May 2014 Update:

Update time again!

Jonathan and I had our fingerprints done on Thursday 5/29 and are now waiting 

to start our training classes in June. We have to have 21hrs total of training.

After that we will start our homestudy, have home visits and inspections.

Everything is finally rollings again. 

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Jan. 2014 Update

We apologize for not posting a recent update sooner. We have been waiting on information from our agency about Ethiopia and International adoption.
 

Late December we were made aware of Ethiopia making some changes or shutting their doors on International Adoption. As of this week we have been told that Ethiopia will keep their doors open at this time, but changes will be taking place.
 

We would like to let everyone know that with much prayer and thought we have decided to move our adoption to the States. We feel due to the many changes and countries shutting their doors, it be best to move our International Adoption to a Domestic Adoption.
 

God is faithful and he has a plan.  
We thank you all for your support and prayers!

     "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11  

"I see a world opening its heart to the millions of orphans who desperately need a family and I feel immense hope. These kids, no matter where they're from or what their background is, they need a new last name, a forever one. They need family traditions and trips to Dairy Queen. They need warriors to fight for them and mommies and daddies to kiss and tickle them."
-Flower Patch Farm Girl Adoption blog
 

Please pray for our family and our adoption.

 



Our Puzzle is Here!

How it works:   We have a 500 piece puzzle with a picture of Africa. For $5, a person/family purchases 1 piece of the jigsaw puzzle. You can purchase as many puzzle pieces as you wish. $5 = 1 piece We will write the name of the person/family on the back of the piece(s) purchased. As the puzzle pieces are purchased, we will take pictures to show the progress. When all the pieces have been purchased we will frame the puzzle to display it in her room as a reminder of the support and love shown to us/her during the adoption process. 100% of funds donated will go directly to adoption fees .     If everyone just bought one puzzle piece for $5 we will have raised $2,500!   We are so excited about the idea behind this fundraiser. We love the idea of showing our daughter how many people loved her enough to purchase a puzzle piece to bring her home. Just imagine her seeing ALL of those names of the people who wanted to help give her HOPE and a future.   Pick your puzzle piece(s)

1 Puzzle Piece $5.00 USD 2 Puzzle Pieces $10.00 USD 3 Puzzle Pieces $15.00 USD 4 Puzzle Pieces $20.00 USD

After you click buy now, please add the name you would like written on your puzzle piece(s) in the "description" box.

Our Current Fundraisers-Shop and Support a Good Cause.

 

Our Coffee Shop is HERE

(On going)

 

 

 

 

 

Shop HERE

(Now-Nov. 16th)

 

 

 

 

 

 You can shop HERE and once you go to the check out page you will see a yellow banner at the page. Please make sure you select "Diane Diane Brouillard" as the ambassador & for the Trunk Show name you put "Wilson Family Benefit".

Example below

(Now- Dec. 9th)

 

 

 

 

Shop HERE

- For anyone that is placing a first time order they can also use code TWENTY13 for 20% off-

(Nov. 15th-Dec.15th)

 

Rustic Charm

 

Shop info HERE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Coffee!

We now have a coffee shop open with Just Love Coffee!

Our Shop

 

I have heard nothing put positive about the coffee offered through Just Love Coffee and we are excited to sale it to help fund our adoption.

Our family receives a nice pinch of the sales when you shop through our coffee shop.

More info about Just Love Coffee, here.

Update on our journey

Where we are in the adoption process:

Many of you have been asking for updates and we love to see so many interested in our adoption for "Little Hope".

We submitted the fee of $2,500 and are now in the Ethiopia program.

We are working on the "paper chase" which is submitting our Dossier (pronounced as DOSS-EE-AY) to Ethiopia.

This is lots of paper work and info about us. This process can take 4-6mths to complete.

We are starting one of our training classes and trying to get our home study started, which is $2,000. We are still raising funds for this fee.

 

Thank you for asking for updates on our adoption journey, prayers, love and your support!

As you can see this will be a long journey. A journey with lots of hard work, patience and putting our trust and faith completely in God. One that will be well worth it all!

The wait will help give us time to raising the needed funds for the adoption and time to prepare for our little girl. We trust God will allow everything to be completed in His time.

A New Way You Might Be Able To Help Us!

We are collecting used inkjet and toner cartridges to raise money for our Adoption. If you or your work throws away empty inkjet or toner cartridges save them for us! This is a great way you can help us.

We send them to The Funding Factory and they send us a check!

 

Thank you!



Apples and Memories

Every year since our oldest was born we have gone to Flat Rock, NC to the apple orchard.

This has become our family tradition for every Fall.

Beautiful mountains, colorful trees, muddy boots, fresh warm apple cider donuts and lots of memories made.

 

I Love the thought of one day "Little Hope" joining in on our Apple picking tradition.

 

Online Auction!

Our sweet friend April used her talent to refinish these two beautiful antique tables and then donated them to be auctioned off for our adoption.

Please share this event with your friends.

To participate in the auction head on over to Giving HOPE To One on facebook  HERE and "like" our page. On Friday October 25th at 2pm we will post this picture. Comment below the picture with your bid. On Sunday October 27th at 2:00pm the highest bidder will receive these beautiful tables!

Auction is for locals in SC and pickup only.

Thank you!

 

Click on image to view larger.

Yard Sale Succes!

Thank you everyone for helping make our Yard Sale a success!

There were so many of you who donated items to our sale and that was a huge help. You can't have a yard sale if you don't have any stuff, right? You know who you are and we thank you!

