Seven Thousand Mile Surprise!!

While digging a hole for a post in our front yard, we struck metal.  A large piece of metal.  My imagination went into overdrive . . . "It was an old chest buried hundreds of years ago.  A farmer did not trust the financial institutions of the day, and thought the safest spot for his money was underground on his property." 

Jokingly, I told friends, this is how God is going to provide for our adoption - a treasure chest hidden in the earth full of cash!! 

As it turns out, it probably was from a farmer, because we think it's some old piece of farm equipment.  We stopped digging.  :) 

As far-fetched as it sounds, God can provide ANY way He chooses.  Today, He provided in a way that we think is as amazing as a buried box of bills.  From almost 7,000 miles away, a complete stranger became aware of our fundraising efforts.  He shares a life group with a woman who sponsors Oliver at Bethel!  Wanting to help, he researched the costs of Oliver's flight from China to Kentucky.  He found it is approximately 1000USD, and asked if he could donate to help unite our family!!!!!  I love how God stuns us!  I am now assuming our mouths will remain open in shock and tears will continue to stay at the corners of our eyes as we go through this process.  "Wow" is the only word we have been able to articulate! 

One of our girls says "google" is the name of the largest number known to man.  While I am unsure if that is fact or fiction, we "google thanked" this kind man for his generosity, and God for pouring undeserved goodness on us.  Thank you God for our 7,000 mile surprise!!!!

A New Career

Dear Friends and Family -

If you are looking for unique and thoughtful Christmas gifts this year, I have a wonderful suggestion!!  I am now an Independent Designer with Origami Owl.  We make beautiful, customizable lockets and jewelry with charms that let you tell YOUR story.  Here’s a pic:

The company was just established a few years ago, so this is a wonderful opportunity to have or give something original this Christmas season.  I can also provide gift certificates, and send you a wish list if you want to drop a “hint” to someone about the gift you would like to receive!

Check out my website:  www.christellahudson.origamiowl.com

I would love to help you host a Jewelry Bar (party) and earn FREE products for yourself!!  With so many people looking for Christmas gifts right now, it’s very easy to earn free jewelry.  Even if you’re out-of-town, we can set up a catalog party!

Our motto is:  “You tell stories with words . . . we tell stories with jewelry.”  I began this venture to help raise funds for our adoption process, so this jewelry has the added blessing of helping change the stories of TWO orphans!!  Thank you for your time!

smiles,

Christella :)

 

Below are photos of some of my customers creations!!

 

Shopping Expo!

When the day arrived, we had 15 vendors set-up with a variety of products including customizable jewelry, crafts, food items, bags, make-up, and more!

We are thankful for these vendors, the steady crowd, and our church for allowing us to use the spacious "Green Room"!

 

 

Cathy and Kennah Carpenter - Baked Goods
Pam Simon - Pampered Chef
Lauren Dechman - Lia Sophia

Linda Ford & Barbara Kerchevall - Personalized Key Fobs

Macedonia Quilters - Quilted Items & Crafts

Denise Bell - Upper Case Living
Sarah Wann - Mary Kay

Chelsea Rusher - Tastefully Simple

Linda Humphrey - Scentsy

Jill Withrow - Personalized Plaques

Grace Hudson - Quilled Cards and Bookmarks

Amy Bellamy and Brittany Zik - Thirty-One
(Amy also recruited the majority of the consultants!)

Julie Starnes - Zija

 



 We also had a sweet friend, Lacey Christ, take online orders via her business "Oh! Sew Silly Designs".  With the help of all these amazing ladies and lots of shoppers, we raised
$590!!!

Thank you for being willing to help others in the community!  AMAZING!

RETURN of the Scream Scene!

If you read the post "Scream Scene", you must be assuming at this point that we received another grant. 
YOU WOULD BE CORRECT!!!!!!  WOW!!  God's provision is amazing!  We were not expecting this at all, but in yesterday's mail was a letter from Show Hope telling us we were recipients of a

 

$4000 GRANT!!!!

 

Such shock!  Such joy!  Such screaming and squealing!!

 

We have not requested the amounts that we've been given with our two recent grant awards of $4000 each - it's just coincidence that they were the same amount!  Our thermometer in the sidebar is looking pretty in green.  :) 

 

When other's are asking us about the financial aspect of adoption, I continue to try and be encouraging because, despite moments where my faith is lacking, we KNOW God will provide. 

 

Ahhhhhhh!!!

Breakdown of Adoption Costs

When people hear how much the adoption process costs, they are always curious about where all that money is going!  It does vary with every country, including domestic adoptions, but I thought I'd share a run-down of the costs for those who are interested.  Again, this is China-specific and for two children:

HOME STUDY FEES (includes visits after the child is placed in the home) - $3500, with $1000 to be returned after all 6 post-placement reports are completed.

