Thank you!

We just wanted to extend a big THANKS to everyone who helped with our garage sale fundraiser last weekend. Once again we made over $1,000, this time towards our travel expenses (last year we used the $1,000 we made to pay for our home study). We could travel as soon as summer or early fall. We are getting closer every day! Here are some pictures from the event. Thanks to all of the friends and family who came out to see us and help bring Hope home from Russia!

Garage Sale Fundraiser This Weekend

Thank you to everyone for your generous donations of items for our adoption garage sale fundraiser! We are all set for this weekend and have an amazing selection of bargains! I posted a listing with details including items for sale on both Craig's List and Garage Sale Cow last night. Links to both listings are below. Please spread the word and be sure to join us this weekend! Last year we raised enough for our home study. This year's proceeds will help with our travel expenses. We expect to travel sometime this summer or fall. Thanks to everyone who has given or helped in some way on this long journey. We wouldn't be this far
without you!!!

Craig's List

Garage Sale Cow

Russia Update

Here is the latest news on Russia from the most reliable sources:

US State Department

Joint Council on International Childrens Services

Also some good news reported by the Moscow Times:

The Moscow Times

Our agency is reporting activity again, so it appears that things are moving, albeit slowly, and Russia will remain open for international adoption while the two countries work out an agreement.

Garage Sale Fundraiser

Dear Friends & Family,

May 21st through 23rd is the annual Great US 50 yard sale (www.route50.com/yardsale.html), and we are planning to use it as an opportunity to raise money for our Journey to Hope again this year!

If you have any clothes (childrens), toys, furniture or household items that you've been wanting to get rid of and are willing to allow the proceeds to go to our adoption fund, please let us know. We can even come box it up and haul it away for you (as long as you are in town!). All you have to do is have it ready to go!! Or you can drop it off at our house any time up until the sale.

Please be sure to spread the word to your Cincinnati area friends, family and coworkers (even if you're not able to come) and/or bring a friend and come buy some stuff yourself! All proceeds will go to the "Journey to Hope" adoption fund.

We are so thankful to friends and family like you that have helped us get this far on our adoption journey. We still have a long way to go ... please help us bring HOPE home from Russia!

Blessings,
Chad, Emily & Benjamin, too!

Mother's Day

I was once the childless woman on Mother's Day. For six years, we longed to be parents and wondered if we would ever be blessed with that which seemed to come so easily for everyone but us. Then came our Benjamin and I was finally able to celebrate Mother's Day with a child in my arms. I have also been the bereaved woman on Mother's Day. After only two years of joyful celebrations, Mother's Day became bittersweet for me because of my daughter's death. I celebrated for the child in my arms and grieved for the child I could no longer hold. I wondered if Mother's Day would ever be joyful for me again. Now I am the waiting mother; waiting for a 4th Mother's Day for our rainbow to come; full of hope and longing for the day she will finally be here; full of joy for the child still in my arms; and, by the grace of God, full of peace over the child I am no longer able to hold, but will see again one day in Heaven. I now see Mother's Day so differently. I see it as an opportunity to send a card to a bereaved mother whose child cannot be in her arms this Mother's Day. And a way to love on the mothers who are taking care of sick children who may not be here for another Mother's Day. It's also an opportunity to care about the women who want to be mothers, but are on the infertility rollercoaster and grieving each month for the child that was not conceived, as well as all of the motherless daughters and sons whose mother's are not here to be celebrated. Mother's Day is bittersweet for so many people. Please take time this weekend to reach out to a mother who needs your love.

And for my friends who are childless or missing a child this Mother's Day (and those who love them), this is for you ...

For the Childless Woman on Mother's Day
(click the link above to view)