Project Happy Feet

Throughout our adoption journey I have been blessed to make connections with Missionaries working in Liza's city. One of these connections brought me to Gregg Montella and his idea, Project Happy Feet. Rather than try to explain it myself I'll just paste Gregg's note here so that you can hear the need from his own words.

"There is still a tremendous need for slippers, especially with winter approaching. The two greatest needs for slippers are for the elderly in nursing homes and kids in orphanages. Floors there are typically cement which is cold and damp. Worse still is that often it can be so cold, even inside, that standing water freezes in rooms like bathrooms with broken or missing windows. Imagine not having proper socks, slippers or footware in that environment. Cold feet are miserable feet, but warm feet are happy feet!

There are many, many footborne illnesses caused by lack of proper footware. One pair of quality slippers can make all the difference for a person in need, and can even save a life.

You can bring slippers with you, or you can buy them (or have one of our staff buy them for you) in ________. A decent pair of slippers will cost about $5, with a pair of socks to go underneath (recommended) an additional $2.

Of course, you can be right there when they're given away and see the smiling, grateful faces and pray for the recipients, sharing God's love in the most real of ways."


I hope to be able to carry either slippers (croceted/knitted/bought) that folks have donated or money that can be used to buy slippers when we get there. Any monies that are sent to us and marked for Project Happy Feet WILL go to this project, they will just need to be either mailed to me privately or sent to my paypal account, NOT to our FSP (the Liza button). Thanks in advance to everyone who is willing to help us! I will definitely take pics to bring back and share with you all if we are blessed to be able to be at a distribution. Which I ABSOLUTELY want to do if we get the chance.

 Donations can be sent to:
105 Winchester Lane
Locust Grove, VA 22508
 
My hubby keeps asking where do I plan to pack all my clothes and things I will need plus all these slippers I am hoping for and I just tell him that it will all come together. :) I may just need to borrow one of those vacuum packer thingies from somebody.

Music and Life: Just A Swingin'....

And NO, not like LeAnn does it! The way she sings it in the two videos I've seen make me think she took the term "Swingin'"the way that some couples who are a little too frisky (and weird) do. Know what I mean.....?

Gotta be John Anderson singin' this song, baby! No one else. I have loved him and his voice since I was about 4 or 5 years old and since that was about 30 years ago, well, that's a long time to love somebody. Plus, I was born in Florida, he's from Florida, it just always seemed that he was meant to be one of my very favoritest singers. He definitely has a unique voice, and I think that's what I really love. No one else sounds quite like Mr. John Anderson. And NO ONE (Not even LR) can sing this song quite like he can :)



I tried to get my boys to come listen to it with me. Here's how that conversation went:

Me to Austin: "This was my favorite song when I was about 5 years old!"

Austin: (as he walks by) "Hmm, that's nice."

Me: "Humph"

ME to Noah: " Noah, wanna come hear my favorite song from when I was 5?!"

Noah: (playing his video game) "Nah, I'm good."

Me: (See my facial expression)

Sunday Snapshot: Almost There!

Now that we have been submitted, and I know longer have to stress over adoption paperwork, I find I'm getting my blogging MoJo back some.I am really happy about that.

Since we have been submitted and we are just waiting for a date to travel to get that sweet girl we've been dreaming of for so long I decided that this week's "Sunday Snapshot" should be dedicated to her. All the pictures, or a good bit of them, that I have been blessed with since we started this journey. I know that having folks to send these to us was a total blessing because so many families adopting from her country do not have that. Each and every one was a lifeline of sorts to help me to hold on through all the hurdles that we had to go over.

 This is the first one I ever saw of her. How can you resist that face? It's REALLY hard. Wonder how much harder it will be when it's actually standing in front of me?! Oh boy....

This one was next and it made me sad in a way. Cause she was obviously growing up and I was missing it, but also there just seemed to be something sad about the way she was standing there all alone. Does anyone else see it? Or am I just seeing it through the eyes of a mom missing her little one?