PLACEMENT AGENCY FEES (for their professional services in facilitating the adoption) - $8850

USCIS FEES (Customs & Immigration, includes paperwork to bring a child into the US for purposes of adoption) - $2670

ADOPTION EDUCATION (10+ hours of training, books) - $200

TRANSLATION & DOCUMENT FEES (mailing and courier services as well, child's passport, preparation of Chinese docs/notarizationr/registration) - $3776

FOREIGN PROGRAM FEES (to China Welfare Society for a variety of things like wire transfers, Hague processing fees, reports, inquiries/trips in country on family's behalf, etc.) - $3250

CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTION FEE - $1000 to our placement agency for humanitarian work

CARE OF THE CHILD/ORPHANAGE DONATION - approximately $12,000

TRAVEL EXPENSES FOR 2 ADULTS returning with 2 children - $7100

Beyond this, we have already had an additional $300 in other fees:  background checks and fingerprinting required for homestudy, postage, copies of birth and marriage certificates, passport-type photos, notary certification fee, and doctors charges for filling out physical forms required for homestudy.  Grab your calculator and that totals $42,646 as long as everything runs as is, which is truly not likely to happen. :)

Scream Scene!

Take a scroll down the side of the page to our fundraising thermometer.  You might notice the amount raised . . .

JUST WENT UP $4000!!!!!!!!

 

We received a grant today!  I literally thought my jaw was dislocated as it dropped to the floor!  When I finally regained an ounce of composure and closed my mouth, my jaw was sore.  No joke - it was open that wide!!  Running to Jon's office, I found he was in the middle of a phone call with a client.  I had to hide behind a chair so I would not be a distraction to him.  As quietly as possible, I laid on the floor and screamed into it, "Thank you Jesus!!" over and over.  When finally I shared the news, the smile on his face was so beautiful!

 

What a ride the adoption journey can be!  Down days struggling with all the fears and worry about how everything will work out.  Up days when we get new information about our sweet boy.  Down.  Up.  Today we are UP!  We also received news a few hours ago that our dossier should be heading to China next week!  And then this!  Ahhhh!!  Needless to mention, it's a scream scene in the Hudson house today!  Woo-hoo!

Holiday Photo Benefit

 

Mini-PHOTO Sessions just in time for your Christmas cards! 

We are making appointments for November 16th and 17th, both days 1:00 until 4:00. 

 These are approximately 20 minute sessions for $50 that will be taken at Yellow Creek Park. 

You will receive approximately 4 to 10 images on CD to print as you please! 

ALL FUNDS RAISED GO TOWARD BRINGING OUR CHILDREN HOME! 

Here are some samples of my work, and I have a ton more if you want to see them!

 

 

 

 

Full House!

Final approval to fill our house with children has been received!  After a wonderfully in-depth conversation with our agency director, we are moving forward to adopt two children.  Everything depends on the timing, however.  We will have to wait and see if they can match us with a second child by the time Oliver is ready to come home, because we don't want him to have to wait on us.  It will most certainly not be an easy journey, but I'll have more on that later!

Addressing the Positive :)

     "What a wonderful thing you're doing!"

     "You are such incredible people."

     "That little boy is so lucky."

As of late, we have received many comments like those listed above.  While I am sure there are also very negative comments that we have not heard, and we have heard a few, I feel the need to address the positive ones.  Understandably, friends and family are being encouraging and loving in these sweet thoughts, but I am afraid you are disillusioned. 

WE ARE UN-INCREDIBLE, UN-WONDERFUL PEOPLE!!

I'm not shouting, just capitalizing for emphasis.  :)  We are not amazing parents, we are not especially sacrificial, we fail ALL THE TIME!  I admit that I constantly beat myself up over the ridiculous reoccurrences in my defective human state.  The effort to be better for Christ, one another, our children, and other humans beings is a constant battle we wage with the enemy.  But, we are children of God, and He has an undeserving grace that forgives our faults.  We love our children fiercely, but we are constantly making mistakes.  One of our prayers for our children is that they are NOT like us.  We pray they will be far greater servants for God than we have ever attempted to be.  Dear God, we beg you to let them rise above our incompetencies and spread your love through this world like fire!!

I think about the story of Moses and Pharoah.  Do you know this one?  If not, check out Exodus in the Bible, beginning in 10:1.  The Bible tells us that God "hardened" Pharoah's heart multiple times.  For the will of God that is greater than any of us can comprehend, it was necessary for Pharoah's heart to say "no". 

If the Hudson story happened to be written in the Bible, we believe it would say that God "softened" our hearts.  He went inside and overrode our inability to say "yes".  To accomplish His great will, He annulled our selfish and lazy ways and melded our hearts to deliver His love.

We are not incredible.  We are not wonderful . . . but God is!!!

As for our dear little Oliver, luck has nothing to do with his story.  (Note:  We absolutely respect that comments about him being lucky are made with the purest of intent.)  His birthfamily took care of him until he was approximately one year old, and we can only speculate the reasoning behind why they felt they could not care for him as he deserved.  Maybe they were uneducated about his special need and imagined they could not conquer the necessities of his care.  Maybe they didn't have financial resources.  Maybe they were spooked by cultural myths that led them to believe there was something wrong with this beautiful baby because his eyes were blue instead of brown.  We could continue to hypothesize about their decision, but in any case, we cannot call it "luck" that he was separated from them.  Just under a year after being in his first orphanage, he was placed at Bethel, an environment for visually impaired children.  We cannot categorize this as "luck", but with absolute certainty we assert that it is a blessing.  They fill his life with love every single day, and we are so grateful.

And us - who are we to deserve to care for any of the children we have, Oliver included?  The blessing is all ours, dear friends.  The glory and honor in adoption goes to God, as He tends to the millions of orphans lost in this world by "softening" hearts like ours. 

The next time it crosses your minds that we are doing something great, send the praise upward.  We appreciate your kind and gracious words, but we do not deserve them.  Give our great God all the credit!