Our family has SO MUCH to be Thankful For!

I’ve been waiting until everything is confirmed to make the official announcement…

I am so thankful to be able to tell you that we met the fundraising goal!  Airline tickets have been purchased and the 4 children from an Eastern European Orphanage will be part of our family over the holidays!  They arrive just before Christmas and will be with us for just a little more than a month!  We hope to adopt them, but for now we are just hosting them.  When we signed up to host a sibling group of four, we were told that we had 12 days to raise $12,000.  It seemed so impossible, by human standards, but the Lord met our need!  I am so grateful to God and also to you, my blog readers and friends, for the way God has used you in this process!

Let me tell you how it all happened…

Our “Impossible” Fundraising Goal

$12,000 in 12 days was such a crazy amount of money that we quickly realized we couldn’t ask anybody for money.  We also realized that if we raised that much money in such a short time frame, it would be purely because God had provided and not through anything the Dubois family could do, so we asked for prayer instead of asking for money.  Our family donated the first $1,000 and we created the Dubois Adoption Prayer Warriors  Facebook group hoping that three or four people would be willing to check in with me every day and pray.  What happened next blew me away!  Within a few days, there were more than 800 prayer warriors in that group!

The Hosting Agency set up a fundraising web page for us and people were gracious and generous right from the beginning.  So many people love these children and want to help them as much as we do.  I have always said that I have the best blog readers on the planet, and you’ve really proven that to be true over the past several weeks!  I am awed and humbled by the generosity you have shown with your finances, your prayers and by sharing our story.  Thank You.

People donated and donated and donated again.  You shared our story.  The fundraising page was full of donations from people I have never met.  A church where I don’t know any of the members made a large donation.  One family offered to match any donations made within a certain time frame.  You all really pulled together to bring these children here.  Our family was so blessed to get to watch.

October 29 was a hard day.  We still had 3 days to raise $1,000 to meet the first mini-deadline and only three more days after that to raise the remaining $5,000.  From where I was sitting, those numbers seemed “impossible.”  I decided that my theme verse for that day would be Ephesians 3:20-21:

Now unto HIM that is able to do EXCEEDING ABUNDANTLY ABOVE ALL THAT WE ASK OR THINK, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto HIM BE GLORY in the church BY CHIRST JESUS throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

It’s the verse that would cling to when raising the money seemed impossible and the verse that we would celebrate when God provided the money in full!  Because He did provide the money in full, but not quite yet.

 

The Lemonade Stand.

That night, FarmBoy announced that he thought it would be a wonderful idea to have a Lemonade Stand!  Papa the Farmer said, “No Way!”  Ironically, his reasons for saying “no” were that there’s too much traffic to let a little boy stand at the end of our driveway all day and there’s not enough traffic on our dead-end street for a Lemonade Stand to be successful.  Not to mention that the day before Halloween isn’t exactly traditional Lemonade Stand season.  But one of my friends made some phone calls and before I knew it, our local grocery store had given permission for FarmBoy to hold his lemonade stand out in their parking lot!  I would be amazed at what the Lord would do with one little 8 year old boy’s idea…

The morning of October 30th found us bright and early standing in the parking lot in front of Branscome’s Grocery Store in the pouring rain.  Impossible to raise money at a Lemonade Stand in the pouring rain, right?  Not impossible for God!  We only sold 2 glasses of lemonade,  Nobody felt like drinking lemonade in the rain, but the wonderful folks in my small town with a population of less than 850 people donated $1,749.73!  Many of those donations came in the form of $1 and $5 bills. Don’t ever underestimate the power of a small donation!

I really appreciated the store clerk!  Because of the rain, people were dashing from their cars into the store, trying to stay dry.  She was telling each person what we were doing when they checked out and told them to come to our table after they left the store! By the time I met them, I didn’t even have to tell them our story! We met a lot of people who offered to pray for us and a few people asked how they can host children, too.

One Mama brought her 5 children (ages 1-8) came from a couple of towns over to donate the money they have been saving in their “give” envelopes.  It was so touching to see children being taught to give to others!

One woman took up a collection at work and handed me an envelope with $1,000 in it. I got the shock of my life when I opened it later!

I am so grateful for the people in my little town!  They have such big hearts.  It is obvious our host children are going to be very, very welcome here.

 

The Birthday Surprise

My birthday happened to be the day before our final fundraising deadline.  When I woke up I realized I had some texts from friends.  They had been texting me since 5 am!  I will admit that I wondered, “What kind of friend texts you at 5 am on your birthday?”  The texts said, “Wake up!  Go check your Fundraising page!”  When I checked, this is what I saw:

An Anonymous donor (I still don’t know who you are!) gave the final $2,000 that we needed to bring the children here!  The Lord had more than met our need, sooner than we needed it!

 

 

 

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

I know the money was sent by God, but I deeply appreciate each one of you… I appreciate those of you who gave, those of you who helped spread our story and those of you who prayed.  Our family is so, deeply grateful for you!

You can follow the story of our orphan hosting and possible adoption in our Facebook Group:  Dubois Adoption Prayer Warriors Group.  May the Lord bless you and your family, abundantly.

Thank you.