was not the best of my life, but I also know that with every song of faithfulness that played on my ipod or car radio I received another boost of you-can-do-this-ness as I was reminded of God’s faithfulness and constant presence.  I don’t want to even think about how much more this day would have crushed my spirit if I did not have Him to fall back on – or more honestly, to fall into the hands of.  And, honestly, I pray that I never find out.

So, I guess you are wondering what happened, huh?  Well, to set one thing straight, the rottenness of my day’s outing had nothing to do with the weather.  For those of you not in the Maryland area – we awoke to unexpected snow this morning, followed by a full day of continuous rain and sleet amidst a daytime high temperature of roughly 34 degrees.  Not exactly good “Journey into our nation’s capitol” weather, but since I spent most of my travel time on the Metro (subway) it really wasn’t too bad after the initial early morning drive to the train station.  My troubles instead came from messed up paperwork.  Again.  Ugh!

First, let me explain a bit of the process so that today’s events will make more sense.  In order to put together a dossier (packet of required paperwork) to be sent to China, there is a list of forms and letters that must be completed or requested by the adopting family. These include physical exam clearances, police report clearances, proof of employment letters, a financial statement, etc.  Each of these documents must then be notarized to prove their legitimacy. Then, each of these notaries must be certified to document their legitimacy.  Lucky for us we live in Maryland which is one of the states that requires this certification to be completed at the county level, by the County Clerk’s office, as well as at the state level by the Secretary of State.  Also, lucky for us (can you hear my sarcasm?), Maryland is one of a handful of states that must have the state certification authenticated by the U.S. Secretary of State Department as well before said paperwork can be submitted to the Chinese Embassy for their certification, the ultimate goal.  Only after all of these hoops have been jumped through is the original document finally ready for inclusion in the dossier packet which will be sent to the China Center of Adoption Affairs.

So, today my mission was to visit the U.S. Secretary of State Department and have our nine dossier documents authenticated. (FYI – There will eventually be ten of these documents as the immigration approval form we are waiting on completes the set and will have to go through the same process.)   The Secretary of State Department website states that they are open for walk-in authentication requests on a while-you-wait basis from 7:30-11:00 a.m., so my plan was to arrive at their office at 7:30.  I wanted to be one of the first in line, finish quickly, and then head back home.  That was the plan.

The first wrinkle in this plan came at 5 o’clock this morning when one of Dan’s soldiers called to see if Dan would be canceling PT (physical training) due to the 3 inches of snow on the ground.  Wow!  Not expecting that!  It was supposed to rain last night and today, thus I had packed all of my paperwork in a plastic folder inside my waterproof backpack, but I hadn’t planned on snowy roads.  Once I got up and checked the news, however, it didn’t seem like a show stopper, just a bit of a slow-down, so I headed out about 6:20.  I knew I would never make my hoped for 6:45 train, but I wasn’t too worried about it, and actually getting to D.C. wasn’t too bad.  The driving was slow going, but once I got to the train station that wasn’t an issue anymore and I arrived at the Office of Authentications about 8:45.  Then the fun began.

I turned in all nine of my documents to be authenticated and the very nice lady behind the counter took them away.  About 10 minutes later, a very nice man brought them back out and explained to me that 5 of them were okay and ready to be authenticated but the remaining four documents could not be authenticated because the County Clerk’s office had certified them with the wrong notary’s name.  The certified form actually had the wrong notary’s name and commission date on it.  Excuse me?  How does that happen?  Isn’t the point of certifying the notary to check the name and make sure the person is a true and valid notary?  How exactly do you screw that up?!  Well, apparently you can, and she did.  And the Maryland Secretary of State Department representative didn’t notice when she certified it either.   Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!

Well, the very nice man (I am not being sarcastic there) tried to help me out by referring me to a notary they had there in the office and explaining that I could re-notarize everything there in D.C. and thus “fix” the problem.  This fix, however, would require me to remove all of the Maryland certification paperwork from the notarized forms, have everything re-notarized by a D.C. notary, and then recertified at a different government office about four blocks away.  A possible solution, yes, but given our track record with all of the crazy Murphy’s Law things that have happened with our paperwork, I just did not feel comfortable taking the Maryland seals off of our Maryland paperwork and thus risking the Chinese Embassy kicking it back to us because of the D.C. certifications on Maryland forms.  So… I decided to simply have the five “okay” documents authenticated today, take the others home with me so that I could carry them back to the County Clerk’s office in Annapolis and hopefully have them fix their mistake.  Luckily, yes this time I am serious, there were actually six of the documents that were okay and only three with the wrong name certified so that made me 67% successful.  Oh yeah!

