Fall has hit our neck of the woods in a big way this week. The fall colors are AMAZING! But the beautiful Indian Summer weather we had at the beginning of the week has fast given way to BRRRRR....a 40 degree drop. It feels like winter now. Even though it's only 40 degrees outside (not 25 yet!), when you go from 80 to 40 so quickly, it is a bit shocking to the system. And all those lovely leaves are blowing fiercly in the wind. Most of them have blown to the ground. To the delight of my resident leaf rakers, the enormous pile that was in our front yard at the beginning of this week, have now blown away. Some poor neighbors down the street will have to rake them up instead of my kids. So sorry, neighbors!If only money could fall like leaves from the trees and land in our yard! My dad used to always say, "money doesn't grow on trees..." but it sure would be nice if it did sometimes. One thing I never thought about as we began our adoption journey is how much FAITH it would require of us. There are probably a LOT of things we didn't think about when we said, "yes" to adoption, but needing to grow in FAITH is one thing that simply did not occur to me.
Money is one of those things that is generally needed in any grand adventure where God is involved. Not always needed, but frequently. Yet the aquiring of funds is sometimes akin to the multiplication of loaves and fishes. I've never personally prayed over my lunch and turned around and fed it to 5000 people, but I do know God is able to multiply even my most limited resouce. I've just never had my faith in His ablility to provide a lot of money tested quite like this.
There are ministries "out there" that actually make it their business to give people (like us) MONEY. Free money. They make it their goal and their business to give grant money to people who are doing the very thing that God has put on their hearts....adopting....orphans....children that God wants to defend. We have been busily applying for as many grants as we can find, at least all those that we qualify for. Some are simply GRANTS. They send money to our adoption agency once our baby is in our arms. Others are MATCHING GRANTS. They will send matching funds to our adoption agency on our behalf depending on how much money as we can RAISE up to a certain amount.
So THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us so far with the MICAH FUND!! We are on our way to meeting our goal! HURRAY! So now, will you continue to pray with us that God will GRANT US MORE GRANTS???? We have applied for a $3500 grant, another $2500 matching grant, and several others that could be anywhere between $300 and ?? Free money. Thank you, Jesus, for every way that you provide and every generous person that you use to do it though!
