Feeling Better and Blessed!!!

So the weekend was rough! I had very human moments and the enemy was on the attack! I allowed my faith to be shaken to the core and doubt to enter my mind. I cried a lot and I was angry and hurt, but friends and strangers have come to show me that God is limitless... grants or no grants... we will get our boy home! Notice the fundraising total at the right. The goal is an estimate of what we still needed for our travel. On Saturday, we had only reached $130 towards our goal and look at it now! We are so so so close to reaching our goal. I was ready to give up. Ready to stop asking... in fact, I wasn't going to ask anymore because I have been asking for 15 months now... but God had someone else do the asking. The results are there, and words cannot express how amazed I am by the kindness and generosity of one sweet family and a host of complete strangers. I am amazed! I am blessed! And I have a lot of repenting to do! I am so thankful for the precious individuals that dug deep just days before the Christmas shopping frenzy begins... they weren't thinking about needing that money for the Thanksgiving meal or gifts for their children... they were thinking of one broken heart and an orphan boy in desperate need to come home. THANK YOU! You all have blessed us, you have opened my eyes once again, and you have brought us so much closer to our goal! Much love and appreciation to the Scott family! God is using them to be His hands and feet to help bring yet another orphan home! (They just brought their son home from China days ago). I love you guys!!

Broken

Broken, hurt, disappointed... I am so confused. I have attacked every road block standing firm in faith that God's plan is to unite us with this little boy. I have held on to faith that He would provide, especially when we are in our greatest need. We received news Saturday that we did not receive a Show Hope grant... this was our most "hopeful" grant to aid in our final travel expenses. After all, we are adopting a child with multiple, expensive medical needs and we already have a child with PKU. I know of families that have received grants for non special needs adoptions... families with a greater income than ours. If we had received an overwhelming amount of support through this journey, then I would not feel this way. It just starts to feel like no one feels like this is worthy... like Matthew isn't worthy or our family isn't worthy. To sum it up, my faith has taken a beating, and our failed attempts at fundraising just seems to confirm that we are not going to get our son home. As another holiday without him happens this week, I can't help but feel like I have failed him. Like I didn't try hard enough or work hard enough. I manage to get all of 4 people to sign up to buy a shirt... I manage to sell one candle and two ornaments to the wealthiest people in Brentwood... I manage to make about 10 appliqué shirts... and have three yard sales that reach a combined total of under $600... which barely put a dent in the $34,000 cost of this adoption. We have reached our out-of-pocket limit... in excess of $24,000 spent so far before travel. I am desperate, but I am worn out. I am tired of asking... I am tired of the disappointing results of every effort... I don't want to feel this way. I want to have the strength to stand firm in faith that God does want this little boy to be our son and that He will make a way, but my spirit is crushed and I can't help but wonder if we have made it this far because of stubborn persistence and retaliation against the obstacles that God has placed in our path. I know this isn't the right attitude to have, but I am too hurt to have the right attitude at the moment. Maybe it will pass soon... maybe God will send a miracle to prove me wrong and to prove that this adoption is His will, not just our own. I could really use prayers... I am in a bad place right now.

Thank you,

Kellye

Fall Fun and other distractions...

The wait is killing me! Every day I rush to the mailbox like a child running to the Christmas tree on Christmas morning in anticipation for all those gifts on that list. I just want one piece of paper! One piece of paper that says one magic word... APPROVED! We did receive the I797-c form stating that our I-800 application had been received. With that was a letter pleading for expedited approval. Now I could have a great officer who will be deeply touched and push things through right away, or I could get one of "those" officers who tosses the letter aside and proceeds to place our application at the bottom of his/her stack. Right now, I am just praying that our officer feels the urgency that we do and expedites everything for us so that our son will be home for Christmas.

In the meantime, we have found lots of fun fall activities to keep us distracted as possible during the excruciating wait. We visited Walden Farms on Saturday. I really expected it to be extremely crowded with all of the other procrastinating parents, but I was surprised at how manageable the crowd was. The girls has a blast!

The girls got their faces painted and wore the Halloween shirts that I had made them. They had a blast.

We also had fun painting the pumpkins we had found at the farm!

We also took advantage of the special from Papa Murphy's and had the Jack-o-lantern pizza for dinner!

This was one packed Saturday! But we weren't done yet. :) Bryon's boss had given him an awesome gift on Friday... TITANS TICKETS!!! Not just any tickets, but these were seats in the Executive Suite! We took the girls for one amazing game (we actually beat the Colts), so now the bar is set pretty high if we ever go to another Titans game! I hope that Bryon can get his hands on some more tickets like these in the future so he can take Matthew!

Our view from the suite was amazing!

Surprisingly, the girls were never bored and watched most of the game without any complaints.

After the game, we went home for some pumpkin carving. This was the first time for Katie to carve her pumpkin all by herself. I was so impressed! She did an amazing job and she continues to surprise me with all of her artistic abilities.

So, as you can see, we had a very busy weekend! I will be posting some pics from our very busy Monday soon... Abigail's first field trip and trick-or-treating with our buddies in our old neighborhood. It was a great Halloween, but we really can't wait to share our next one with Matthew. I hope he loves Halloween fun as much as we do!