Treasure in the Brokenness

Praise the LORD!!! We were notified today that our family has been blessed by a $2,500 matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans!!! We are about $6000 short, so raising $5000 will almost get us fully funded! If you have been waiting to give toward our adoption, now would be the time to do it!!! There are two ways to make a tax-deductible donation to our Lifesong account. Send a check: 1. Make a check payable to "Lifesong for Orphans" 2. In the memo section, please note "Meyer Family/#5607" 3.  Mail the check to: Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, Illinois 61744 Donate Online: 1. Go to  www.lifesongfororphans.org/give/donate   2.  Select "Give to an Adoptive Family from the pull-down menu 3.  Complete the online form and fill in "Meyer Family" and Family Account #5607.  4. Note that Paypal will charge 2.2% + $.30 per transaction for online donations. Praise the Lord for His provision!!!!

Our dossier has been officially submitted!!!! We are officially registered as an adoptive family in Toby's country!   The big paperwork push is done.  Now we wait for travel dates.  We are told to expect to travel 6-8 weeks from today, which puts us in December....but before Christmas, which was our prayer all along!  To be there with our boy so that he did not have to go through another Christmas without a family!   Please continue to pray for Toby and for us as we prepare to travel.  We are also moving homes in three weeks and hope to be all settled in our new house so that Toby has a cozy place to come home to.  There is so much to do! And we still have about $6,000 left to raise in order to be fully funded.   Please get the word out and give if you are able!  Thanks to all of you who have been so generous with your prayers and encouragement and in your giving!   Please make a tax-deductible donation for Toby here! Every dollar counts!

Though we are thick in the middle of our own adoption story, we cannot stop thinking about and praying for all the other orphans whose pictures and stories have touched our hearts. When I post a photo of our sweet Toby, who looks like he could have been born right intou our family, I often get lots of "likes" and comments on our Facebook page.  We treasure all of the support and encouragement that has flooded us since we began this journey less than four months ago.   But there are SO MANY OTHER CHILDREN who desperately need families!!!  They need someone to notice them and be a voice for them.  The same person who was a voice for our Toby and drew our attention to him, Julia Nalle, has been a tireless voice for other boys she had to leave behind.  I've shared some of her blog posts before or posted photos of other waiting children on our Facebook page and there isn't a flicker of acknowledgment. Maybe these faces aren't as outwardly charming as Toby's.

Our three little boys have been BUSY lately! All three enjoy painting and drawing quite a bit. A few weeks ago, I took out some extra canvases that I had and let them go to town. The colors were so beautiful and I knew that it looked like real art. Jack and George were sure they could sell their paintings to raise money for Toby! We decided to add the verse John 14:18 to their masterpieces...and they were a hit!  We sold the first two within the first day of posting them! So they went back to work...this time, baby Joe decided to get in on the action, too!  (Jack is almost 7, George will be 5 on the 14th and Joe just turned 2.) We are happy to showcase the little brothers' paintings for Toby!  The larger canvases measure 16x20 and the smaller ones are 11x14.  We included a few written in Russian, because I knew I wanted our new son to see the promise of Jesus' words in his own heart language! We will sell each one for $25 and request an additional $5 to be added fo

Today marks only THREE months since we first saw sweet Toby's story and knew he belonged in our family!   It seems like he's always been part of our life and we are all so excited that we are getting closer to bringing him home! Yesterday we found out that our file has been approved at US Customs and Immigration and we are just waiting on a final signature and our approval letter to come in the mail...which we will then hurriedly get notarized and apostilled and sent off to Toby's country!!!!  Then we will wait for our travel dates.  It could be as early as November or into December! It suddenly feels VERY VERY real!  I can hardly sleep at night thinking of all the things yet to be done and thinking of our sweet boy going one more day without knowing the love of his family!   We have a little under $10,000 yet to raise to be fully funded.  We are so grateful for all who have given so generously to help us raise about $15,000 in those three months!  Amazing!   Our