Results of Both Hands Fundraiser

In our last blog post, we wrote all about how the Both Hands Project went for our work day at Miss Beverly's home. I will always look back on that day with a fond remembrance of God's working! I especially loved doing this as a fundraiser because the work itself was a service. I felt like a fundraiser like this helped us to keep a right perspective, not focusing only on ourselves and our family. It is a reminder that God is at work in so many other ways, far beyond the dwelling of our home sweet home.

As much of the purpose of this blog is to keep friends, families and future adoptive families updated and informed on how this adoption process works, I would like to take a few minutes to describe the process of this fundraiser and the financial outcome of the project.

Let me just start with this: The fundraising outcome of our project was absolutely astounding! Including Lifesong's $3000 matching grant, we raised just over $8000 from this project!! 

Dave and I prayerfully considered how we should approach the "fundraising portion" of this adoption process. Honestly, because God has blessed us with the opportunity of Dave being a pastor at our church, we wanted to be very careful with how we proceeded. We would never ever want to put people in a position where they felt obligated to support us in this pursuit. 

By God's grace, He surrounded us with a mass of people who sent out support letters and worked alongside us on our project day. Others responded to letters with financial support. Wow. We are completely overwhelmed and blessed by you all!

Our friends and family (and the friends and family of these people who volunteered on our workday) were incredibly generous! So many of you demonstrated your love and support of our adoption in a big way. I, of course, recognize that many of our loved ones may be unable to financially give toward helping us meet our goal. That is totally ok! We know your love and support through prayers, comments and encouraging words along the way. However, it has been completely awesome to see how God has moved certain hearts to assist us financially. I think that has been one of the most encouraging and surprising parts of this process—the people who choose to help are not always the ones that you would expect. In fact, many of you are casual acquaintances that simply have a huge heart for adoption. We are so grateful for your outpouring of love.