Fundraising Update

McKenna has raised over $650 so far with her Bike a Thon fundraiser!!! It has been a beautiful experience for her and the whole family. The most beautiful part is seeing God work in it all.

 

We will be riding the 20 miles as a family the last week of May so anyone feeling led to sponsor her please feel free to send us and email at fitzfamily01@gmail.com and we'll send you a sponsorship packet!! :)

 

We have 3 community  fundraisers planned before the children come home. We will be selling homemade crafts at the local farmers market this summer. We will also be selling apparent project bracelets at 3 local events this summer including 2 craft fairs. And then a friend of ours has said she was willing to help us with an adoption yard and bake sale the last week in June. We will be asking around locally for people to donate items during the month on June.

 

We love doing fundraisers!! Not just because they raise money to help bring our children home. God could drop the money in our laps in many ways even without fundraising. We've seen it. But what we love is getting the word out about special needs adoptions and showing others that the Lord WILL provide for those who step out in faith. People get to see the Lord working in our adoptions and providing for us to adopt debt free and it plants a seed. God is good and when we say yes to the calling on our lives He takes it from there and we just need to hold on for the ride.

 

Praise God for continuing to provide for our family and for all He has done and will continue to do to bring our children home!!!

 

In Light and Love~  Goose and Gillian

This is How God Moves in Adoptions!!

In three days the Lord has brought ten sponsors to our daughters Biking the Bridge fundraiser!!! Bringing her current total to $225!! In just 3 days she is half way to her goal! We LOVE seeing how not only her faith in strengthened through this but also our oldest son who is playing little league but supporting his sister and watching God move!  Beautiful!!

 

 

Please feel free to visit her blog and prayerfully consider becoming one of her sponsors!!

Faithful Fundraising

 

If you decide to become a sponsor you can email your name and address to us at fitzfamily01@gmail.com and she will send you a "Sponsor packet" with a sponsor letter and a self addressed stamped envelope for you to mail your donation in once she has completed the 20 miles.

 

The total cost for travel to bring Gene and Ella home will be ~$3,500. We have at least three months to raise these funds. In addition to travel we are currently saving up for Zeke's adoption. We plan to finish the time sensative docs for his dossier when we are sure Gene and Ella are within 2 months of coming home and hope to submit to his country shortly after Gene and Ella arrive.

 

The estimated cost for Zekes adoption will be ~$10,000 and ~$2000 for travel to bring him home. These numbers look large and intimidating until we look at them through the eyes of the Lord. He provided $26,000 in nine months for Gene and Ella's adoptions. He has provided $225 for our daughters fundraiser in just 3 days. He is the great provider... We are just along for the ride.

 

Please keep praying that we get through this stage of the adoption quickly as well as the families who are adopting from the same orphanage. We have seen how powerful prayer is throughout our adoptions. We have flown through these past few steps with many of our friends who are adopting along with us. Its been beautiful to see and we thank you for your prayers and Praise God for all He is doing to bring our children home. 

 

Thanks and God Bless~  Goose and Gillian  

Biking the Bridge

As of yet we don't know what travel will look like to bring Gene and Ella home. Our country does allow escorts which we are currently looking into.. Its difficult to figure what the costs associated with this might be but as of now we are saving for an estimated  $2000 to have them escorted to the US.  We would fly down to Florida to pick the children up and return home as a family of 6. We estimate the cost of all travel in the US to be ~$1500... That brings the total cost for travel to ~$3500.00. This figure will change but it gives us an idea of where we need to be.

 

Our oldest daughter, McKenna, has decided to do a fundraiser to help with the travel costs of bringing Gene and Ella home. She even prayed for the Lord to show her what to call her fundraiser. He answered with "Biking the Bridge". Friends had put on a benefit dinner for us over a year ago and called it "Building the Bridge" so she really felt that this name fit. She will be asking for people to sponsor her per mile as she attempts to bike 20 miles during the last week of May. Mikey, Goose and I will be biking with her for support (and safety;) but this will be all her. We are so very proud of our girl and her heart!!

 

We will help her by setting up an events page on facebook and provide a link to our Reece's Rainbow account for those who want to sponsor her online. She will also be going to friends, neighbors and family asking people to prayfully consider sponsoring her for $1.00 a mile with a cap of 20 miles. Donations above that amount would be applied to the cost of bringing Gene and Ella home.  

 

We will post a link to the facebook event page soon!! For now please pray God will use this to grow McKenna's already beautiful heart for orphans and to build upon her relationship with the Lord.

 

Thanks and God Bless!!

 

 

Blessed~

Special needs adoption isnt charity. It should not be kept to ourselves. It is a Blessing, a calling and an example of our Father's love for His adopted children. As parents adopting from Reeces Rainbow we share our adoption stories to glorify the Lord and in hopes that others who feel called to adopt will consider special needs children. Children the world will over look but as Christians we should see them as He sees them, as a gift, a Blessing and as His precious children who need the love of a family.