And so I began my journey home… back through the rain to the train station.  Back through the subway tunnels to my car.  Back down the now slushy roads to our house.  And back to my loving neighbor/babysitter to arrange a plan for my afternoon journey to Annapolis.  Yippee!  See, lots of excitement, really not much of it caused by the weather.  :)

Well, after feeding the girls lunch and shoveling snow off our sidewalk and driveway I was back in the car, this time heading east.  When I arrived at the County Clerk’s office the first person I spoke to pretty much looked at me like I was crazy.  I explained to her that I had had the notaries certified there and that they were completed with the wrong notary’s name but the idea of such a thing was so ludicrous that I’m pretty sure she didn’t believe me at first.  But then she looked at the forms and promptly showed them to another employee asking how to fix the mistake.  That employee, who quickly acknowledged this was a stupid mistake, said that they simply needed to look up the commission for the correct notary and then reprint the certification form.  Simply.  Ha!  If only any of this could be simple.  Turns out, it’s not that easy.  Shocker, huh?

Would you believe that in the middle of all of this the commission of the true notary, the one whose name should have been certified the first time, expired.  Yep.  Expired.  Now, she had it renewed so she is still a notary, but the only commission date they keep on file in the County Clerk’s office is the current commission date so for them to certify her signature today the commission date they would include on the form would not align with the date she actually notarized our paperwork.  Basically, the form would read that she notarized our form in October of 2010, but wasn’t commissioned until November of 2010.  A simple matter of renewal dates and logistics, but enough to make the whole paper look suspect, something we definitely do not need at this point.

So, here we are.  With three of our dossier documents completed, notarized, sort-of county certified, state certified and completely worthless.  Aaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!  Oh wait, did I already say that?  Sorry to be redundant.  Grrrrrrrrrr!  Is that better?  Ha!

Luckily, yes I really mean it this time too, all three of these documents are items that Dan and/or I completed and signed before the notary so we can easily reprint them, resign them, and go through the whole notary/certification process (and fees!) with them again.  Easy as driving back to Annapolis that is.  And, luckily this issue was caught by the very helpful and conscientious employees at the Secretary of State Department now rather than by China later.  And luckily I took these forms to D.C. today rather than waiting for our completed immigration form and thus putting everything on hold while we fixed the mistake.  The truth is, this could have been much worse.  If any of these forms had been completed by someone other than us, or the issue had been discovered once the documents made it to the Chinese Embassy or CCAA, our whole process could have come to a screeching halt.  As it is, we can redo the paperwork and rework the process while we are waiting on USCIS anyway.  So, I guess I should count my lucky stars as my grandmother used to say – or perhaps just drown my sorrows in a few of the chocolate chip cookies I came home and baked.

But then I am taken back to my opening thought.  How do unbelievers do this?  How would I have gotten through the day without totally losing my mind if I didn’t have Someone much bigger and much wiser to fall back on and trust.  As I told a friend earlier today it seems like the theme of this adoptioin journey is quickly becoming “one step forward, two steps back”.  Then I am reminded that God never promised things would be easy.  As a matter of fact, in Isaiah He pretty much promises we will have days like this.  But He also promises we don’t have to face them alone. 

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
   I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
   they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
   you will not be burned;
   the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the LORD your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Savior

Isaiah 43:1b-3a

I know God knows the ultimate plan. And I trust Him, I really do.  But today was one of those days when I just had to decide – do I laugh or do I cry?  Do I trust or do I doubt?  Luckily, I think I made the right choices.  I chose to laugh in the Office of Authentications while rolling my eyes, shaking my head, and leaving a very long message on Dan’s voicemail.  I chose to shut my eyes and feel the tears of frustration come and go while riding the Metro.  I prayed for strength and sang along with Mark Schultz’s God of Glory in the car while driving to and from Annapolis.  And then I spent my evening blogging about how faithful my God is even in the midst of the most ridiculously frustrating situations.  I don’t know what your choices would have been, but this sounds about right to me.  And it also sounds like it might be time for one more cookie.  :)

Nothing Philosophical - Part 6

If you have been following this story from the beginning you will know that my decision to travel with Show Hope to Maria’s Big House brought about quite a bit of teasing from both friends and family.  From the very beginning I had to repeatedly tell people I was NOT going to China to find another child to adopt.  And, yes, I was very serious when I made these statements.  But now I was heading home with the love of a child on my heart and knowing full well I was going to face even more jokes and loving harassment when I began to tell people my story.  So, ready.  Deep breath in...  Set.  Firm jaw and head held high…  Go!

