Donated items for sale

We have several items for sale that we have placed adds on Craigslist from things people have donated. We have a desk for $35, light wood entertainment center for $35, a dual bathroom sink fixture brand new for $65, a used Aqua bug pool cleaner for $45, a tiger picture from Home Interiors for $35, a new lighted Coke sign for $35, Wood Captains Bed with 8 drawers and 2 cubbies along with a nearly new mattress for $175, a Queen sized Quilt made with over $300 of materials brand new just finished for $500, a used black entertainment center for $20, a King sized used quilt purchased for $250 a few years ago for $50, a Thomasville oversized chair purchased 4 years ago at Wayside for only $75, and a wooden rocker for $50. If anyone is interested let us know. As you can see we are busy working on raising funds anyway we can.

The Suburbanite Article

It was in this past Sundays paper, Sept 27th. I have not seen it online yet, don't know if it will be online eventually or not. I purchased 5 copies of the paper last evening at a grocery store. The article was very long, it covered 2 pages and shared our story nicely. Our account at Charter One was mentioned as well as next weeks fundraiser dinner. It feels affirming to see God getting our story which is nothing more than his story as well as our need out. We pray that people will be moved by God to give. The title of the article is " A bundle of Joy".

Telling Joy about you

I just finished watching the recent Hannah Montana movie with my family, ok please dont tell anyone or they will take my man card! As I was listening to the main song about the climb and the struggles we have I thought of all we have gone through on our adoption journey. In my mind I began thinking of many of you, all the money, the time, the prayers, the words of encouragement, the acts of service etc etc. I started thinking about Joy and years from now telling her all of your stories. Like today, we received a $40 check from someone I dont even know that Lisa knows only a little. I cant wait to sit her on my lap and tell her of all the amazing people who loved a little girl they never even met enough to give and give and give. I cant wait to see the smile on her face as she begins to think about all of the people who made it possible for her to come home. Most importantly I cant wait to tell her of a God who moved in all of our hearts to show how much he Loves us all. Even an unknown orphan thousand of miles away.

Donation Update

We wanted to give everyone an update of how we are doing. We had posted how God came through with perfect timing as he provided the last $505 we needed for the dossier fee. That was on a Wednesday, that Friday 2 days later we received $200 from one donor, then on Saturday we received $100 in the mail, Sunday $100 cash at church in the morning and then another $200 later that night. We were told by one of our donors that they had heard a recent challenge to "pay it forward" as in the movie with the same title. This donor had been given $5 to give to someone and they were to pray who God wanted them to pay it forward to. They gave the $5 bill in an envelope along with a check for $195! I think I liked the $5 even more than the check for $195. We love hearing how God moves in the hearts of his people. We love how God is using so many people to help us bring Joy home. Sure in my mind I think it would be nice to have one big check, but somehow its very exciting to see God using many of his children to care for one of his precious orphan kids from far away. We are SO thankful and touched by everyone who is helping us. We have also been given several items to sell for the adoption as well. A nice wooden bed with drawers in it along with a nice mattress, a entertainment center, a cedar chest, a quilt that has over $300 in material alone in it. God is moving, please keep on praying for us. Also, please pray for our travel and that all would go well with the adjustment for Joy with her new Mommy & Daddy. Wow that sounds so good!

The Suburbanite

We have a friend who is a journalist for the Suburbanite, she is writing a news piece about our adoption journey. It will be in the paper most likely next week. We will pass on the link when we get it for all to read. She plans on putting the fundraiser info in the piece as well as listing our West Family Adoption Fund we opened at Charter One. Anyone can go in and donate at any Charter One in the area and just mention our fund by name. We hope this article brings many people to the fundraiser as well as donations to our account.

Fundraiser

Mark your calendars for Thursday night Oct 8th, 6-830pm at the Akron Baptist Temple 2324 Manchester Road, Akron Ohio. It will be a dinner and we may have some other interesting and fun things planned for the night. We really need many people to come and donate to our cause, we are nearing the end of our journey, we are so close, we just need a little bit more help.

God's blessings!

As Greg said in the last posting, it's crunch time. We were going to mail in only what we have, and we told them that we would have the rest of the 2,800 by next Friday. God is soooooo good. As of tonight, we only needed $505.17 left to pay that entire fee. Well, tonight, we received a check for $500.00!!!! Isn't God great!! We told the agency that if they would give us a deadline, then God would meet it. We have no doubts about that. This is God's plan, he started it, and he's going to have to make it happen. We've done our part on all the paperwork, and now it's time to watch God work. We have no doubts that God is going to bring our baby home soon!!! Thank you all for praying for us, and please continue to do so. We have two fundraisers coming up in the month of October, and possibly two more in the month of November. God is good, all the time!!!

Crunch time

We are officially in crunch time. We will be mailing in the $2100 or so we still have in funds towards the $2800 or so dossier fee along with the mound of dossier paperwork this week. The agency is sending us the paperwork to sign for the official acceptance of our little Joy. Here comes the crunch time, we also have to send a payment plan to them explaining when we will make the payments for the program fee, its going to be something like $3000 every 4 weeks or so until its payed off, then we have the final cost of travel. Please pray hard and give if you can. We will be in a local newspaper soon as well as one of our friends writes for it and will be doing a story on our journey. God is working. We can almost feel her in our arms, looking forward to seeing all of you holding her as well.

LIllibet-Joy West

Before we ever decided to adopt, I (Lisa) had been praying to have more children. I put it in God's hands and let him decide if we would have any more. I knew that God was bigger than a vasectomy. I actually picked out names for this unknown child to be hopefully in our family someday. The name I picked out for a girl was "JOY". I said that part of her name has to be joy, because that's what she would create in our home would be joy. Well, last week, we received a referral from our adoption agency. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means we got a picture of a child and we had to decide to say yes or no to this child. I was actually upset at first receiving this picture, because I didn't want to choose the child. I wanted God to pick her. We actually weren't to the place where they should have sent us a picture yet due to paperwork not being done yet, and a payment of 2,800 not being sent in yet, but still here was a picture of this beautiful little girl. The adoption process is not an easy one. There are many things that must be done, and tons of paperwork to fill out and to retrieve from various sources. I like my ducks in a row. I've been following the papers and doing things in order. The book says that after you turn in the papers, and the 2,800, then you get a referral. So I was upset upon receiving this picture because we don't have all the money yet. And upon receiving the child, you then have to pay a 9,000 payment. All of which we don't have as of yet. So, as you see, that's why I was upset. But I started praying and doing my Bible study the next morning and I told God "If this is the child you have for us, then that's the one I want." I just want to know for sure that this is the one you want us to have. So, later that day I was having dinner with friends, and showed them her paperwork. I went over it again myself, and saw something that I had missed. It said that the meaning of her name was "Happiness at all times". I couldn't believe it. Because we had picked the name Joy so many years ago, and here was God telling me that she was to be the one. This was direct confirmation from God to continue to move forward. So we called Wednesday night to accept the referral of this little girl. So on we march, trying to raise the funds to adopt her in record speed. Please pray that the funds will come in quickly, so she can come home to us as soon as possible. If we had all the money today, it would take 4-6 months to have her home. She is 9 months old now. Please pray for us as this is such a roller coaster ride.