I think this one is just my favorite! Her expression here tells me so much. Maybe it's because she reminds of some of Noah's facial expressions but I have a feeling that she and he have very similar personalities. Full of silly and stinkerisms! One of these days I'll post a photo I have of him making this face along with this one of hers and you all can tell me if I'm wrong.  Plus, you can see her sweet little hands here. Aren't they just the cutest? I'm gonna kiss those soon :)

Another one of my faves. It's just cute. It's almost as if she's saying she doesn't really have time for all this picture takin'. But, there's also maybe a little bit of a longing, "Here I am Mom and Dad, Where are you?" look. This is also one of the last pics I got that she still had her "baby" look to her face.

These three, I call the Red Coat Pics, I got sometime late last fall. She is just doing her own thing. Swinging, making faces, trying to call me on the phone. I'm sure she was asking just where the heck I was at. Notice how she doesn't really give a smile but it's not as if she doesn't want her pic taken? I think she's just really a stinker who loves to make faces when you want her to actually smile at the camera. I'm looking forward to finding out for sure.

This one I got in the Early Spring. Noah calls this her Strawberry Shortcake outfit... lol Yeah, she's seems real thrilled with it too, huh? :)

This is a recent one that I just got from a family that went to her region for a missions trip. They got to spend time with her and tel me about her. I am pretty sure most of my guesses from looking at her photos are pretty accurate. There's one of her famous picture faces again! hehe

Just the day before we were submitted I found these on another Missionary's blog and when I left her a comment she sent them to me. She has lost a lot of her baby look, but she is still so super cute. Even half naked with a funny hat on her head!

We are so excited to go an get her. To wrap her in a Mom and Dad's love, to teach her about Jesus - although I am pretty sure she already has heard his name before. I have pretty bows to put in her hair and new shoes and clothes. All ready for her to begin her new life. From Orphan to UnOphan, as someone I know recently said. Kep praying favor over our dossier and that Iwould find things to keep myself busy in the meantime. We are ALMOST THERE!

We've Been Submitted!!

I wish you all could have been here just now to see my happy dance. Well, maybe it's a good thing you missed it, but I REALLY enjoyed it! Best dancing I ever did :)

We have been submitted!!!

This means that we should hear something about travel in about 2 weeks and then travel about 2-3 weeks after that. So, we could very well be there meeting our precious sweetheart by Mid-Late September. WOW!!!!

Now, we do still need to pray that the Adoption Officials don't find any mistakes or problems with our dossier, and of course after all the trouble we've had it's hard for me to just believe that will go smoothly. But, I just have to believe it. We have come so far. Please continue to pray favor over our entire dossier, that not even an eyebrow would be raised over anything in it. That everything will look just the way they want it to look and we WILL get that travel date in a few weeks.

Moving Right Along

Haven't updated on the progress of the adoption since I mailed the dossier to Eastern Europe. I'm kind of surprised I didn't considering that, of course, it couldn't go smoothly and without problems.

I took the dossier to the local DHL shipper and specifically told him that we COULD NOT put a value on this package. I even wrote out the slip and put $0 on it. Well, when I left  he put a $1 value on it because he said that he was told that "nothing had no value". Because of that our dossier was held in customs for a MONTH, waiting for someone to go and pick it up in Liza's country.

THEN, we found out that four documents had to be re-done. Things had become a slight bit more picky and wording that was ok a while ago was now not ok. So, we re-did those and had them sent back there and they arrived on Monday. Praise Jesus! Just in time.

Now, we wait to be submitted. Since all of our things are there and everything seems to be in order now we should be submitted ASAP. I am SO glad. This long journey - that has sometimes felt like a battle - is actually drawing to a close. I am ready to get over there and get this girl home with us. I already have most of her stuff all together in a pile in my closet waiting for me to decide what bag to pack it in.

Please keep praying for us! Pray that our dossier would be covered with favor that there would not be even one thing that would cause the adoption officials to even raise an eyebrow. That the letters of support I am mailing to raise the last little bit of money we need would be received well. That the battle would be won in Jesus' name and he would bring us to His Promise of Victory. Thank you all!

I can't wait to get those bows I bought months ago into that pretty blonde hair! :)