AUCTION TIME!!!

You can browse the auction here: Bring Kora Home Auction Facebook

If you do not have Facebook and see something you love you can contact me via email at elizabeth.g.hoos@gmail.com and I'll get your bid in.

We are trying to reach $3,000 to pay off our Dossier payment so we can get the court process started!

Share with friends :)

My favorite pieces are:

Greatest Gifts day #1

I'm going to do a 5 day post about the gifts we've been given.

Day #1: The Gift of infertility

Say what? How can I say this has been a blessing??? When I was a kid everyone always asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I always replied, a mom. I've wanted to be a mom since I was a little girl... It's literally the only true ambition I had outside of being a professional goalkeeper. When I was young, the dream of being a soccer player inspired me to be a better person. I wouldn't trade the hours and hours of pressure training and broken bones, ambulance rides, and tears cried over tough losses. They've made me who I am today, fearless. Now the dream of being a mom is shaping me even more. Sanding down the imperfections and building in me the ability to love our kids unconditionally because we've had to fight so hard just to bring them home.

So, when infertility struck I took it by the horns and fought. Until I realized one thing: I would rather parent a child who needs parents, then spend years trying to bring one into the world. I have come to believe God knew we would find our children through adoption and we were too stubborn to realize it so he had to slap us with a 2x4 for us to get the picture. Now that we have a face and a promise of bringing our girl home I am more confident in this then ever before. Kora was born to be our daughter and we were created to be her parents. God sets the lonely in families.

My message to all you who experience infertility is simple. Listen. Listen to that voice in you that says you have the room in your heart to love a child not of your flesh. Listen to the support you have in any decision you make. Listen to that small voice at night when you are crying yourself to sleep that there is another way! Listen, and take action. Fight for a child who needs to know what love and a family is.

So that's my blessing for today. The gift of Infertility. Without the diagnosis we would never have started our journey to Kora. We would never have seen her sweet face. We would never be able to physically experience the overwhelming feeling of God adopting us into his family. Such beauty from ashes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHJ6-YhSYQ This is the video that I saw that truly changed my mind... I hope it impacts you in a deep way.

Blessings

Our Facebook auction is almost all prepared for. We've got people donating things from A-Z and it's beautiful the way God's providing a great sale. I have noticed in our adoption journey there are times of great happiness and times of serious frustration, but all through there intertwined with everything is the blessing we are about to receive.

Holidays are a tough time in our house, but for me especially. I long for the day when the person waking me up before dawn to open presents and eat Mercer County Grits is under the age of 18 (Kevin....). Some moments I hold it together and am truly happy, some moments I'm a complete wreck. I think this Christmas will be more moments of me holding it together than of me losing it. This Christmas I am reminded in a tangible way of just how blessed we are, by our church, friends, and family. This Christmas there is only HOPE in the future! We don't know how long it will be until Kora is home. We don't know how many Christmases it will take to have her home and waking us up before dawn. But we have hope that it WILL happen!

This Christmas as you tuck your babies in on Christmas Eve and pray with them, pray for our baby who goes to bed without knowing her mommy and daddy are here just waiting to bring her home. Pray that God will hold her close and let her know she is being loved by hundreds of people half way around the world just waiting to meet that really adorable face (have I mentioned she is crazy adorable?!?!)! Pray that the time will come QUICKLY when we get to tuck her in on Christmas Eve.

Here's how you can bless our family this Christmas:

• Donate an item for our Facebook auction (needed by December 30th)
• Take a look at the preview album of our auction HERE and see something you can't live without ;)
• Pray for us (and let us know you are, it's one of the most encouraging and uplifting things you can say)
• Consider ways YOU can help children without families this Christmas. A quick google search brings up THOUSANDS (that may be a bit of an over exaggeration) of ways to help orphans here in the USA and all over the world!

Thank you to all you who have blessed us IMMEASURABLY! There is no better way for us to thank you than for us to fight to bring our daughter home! So fight we will!

How can we bless you?

My kitchen table

This has been the state of our kitchen table for about 2 years now... I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel! It truly has been easier the third time around... All those forms are completed! Now we are just waiting on the money to submit them! We are so thrilled to finally be done with this part of the paperwork (yes, there's still more...)!!!

We need $890 to submit the I-600A and get the USCIS side of things going (that's our immigration office).
Then we need $5,000 to get the dossier to the DRC and get it translated and started in the offices there!

So far we have $345. We just paid the big payment of $11,397.50 thanks to a bunch of you awesome people and all of our savings!!! YAY! So I know we can get this done!

We have lots of fundraising opportunities available and we've applied for about 15 grants. We're praying we can get this money raised up by my birthday on February 24th. We're really excited to get through the court process in the DRC as quickly as possible so if we get this raised up faster then YAY! So that's my update. I am currently compiling a blogpost with all our fundraisers in one place for a one stop shopping experience! I'll link it here when it's done :)