Two Days Later & T-Shirts!

In our last post, we were so excited to announce that we had finished our application. Well, two days later we received our formal approval to adopt from Bethany Christian Services! Our heads are still spinning at the news! We thought for sure there would be some kind of hiccup or something we forgot to fill out, so to hear this good news so quickly is just more affirmation that we're on the right path and this is something God really wants us to do. The next step is to sign some paper work and pay the application & home study fees. Another praise - we have enough to pay for all of this at once! After Bethany receives our payment, then we get to attend a full day training in St. Louis on August 11th. There is plenty more to do, but we'll blog about that later.

On to t-shirts!! Many of you asked how you could order a t-shirt with the logo Cindy made on it. Well, look no further! <drum roll please>

Ta-da!!! We're really pleased with how the shirts turned out! If you're interested in ordering a shirt, we are taking pre-orders. Each shirt is $15, so let us know by calling, texting, e-mailing, or Facebooking us if you would like a Baby Bennett t-shirt.

Have a wonderful night!!

Josh & Cindy

Happy Birthday to Us - It's Finished!

We're very excited to share this news with you -- our formal application is complete and was submitted to Bethany just in time for our birthday! It made celebrating today so much better! The next step is to get approval from Bethany Christian Services to adopt, then we can move forward with our home study.

Speaking of which, after depositing our first vase-full of change we've been collecting plus a few other birthday "donations" we received, we have enough money to pay IN FULL our first adoption fee due upon completion of the home study! Praise God!

We also have another fundraising event coming up very soon. Our friends and family in the Fulton area are organizing a gospel sing, pie auction, and gift card raffle to help us out with adoption expenses. The Fulton Sun (a local newspaper) interviewed Cindy and Rick (her dad) and ran a feature story in Sunday's edition. You can read part of the article online by clicking this link.

If you'd like to participate in the raffle, tickets are available for anyone in the U.S. and will be sold throughout the month of July. We'll be drawing for prizes toward the end of the month or the beginning of August. So far, we have gift cards for WalMart, Barnes & Noble, Applebees, Bass Pro, and many others! Let us know if you're interested in purchasing or selling tickets.  You can purchase 1 ticket for $1 or you can buy 6 for $5. There will be many winners!

Thank you so much for your prayers, encouragement, and support so far. We're blessed beyond measure! Please pray as we wait on the application approval. We'll keep you posted on what we find out!

God Bless,

Josh & Cindy

A Quick Update

It's been a while since we've posted an update, so we thought we'd bring you all up to speed on a couple things.

We hope Baby B loves pizza! :)

Our Pampered Chef fundraiser was a huge success! We threw a pizza party for Baby Bennett on Saturday, May 19th. We had a grilled BBQ chicken pizza, a veggie pizza, and a fruit pizza. It was delicious and we had a great time hanging out with great people! Thanks to everyone who placed orders or passed catalogs around for us. We couldn't have done it without you! With this fundraiser we were able to put about $500 more in our adoption fund. We're getting closer and closer to being able to pay for our home study! God is good!

We do still have our coffee and Adoption Bug t-shirt fundraisers going, so if you are interested in those, you can click the pictures over on the right side of the blog. :) We are also in the process of making t-shirts with the adoption logo Cindy made, so be looking for more information on that soon! We are also looking for people who might be interested in donating gift cards for a raffle fundraiser. We will be selling tickets soon, but we need to get the prizes squared away first. If you'd be willing to help, please email Cindy or me (Josh) on Facebook or give us a call.

We are also closer to finishing our official adoption application. We have a couple more questions to go! Once that is submitted and approved, we get to move forward with our home study. Please continue to pray for us as we raise the funds necessary to pay for fees and such, pray that God will give us the perseverance and peace that passes all understanding as we continue the trek through the adoption process. 

We love you all! Have a great night!