When I first arrived back in Maryland my parents were staying at our house having taken Jolene for a few days of the time I was away and now spending the weekend with us before heading home.  I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my new found love with them quite yet so I laid low in public, but behind the scenes I did bring up the topic with Dan.  I wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to respond, but I also knew that another adoption was not off the table for us as a couple and that the Lord had obviously brought this child into my heart for a purpose so that gave me some much needed confidence.  So, late one night, away from anyone else who might hear, in a quiet voice, I broached the subject with a bit of trepidation…  Okay, hold it right there.  I have to be honest.  I was scared to death!   What if he just thought I was crazy?  God’s calling or not, I still had to get the words out of my mouth and that was harder than I thought.  Thankfully, Dan did not say I was crazy.  And he didn’t throw any pillows at me either. Ha!

Actually, he was far more receptive to the idea than I thought he might be.  As much as I knew this was a God thing, and as much as I knew I would share the whole story with him, I also figured I would have to do a bit of convincing, but really not so much.  But then again, Dan is just like that.  It’s like God just tells him stuff and he says, “Okay.”  I would like to tell you that I am like that too, but I also know you have been reading this blog for a while and know that that just ain’t so.  I am far more likely to make stuff way harder than it has to be.  Thus, the reason it’s taken me so long to tell this story.  Just think how quickly I could have informed you of how-we-got-here if I had just heard God speak at Maria’s and said, “Okay.  I’m in.”  Kinda makes me look pretty silly, huh?  But, oh well, this is who I am and at least I can smile while I type about it – especially since we’ve already concluded that I am a dork and God’s okay with that. :-)

Anyway, back to the story…  After a few of these late night conversations, Dan and I made the decision that we were ready to pursue this adoption option and see what needed to be done to make it happen.  Keeping in mind that finances were going to be a major issue along the road, it was our desire to crunch all the numbers, see how far from eligible we really were, and then develop a plan for bridging that gap.  Step one - find our old financial paperwork from our previous adoptions and use those forms as a template for this adoption.  Step two - send away for an information packet from Chinese Children Adoption International (CCAI), the only U.S. adoption agency currently allowed to arrange adoptions from the Luoyang Province where Maria’s Big House is located, thus the agency we would be using.  Step three - find all the possible ways to calculate your net worth and pray for a miracle.

Well, the results of step one were just as we suspected.  Looking at our old financial forms there were some major changes to be made.  In the assets department we had to remove the numbers linked to owning, and thus having equity in, a house.  We also had to adjust balances in savings and checking accounts.  On the liabilities side we were able to remove all of the numbers and replace them with zeroes – no car payments, no credit card debt, no home loan, etc.  All together, this did not get us the net worth totals we needed, but thanks to all those zeroes we weren’t quite as down and out as we thought we would be.

After doing a bit of research online and looking at several different net worth calculators, it became very clear that we had other assets available to us that we never had to consider before.  You see, when we adopted the first two times, we were both working full time and those salaries alone made the net worth issue not a concern.   That said, when we did all of the paperwork for those adoptions we never needed to include assets beyond the obvious.  What that means in simple terms is that we never needed to include our retirement or stock balances before.  This time, however, those numbers were suddenly very important.  In short, all those years I spent in the classroom, combined with the money we have invested with Thrivent Financial over the years, were very important!  The inclusion of those numbers combined with the giant goose-egg sitting in our liabilities column (thank you again, Dave Ramsey!!) actually pushed us past the necessary net worth requirement.  Hallelujah!  There was our miracle! 

