My Sister's Wedding, Adoption...

It is still so hard to believe that my baby sister was married on Saturday. She looked beautiful. The wedding was so pretty. Grubby and Gabe were married at my Meme and Papa's house, where Danny and I were married. It was an evening wedding and there were white lights and tulle strung everywhere. The reception was held across the levee from their house, by the Tensas river. There was a white tent all decorated with tulle and lights and lights were strung from the trees giving the whole setting a romantic glow. I loved it.

There were a few small kinks in the wedding plans. It did rain a little during the ceremony, and at the end of the evening 3 adults flipped a golf cart on the levee and it landed on a lady who is a friend of ours, breaking two of her ribs.(Ms. Lorna is doing better and slowly healing up) Those things were not expected and were saddening. But then there were some beautiful surprises in the wedding as well. Micah (Grubby) had picked out a song to go down the aisle to, but she didn't know that Gabriel had other plans. Instead, he pulled his hidden guitar out of the gazebo, and "played" her down the aisle. He played one of their favorite songs. "I can't stop the Rain" by Third Day. It was very fitting, as the rain began to fall soon after that! She was so taken aback by him playing the song to her, that she forgot her bouquet and came down the aisle crying tears of joy. Also, Grubby had really liked a particular wedding band when they were shopping for bands, but they had decided not to spend the money on the band and to use it more wisely somewhere else. Well, what do you know, during the ring ceremony, Gabe pulls out that wedding band, and Grubby cried tears of joy once again. It was so sweet.

On another note, the apron sales have been going great! I am so excited (and overwhelmed) about the response I have received. I am required a good afternoon of sewing each day to keep up! This is a good thing! Due to the aprons, and recent cow sales, we have been blessed beyond measure to be able to keep up with the necessary funds needed for our adoption deadlines. We have about $6000 due very soon, though. And we are praying for God to make a way for us to pay it. I am doing my best to keep up with the aprons- but we are hoping to be able to do some other kind of fundraiser in the near future to help meet that expense.

I am feeling a little pushed and over loaded, but I know that God is able to give me all suffiency and an abundance for every good work! I have about 5 more aprons to make before the end of this week-(not to mention re-stock the online etsy shop that is practically empty now), a school house that morphed into a storage building over the summer that needs to be re-converted into it's previous state, a child birth class to to teach on Saturday that I need to be preparing for, and school curriculim to review so that I can begin teaching on Monday of this upcoming week. I am hoping that after getting a little extra sleep throughout this week, I will be rested up to tackle the upcoming weeks. These are all things that I love and am truly ecstatic about- but I am working on the "resting in Jesus" part of this equation so that I will not look at my own abilities and feel incapable. I believe God gave me the aprons as a means for us to raise this money, and so if an order comes in- obviously there is a way for me to fill it! How good Jesus is to us!

So- the home study is going well! We are only waiting on a few final documents to complete it. We came into a little minor red tape this last week. I just have to remail a document for a back grounnd check that wasn't notarized ( I didn't realize it needed to be) and then I have to take my health check form back to the doc to get him to correct a mistake in which he accidentally checked "yes" on *"Does this patient have any infectious diseases?" He had already answered no to the same question (it is asked twice on the form) and had also written, "The patient is in excellent mental and physical condition." It was a simple mistake. The onyl bad part is, another form cannot be issued and there are very specific steps to correct an error on a form. It has to be crossed out and initialed, and then the right box has to be checked. If it is whited out or corrected by any other means, they may find fault with it. SO, praying that all gets done quickly and we are able to wrap up our homestudy in record time. According to our International social worker, Allison, they normally tell the residents of Alabama that they should expect a good 4 month wait on the homestudy. It has only been a few weeks and we only have a few more documents to be able to complete the study. What a blessing!!

Danny and I now have Rosetta Stone, and we will begin learning Spanish next week, when our days finally morph into holding some sort of schrdule once again!! LOL I will order the boys their Rosetta Stone in a few weeks! (I am holding out to hear back about the photo contest (you never know!) before I drop the bucks!)If we win the photo contest it would cover the cost of it!)


Hopefully my next post will say: "We've completed the homestudy!!! YIPPEE!" Or maybe, "We raised $6000 for the adoption!! YIPPEE!!" LOL