Our Family

Our Family

Monday, September 23, 2013

First Fundraising Venture


Well no time like now to start fundraising! Early on in our process I learned about this awesome coffee company called Just Love Coffee Roasters who support family adoptions. We have our own personal link that you can purchase coffee through, and some of the proceeds will go towards our adoption. Their coffee is fair trade, and you can read more about their mission on their website. If you love coffee then please consider purchasing through our link! If you don't drink coffee then any of their merchandise would make great Christmas gifts, and it's never too early to start Christmas shopping! 

Our personal link to purchase from is: https://justlovecoffee.com/about/beneficiary/hamiltonadoptionadventure/

Here is the amount that we receive from each purchase:
13oz. Coffees (non-small lot): $5
8oz. Coffee (non-small lot): $3.50
10-count Single-Serve Cups: $2.50
Tastes of Africa (4) 8oz. Sampler: $7
Tour of The World (4) 8oz. Sampler: $7
Coffee Cupper's (11) 8oz. Sampler: $19
Jamaica Blue Mountain (small lot): 4oz. ($3)  13oz. ($9)
Special Blend–I Love Mom: $5
Special Blend–Pinky Beans (Available in October only): $0
T-Shirts: $5
Sale T-Shirts: $3
Sale Hoodie: $4
Beanie: $3
Hat: $3
Stoneware Mug: $2
16oz. Steel Tumbler: $2
Aeropress: $5
Aeropress Microfilters: $.25
Coffee Scoop: $1
Chemex Brewer: $3
Chemex Filters: $0
LaMarzocco Espresso Machine: $0


Thank you in advance to everyone who makes a purchase! You are helping us bring home our Colombian child! 

Home Study Approval!!!

Hooray!! We found out today that our home study has been approved!!!! This is what we've been waiting for all summer, so we are super excited. Now we send it with out I800A form to the USCIS, and that begins our dossier process. I am just super excited that we can get moving again. But now we are also hitting the reality of fundraising. I am going to start looking at different options, but we have tentatively planned on selling tshirts, and coffee through companies that support individual adoptions. So be looking for more info on the blog in the following months...think Christmas gifts :). We also hope to get a matching grant, but all of this will take lots of applications. Time to get to work! I am going to try to put a graph on here to show how we're progressing, but I have to nail down some of our figures first. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for a speedy approval...it worked!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Some good news!

Well we received two pieces of good news today! I drove to Roswell to pick up our finished psychological reports, and then to Alpharetta to drop them off. Gotta love 400 traffic at rush hour! Our homestudy has been waiting on those reports and Scott's CPS clearance from VA. As I was leaving to pick up the reports I got a message from our case worker that the clearance had come in today. Thank you Lord! So now we just wait for Bethany's approval at the state level (almost done), then from the global office, and then from the USCIS. So prayers are appreciated that all the approvals will go smoothly and quickly!

The other news is that we finally decided to have medical records reviewed for another child. This is a significant expense so we've been praying about it all summer. We feel like we should take a step in this direction, even though dealing with medical issues can be scary. We feel like the Lord is asking us to trust and have faith. So now we wait to hear back from the International Adoption doctor. If we feel like we can handle the child's medical issues then we put in a letter of intent saying that at the end of our dossier we intend to adopt this specific child. Choosing off the waiting list is a bit different than making a referral, so we have really been taking time to make any decisions. Also, we won't necessarily post any information about any child that we choose for two reasons. 1. They are still not legally our child. 2. We've been given the wise advice to not advertise all of his or her medical needs. Once the information is shared you can't get it back.

It's so good to finally make some progress! Thank you for all your prayers!