What does that mean?  It means all those worries and doubts and crazy thoughts I had been having from that first night in Chicago were all for naught.  We qualified.  We met the standard.  We were in!  Now all we had to do was leap blindly by faith into the adoption process and pray that the Lord would provide the funds needed to complete the journey.  You see we qualified to adopt, but only because of the lack of liabilities and the few thousand dollars we had in the bank. We were in the game, but not quite in the big leagues.  If we were to either spend a great deal of what was in the bank or borrow large amounts to pay for adoption fees all of that net worth stuff would change – and not in our favor.  Like I said, we were in, but this was going to take a huge amount of God to supplement a huge lack of funds.  

Luckily, four months later, He has yet to let us down.  We’ve had to arrange to pay a couple of bills in pieces rather than a lump sum, and we have submitted some fees via multiple checks from friends and family through our fund raisers, and we have written some big personal checks, but we have not missed a payment yet and don’t see ourselves doing so in the near future.  Through the generosity of friends and family and Six Seeds, and the strange timing of army reimbursement dollars, and God's good grace, we are right where we need to be to pay each of the next group of fees.  Thanks be to God!  He never ceases to amaze us, and for that we can take absolutely no credit.

We still have a long way to go.  If you look at our bank account balances you will note quickly there is no fund that will cover our in-country or travel expenses.  We certainly are not out of the woods yet, but also aren't walking blindly.  Okay, maybe blindly by faith, but not blindly as in lost. God has brought us this far, there is no doubt He will take us to the end.  How?  I have no idea.  Some days I find myself hoping that yet another great gift of money, like the Six Seeds thing, will just fall from the sky.  But then I think, where is the faith in that?  Given His track record lately, it seems God is much more likely to make us wait it out until we have no other option but faith and then step in to provide right at the right moment.  I mean, come on, you've been following this story, doesn't that seem about right?  And you know what?  I'm okay with that.  Not my first choice - to wait and see how it turns out rather than having all my ducks in a row where I can see them, but I'm okay with that.  Just think of what a great story we have to share.  Far more exciting than "Hey, we needed the money so we just wrote a check." 

So, there you have it.  The whole story of how we got here.  At this point the story picks up with my early blog, Making it Fun! posted on September 24^th.  If you have never read it, I encourage you to read it now.  It is a wonderful testament to the completely mind-blowing control God has over this entire situation.  We took that first leap of faith not even knowing if Jack was eligible for adoption and yet God’s grace abounded from the moment we chose to jump. And if you have read it before, I invite you to return and read it again.  I, myself, was reminded of little details of this journey that seems to have just flown by.  I am so glad that I decided to write this dear little blog-thing, and that I have such great documentation of this entire experience.  I cannot think of a better way to be reminded of just how BIG our God is.

Oh!  And I have to tell you, for those who have read all of my little “Nothing Philosophical” posts, about that other family…  The one I was convinced was going to adopt my little boy because they could and I couldn’t…  Well, it turns out they did leave China with plans to adopt, and they hit the ground running when they came home from Maria’s.  But those plans were set for adopting a little girl with completely different health issues, not our little one at all.  Go figure!  Guess that was just another mountain of doubt that Satan created and tortured me with.  I can’t say I’m disappointed with their choices, but I sure am happy we are on this adoption journey alongside their wonderful family.  I can’t think of a better way to travel this road.  We love them and their beautiful baby girl, who should be home in just a few months, and we are so blessed to watch their journey of faith unfold and to see the real-life miracles being worked in their lives as well.   I’ve said it before but it definitely bears repeating – God is GOOD!  And His love endures FOREVER!

Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
   I will bring your children from the east
   and gather you from the west.
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
   and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
   and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name,
   whom I created for my glory,
   whom I formed and made.

                                             Isaiah 43:5-7

And the Winners Are!!

A big thank you to all who participated in the "Journey to Jack - Great Mileage Give-Away"!  Thanks to your generosity we were able to raise $1035.  Hurray!  That is a great start to covering our travel expenses.  Yeah!

That said, here is the good news...

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Jr. w/ kid’s 6 book series - 

     The winner is CRYSTAL AYALA

Autographed Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover AND Act Your Wage game - 

     The winner is MELINDA DERAS

Coby SNAPP Swivel Camcorder - 

     The winner is CHRISTINA SCHILLER

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University Membership Kit - 

     The winner is AMANDA THETFORD

Sony 7” Portable DVD Player - 

     The winner is JANIE VANCE

BONUS DRAWING for $50 Target Gift Card - 

     The winner is SHELLEY CONDREN

Congratulations to all of our winners!