 

We Praise God for opening the door for us to welcome our newest Blessing...  Gedediah!!

 

 

We have started working of our dossier and hope to have it completed and ready to submit to his country in June. With the countries laws we can't share much but we can say he is three years old with cp and is just an absolute love. We are Blessed!!!

 

While we are busy putting together a dossier for this adoption we are praying for movement in our current adoptions. Please keep praying for the Lord to move mountains to bring Gene and Ella home soon!!

 

 

God Bless~  Goose and Gillian

Please Join Us in Prayer

We are praying daily for our dossier to move forward. Please join us in praying our children home as the Lord puts them on your hearts.

In Love and Light~  Goose and Gillian

Health Update

The past few days have been difficult for many people who love the little ones at the orphanage. 30% of the 60-70 children in the orphanage have been sick with what they believe may be cholera. Both of our children had symptoms and our daughter ended up needing an IV to rehydrate.

 

 

We know from having spent time on the Reece's Rainbow website and face book page that we are beyond blessed to have our children at this orphanage. Our children have received the best care possible and we have been kept in the loop with daily emails(sometimes several emails a day.) 

 

We've also been blessed by our friends and family who have been our prayer warriors for our kids these past few days. We believe in the power of prayer. When our little girl was not doing well our brothers and sisters in Christ lifted her up in prayer and the next day (Christmas Day:) she had a big turn around. The staff sent us an email just after midnight letting us know that our little girls was eating and drinking on her own and her cholera symptoms were going away.

 

We are praising the Lord today for healing our children. Thanking Him for the true Brothers and Sisters in Christ who have been praying and supporting us these past few days. And asking Him to continue to heal the children at the orphanage, give strength to the staff working so hard to care for our kids and peace to the adoptive families who would give anything to be the ones caring for their babies at home. 

How the Lord Provided for Our Adoptions

On our debt blog we recently did a post covering the sources the Lord used for funding our adoptions. It may be helpful for some of our adopting friends to see how the Lord provided for our adoptions without debt. As we've said before when we started our adoptions we considered taking out a loan. We prayed about it but never felt that the Lord was leading us back into debt after spending three years getting out of it. So we prayed and said if we were going to be able to adopt 2 children without debt it would have to be Him providing. ...and He did.

 

The sources He used weren't the source we had originally planned on. First we thought we would just pay for our adoptions ourselves with savings and cash flow throughout the year. He used our savings, cash flow as well as our income tax return as the major source of funds.   But God wanted to make sure we couldn't take credit for funding our adoptions. A majority of the costs were due in the first 6-9 months of our process. He also wanted to make sure no one else could take credit either so He used many source to cover the rest of the adoption expenses. 

 

When we started applying for grants we were told they would be difficult to receive. Also the church we were attending during this time did not have an adoption grant established and our efforts to put one in place for families who may adopt after us were shot down. So we applied to Show Hope trusting that if the Lord intended us to receive a grant then we would.  The day we went to the mail box and opened up our letter from Show Hope announcing we would receive a grant is a day we will never forget. 

 

We decided to write a fundraising letter to request help from friends and family. We asked the church we were attending at the time if we could put the letter in the churches mailboxes. The policy for the church stated we would need permission from the board to give out fundraising letters in the mail boxes but they would allow us 5-6 minutes to speak to the church members and tell them about our adoptions. We were told we would be allowed to hand out letters after we spoke at the back of the church if anyone was interested in taking one. We decided not to ask for donations, and not to hand out fundraising letters at the church. We decided to only to tell the church members about our adoptions. The individual church members, who felt led, donated to our adoptions anyway. As did many people outside the church who heard of our adoptions on the radio through the local paper, facebook and our blog.  The Lord used individual donations ranging from $2.00 to $1000.00 and each one was humbling and a blessing. 

 

God used many other source to cover the remaining costs of our adoptions, our children made Christmas ornaments and sold them for a donations. A woman from our church offered to host a spaghetti dinner and dessert auction. The churchs woman's retreat split the funds from their silent auction between ourselves and another adoptive family. Our Reeces Rainbow page was a great way to get the word out about special needs adoptions and to receive tax deductible donations. Our online fundraisers for T shirts though Adoption Bug was a great and easy way to fundraise. We also received donations from local businesses.

 

We are thankful for the journey we had over the past year in watching the Lord provide for our adoptions.  How awesome it is to look back on our adoptions and to know that He provided and that only He deserves the glory.   If the Lord calls you to it He will take you through it. The same holds true for adoptions. When you are stepping out in faith to help the least these with a pure heart the Lord will provide. We've seen it.  And what a blessing it was to experience...