We have been so blessed the last couple of months with our Both Hands project and today I want to reveal the total raised so far. Here it is...
$16,251!!
Andy and I are overwhelmed with thankfulness! We are thankful to God who decided to bring us on this journey and who is providing a way for us to bring Everleigh home!!! We are thankful for every person who sponsored our volunteers to work on a widow's home and we are thankful for every person who gave up their lives for a Saturday to bring our girl home. Andy and I are so humbled by HIS love and the love of those who sacrificed their time for a widow and orphan.
Many people have asked us about what the next steps are and I want to be totally honest about what's ahead and how the money raised is being used. Right now we are waiting for our approval letter from immigration and an agreement between our home study agency and adoption agency to arrive in the mail. They both should arrive this week (hopefully today or tomorrow) and then I will take all of our dossier paperwork to be authenticated by the our state. Our state has to acknowledge that every notary who signed our dossier paperwork does indeed exist. Once that is done, I will send our dossier to our agency who will also authenticate it. $8,725 will be sent to our agency from Both Hands to cover the cost of our dossier submission to Ethiopia. I hope to have our paperwork to our agency by Monday, December 15th.
Once our dossier is in the Ethiopian government we begin waiting for our referral. I contacted our agency about how long the referral wait will be and they explained that even though they receive referrals from all over Ethiopia, two of the largest regions are restructuring their adoption process. They went on to say that a normal referral time is 5-7 months, but with the restructuring it could be longer. We know that this is all in God's hands and we will receive our referral when the timing is right. However, you will probably still hear me gripe about the wait :) Grace's referral was only 7 weeks which was crazy fast, but I do not anticipate such a quick referral with Everleigh.
When we receive our referral we will owe approximately $4,000 in order to accept our referral (paid for by the Both Hands project). The rest of the Both Hands money will go toward the cost of transition home fees, medical costs for Everleigh, other miscellaneous cost, and travel expenses for the first trip. Our Both Hands account will remain open for the duration of our adoption for anyone who feels called to send in a tax deductible gift to go toward the remaining expenses (about $5,000-$7,000) can do so.
I'm posting the link to our Both Hands Website so you can see the awesome work our volunteers completed.
I love this, thanks for sharing!!
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