We would like to say again just how much we appreciate everyone's support in this journey - be it financial, emotional or prayerful.  We embarked on this journey as a huge step of faith and God continues to provide for us in miraculous ways.  If you have been along for the ride at all, then you too are part of the miracle.  Thanks for traveling with us.   I can't imagine what He has in store for us next!

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?"  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.                  Matthew 6:30-33

I Am a Dork, But God Loves Me Anyway

For those who saw my facebook post earlier this afternoon (and those who didn’t…) here is the full story of today’s miracle money.

About 10 o’clock this morning I was sitting in my car in the church parking lot filling out some requested paperwork for the church office.  It was supposed to be 20 degrees feeling like 16 today so I didn’t want to go through the hassle of taking everyone in and out of the car, thus I ran in the office, grabbed the paper I needed to complete, and went back out to the car to fill in the blanks.  Anyway, while we were sitting there in the car my phone rang.  I looked at the 931 area code and was surprised to see that one of our friends from Tennessee must be calling.  When I answered the phone I was even more surprised.  The woman on the other end of the phone quickly introduced herself, said she was calling from Six Seeds TV and asked if I remembered entering a contest to win $2000.  Taken back a bit I answered “yes”, even though the memory was very vague and I really had no idea what she was talking about.  She then went on to tell me that we had won.  It took me a second to realize what exactly it was she was telling me, and then I think I said something totally stupid like, “Wow! Thanks!”  Like I said in the title, I am a dork.  Ha! 

Well, apparently I really did enter a contest to win $2000 towards our adoption costs.  Remembering just bits of this, I came home and found the contest thanks to the search box at Six Seeds and even found the dumb little comment I had submitted.  (A comment that makes it even more incredible that we won, mind you.)  The deal was you logged onto their website, left a comment after the contest information and then a winner would be selected from among all the comments left.  Obviously this winner was chosen randomly and not based upon the comment, mind you, as all I wrote was “thank you for this opportunity” versus some other people explaining exactly where they were in the process, where they were adopting from, the name or age of their child, etc.  Once again, I feel the dork title might fit here as well.  If I had only known then…

The most ironic part of this is that even now that I remember entering, I don’t really remember how I found out about the contest.  I have looked back through some things and figured out that I originally got linked up with Six Seeds information when Show Hope encouraged people to comment on a different article on the website – for that article every comment left resulted in a $2 donation from Six Seeds to Show Hope.  I remember doing that.  And after that I guess I started getting Six Seeds updates via email.  I suppose it was one of those emails that shared the invitation for this contest, so I guess that is how this started. 

Anyway, back to today’s excitement.  Apparently the woman who called me this morning has been trying to inform me of our winning status via email for a couple of weeks now.  I don’t know how I missed these, but somehow I have.  I vaguely remember seeing something saying “I’ve been trying to contact you about your winning…” but I know I thought it was spam as for some reason I receive “winning status” emails quite often in my mother-in-law’s name and I just delete them.  I am sure I saw the word winner and hit the spam button on that one.  The original emails, however, no idea.  Absolutely no memory.  Luckily this woman hunted us down.  She told me that her editor had told her yesterday that if she couldn’t contact us soon they should probably select another winner.  Aahhh!!  We almost lost our fantastic blessing!!  The good news here is that this woman happens to be friends with someone at Show Hope who recognized our name and provided her my cell phone number.  Talk about a small world!  And a grateful cell phone owner!!  I have never loved my little non-texting, no picture sending device any more than right now.  :)

So, here we are.  In this short conversation this morning we were told we are now $2000 closer to having Jack home, and now I get to go back and change some numbers on the grant application I’m working on – stating now that our need is $2000 less than it was yesterday.  Is there a better change to make to such a piece of paper?  I think not!  And, really, how can you beat that?  God never ceases to amaze me.

After all of this took place this morning a friend of ours at Dan’s office said to me, “You must be really nice or praying a lot.”  I would like to think we are really nice, but I can guarantee we are praying a lot.  And that a lot of other people are too - thank YOU, very much.  So, although I am a total dork who couldn’t seem to figure out emails I was receiving meant we had won a $2000 contest – God loves me anyway and He found a way to reach us despite my shortcoming.  Hurray for that!

Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good.
            His love endures forever.  (Psalm 136:1)