So when does Joseph come home?

    We've talked to lots of people about our adoption of Joseph.  Adoption can be a confusing thing...most people aren't sure of what the time-frame is, what the costs are or even whats involved in the process.  I'm going to try to stick a few posts in here or there to explain some common questions we get so that hopefully people will have a better idea what's going on with our adoption.

    People are always wondering when Joseph can actually come home.  Well, right now we're still waiting on our "verbal referral" from his country.  We've already sent all of our many months of hard work (our dossier) to his country and we're just waiting to hear back that they accept it and are sending it along to the next step.  Basically, from what we've been told, it sounds like we could get our "verbal referral" at any point now.  Once we get that, it could be anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks before we get a "written referral" and travel dates to make our first trip to his country. 

    We've been waiting for weeks now for our "verbal referral."  I'm trying to be patient, but this mama would really like to see things moving along!  We were originally thinking we could have travel dates sometime as early as the end of November...maybe more like mid December.  Not sure how accurate that it.  We've been told that we just have to wait.  You can count on the fact that I will be posting just as soon as I get any kind of email saying we have that "verbal referral."  At least at that point, the clock will be ticking on us finally getting some information about future travel dates!

    Once we travel for that first trip (one week) to meet our little boy, review his medicals, spend some bonding time with him...then we come home and work on more official paperwork to adopt him.  The wait is typically 4-5 months until we can go back for a week and then bring him home with us.  That is probably going to be some of the worst months of my life...leaving our boy there and waiting so long to go get him.  But that's the process and that's what we have to walk through to bring him home.  We didn't sign up for this because we thought it was easy ;)  God will provide the strength we need to get through that.

    So...thats the process and the time-frame for now.  As a learn more, I'll keep people posted.  communication on this process has been a bit sketchy...but luckily I have an "adoption pro" for a friend who is adopting from the same country in Eastern Europe as us and she tends to run through the time frames for me and give me a heads up as to what is coming next or what we are waiting on.
 
    Thanks for following our adoption journey...we are incredibly blessed by all those that have prayed for us and Joseph and who have helped donate to get him home!  

  

Another blessing...

How often do you hand $300 over to a stranger?  $300.  That's a lot of money.  We've donated to other families in need...even large amounts...but its still so shocking when we are in need and wondering how we're going to raise the funds for this adoption and then a person we don't even know personally donates a whole $300 to our RR sponsorship page.  That's a whole lot of money for most folks.  It's a lot to us.  And I am sure it was a lot to that one person.  But they gave anyway. 

Wow...yet another amazing witness to me during this whole process.  I could not possibly be more blessed than I have been through this adoption.  It is pretty powerful to say "yes!" to what seems impossible and watch God make it doable.  Little by little...and maybe not in our timing but in God's timing.  He is getting us there little by little.   I have felt what generousity can do to accomplish God's beautiful plans.  And now we have been blessed again.

Thank you sincerely to our most recent "helper" with our RR account.    Please know how very much we appreciate it.  That money is going to help give an amazing little boy a future and a family of his own.  What a wise investment in Gods eyes :) 

Our family will be praying for you every single day.

Blessings,
Kimberly

Egg hunting and our free range chickens

Our chickens do have a mobile chicken tractor.  We put electric net fencing around it and we move both the tractor and the fencing around the yard periodically but that doesn't seem to matter.  We haven't clipped their wings and we spoil them something rotten so they know they can just fly over the electric fence and have free range of our entire yard whenever they like.  So they pretty much let themselves out when they want to graze :)

Its fine with us...the electric netting was really for keeping them safe at night from predators more than it was meant to keep them in.  Its healthier for them to graze all day on bugs and grasses and they'll eat less organic feed anyway but now they're laying.  We were curious whether some of them would end up laying their eggs in strange little hidden places around the yard.  Well, one of the kids thought it would be funny to put their buddy chicken straight into the feed bin to give them a "snack".  Well, that chicken decided to lay an egg right there in the bin.  Guess their not that picky about needing to lay their eggs up in their nesting boxes in their tractor!  Then it got worse...my three and a half year old came running in yesterday with an egg he'd found laying on the pavement near our house!  He was so proud of himself for finding an egg in such a weird place.

So...now we've got a daily, real life egg hunt going on around our house.  I'm guessing a lot more than just the five chickens are actually laying...but who knows where!

cartoon from http://wordsandtoons.com

Gratitude

That's what we're feeling right now. 

 Lots of gratitude to whoever donated to our Reece's Rainbow fund.

Thank you so very much!  Every donation gets us closer to our boy.

Thank you for helping to bring Joseph home!

Flapjack Fundraiser!!

For our local friends,

Save the date for our Applebee's breakfast fundraiser!

WHEN: Saturday, November 10, 2012
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

WHERE: Applebee's
Neighborhood Grill & Bar
10921 Carolina Pl. Pkwy.

Pineville, NC 28134 

$7.00 per person
$5.00 per child 

Applebee's is allowing us to hold a fundraising breakfast to help raise the funds to bring Joseph home!  We would be so blessed if you would come out that morning and help support our adoption!

We are pre-selling tickets so please feel free to buy tickets from us or even take some tickets to help sell to others. 

If you'd like to buy tickets but don't see us regularly you can email me at and I will email you back our address to mail payment to.  Once I receive the payment, I will mail out your tickets.

We need to sell a minimum of 100 tickets for applebee's to allow us to hold the breakfast.  Even if you can't attend, you can still buy tickets to help us be able to have the breakfast.

We need people to buy tickets as well as people to help sell tickets to others.

Thank you for your support!
Blessings,
The Perrys

New Look...Same blog :)

Well, we decided the blog could use a little changing so Dan put a new header together for me!
It's nice to have Joseph up in the header now.  We changed a few things so hopefully it looks a little better.


We are working on a Applebee's Flapjack Fundraiser scheduled for November 10th.
More news to come on that shortly!


Blessings,
Kimberly

Nine

Our sweet Elijah turned 9 on Saturday. He is an amazing kid and we are blessed to have him as part of our family.  He's funny and sweet and has such a thoughtful side to him.

He doesn't like pictures so I'll spare him the pictures I took of him that day...except for this one!
This is his "Ok, Ok....I'm looking and I'm smiling like a crazy man...will you please stop taking pictures of me now!" face.  

Our family has been hit pretty hard lately with more obstacles than I can count...many of which I would rather not blog about.  Its been bad...I'm telling you, the evil one has been having a field day with our family the past couple weeks.  One disaster after another.  I guess he's finally figured out that we're not giving up on this adoption no matter how hard he makes things!  We had a big father/son  trip planned for Elijah's birthday but Dan came down with a horrible case of what seemed like food poisioning the night before the big trip and it had to be canceled.  This is one of many, many strange illnesses that have hit our family along with all the other hurdles we've hit lately.  Luckily, Elijah is a sweet soul and we came up with some alternate activities to do later that weekend for his birthday after Dan had started to recover with medication.  Elijah still had a great time.  He enjoyed his presents and still got to have fun!

So...we're digging in our heels even deeper...or should I say our knees are hitting the floor even harder as we pray for protection.  And in thanksgiving for having a great son that is growing into a great young man.

First Eggs

We got our first two eggs on Saturday!  Its kind of funny since Elijah is our "chicken whisperer" and we got our very first eggs on his birthday...a little present for him from the chickens :)

We've gotten a few each day now...looks like there are three that are laying each day.  Now the kids go out every day to see how many more we get as the rest of the 22 chickens start to lay as well.

We have to auction off 5 of our chickens soon...so we should end up with just a little under 2 dozen eggs  each day!