Thank you to my dear friends who made things for the bake sale.

Thank you Sweet Conner family for coming over bright and early to help run our sale.

You have been such a blessing to us in so many ways.

Thank you to my awesome Dad for making signs and advertising on just about every road in the area. Thank you to my Mom for baking up a storm so our bake sale could have goodies.

 

This past weekend was hard and exhausting, but well worth it.

We met so many sweet people and met families who have or are adopting as well. It was an emotional week for me for many reasons. The generosity shown by you all was over whelming, thinking about our little girl "Hope" being out there somewhere and why we had the sale got to me, and seeing God provide again. He has been so good to us and we thank Him because, "Every good and perfect gift is from above." James 1:17

 

We raised right over $700!

 

Yard Sale & Bake Sale!

Hey Everyone!

We have now added on a Bake Sale to our Yard Sale!

Why not make it a double event, right?

Saturday October 12th

7am-2pm

Location: 3 Timbernotch CT. Taylors, SC 29687
Yard Sale &

 

 

Locals please spread the word!

 

Thank you!

 

 

 

A day full of Joy and Sorrow

Today September 11th in Ethiopia is "Enkutatash" The New Year! It's a day full of new hopes and dreams. Families and friends come together to celebrate with food and flowers.

 

 

Today in America is a day of sorrow. We remember those fallen in the attack on 9-11, 12 years ago.

For Waiting Adoptive Parents out there

Julie Gumm is speaking in

Chattanooga, TN on Sep. 27th!

 

 

More info about her upcoming
Adopt Without Debt meeting click Here
 

Register Here

Jonathan and I are looking forward to going!



Pennies for HOPE

A little girl walks up to me at church last night with a baggy full of pennies in her hand. "Here Mrs. Tab this is for your baby, I saved every one of them for you" she said.

What a surprise and how sweet it was for the two sisters to want to help us adopt!

 

We have a few jars left if you would like to save your pocket change for us too. Trust me, it all does add up over time and will be a help with our upcoming adoption fees.

Thank you!

 

Looking For Others....

After we applied for Ethiopia I decided to look within the State of SC for other families who have adopted their children from Ethiopia. I came across a family in Columbia, SC. Only a 2hrs or less drive! I contacted them right away and am so glad I did.

Tracy has been such an encouragement to our family, shared many stories about their adoption journey and given us lots of information. They also used the same adoption agency as us.

I wanted to share this page with you that Tracy wrote.

It's full of random facts about Ethiopia. I found it pretty interesting.

Ethiopia at Random

 

Their family blog is here

 

 

Labor Day Weekend

We had a fun filled Labor Day weekend and hope you all did too.  Tate and I ran/walked our first 5K race and it was the Color Run.

I recommend doing this particular race because it was super fun and very family oriented. Even if you are not a runner, the color run is all about having fun and getting messy while doing so.

 

 

Our family also had a Adoption Spirit Night at Firehouse Subs.

With the Spirit Night and a couple donations we raised $162.00 Saturday night!

We feel very thankful for every penny we received and want to thank everyone who came out to support us and for the generous donations!

We thank God for providing again!

 

 

One step closer....

This past Friday night we got the email from our adoption agency saying we have been accepted into the Ethiopia program. This news is good news and we have waited one month to hear it.

 

 

As a friend told us, "let the dossier begin!"

This is MANY papers we now fill out along with other needed info that will be sent to Ethiopia. We have now entered into another one of the many waiting periods.

 

We thank God for this good news and for the next step in our adoption journey to our daughter.

 

God is Good

Yesterday was one of those days I became anxious about our adoption journey. I didn't share my worries with anyone other than God and asked him to please help me to trust in him fully. He clearly tells us in the bible not to be anxious and not to worry. He has provided every time and has allowed things to happen for the good of our adoption process. We thank Him for that and I should not be anxious.

 

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Phil. 4:6

 

" Therefore I tell you, do not worry....." Matthew 6:25

 

I want to share what I believe is one of the many ways God has provided for the adoption for our daughter.

The thought of a $2,000 dollar fee coming up soon can be an overwhelming thought. As of yesterday we were short $900 dollars for the next fee due (the $2,000) and I wondered how are we going to pay this? What if we do not make enough at our next fundraiser to pay this?
God was probably laughing at me.
Last night we received a message from someone with a huge heart for God and their Brothers & Sisters in Christ. This family has generously donated the remaining amount of $900 to our adoption fee. I literally cried. We now have the next fee of $2,000 ready.
God is very good to us. We thank him for providing again and again so that this journey to our little girl will be possible. We thank this loving family for allowing God to use them to help an orphan and to help our family adopt our little girl.

The fundraiser this Saturday is still a very important event because the amount we receive from Firehouse Subs will be for the fees coming up in the near future. Thank you everyone for your support, prayers and all the love shown.
We can not wait to share this journey and the many ways God provided with our daughter one day. She is already loved by so many.

 

 



Firehouse Sub Spirit Night

 

Saturday Aug. 31st

4pm-9:30pm

Greer, SC location

 

A percentage of sales will go toward the adoption fees.

We have a fee of $2,000 coming up soon and we are short funds.

If you are out please stop by! EVERY dollar counts when it comes to the cost of adoption.

Thank you for your prayers and support.

 

 

Pennies for HOPE

 

We have small, medium and large mason jars available for anyone willing to donate pocket change to our adoption. We have turned these jars into banks and they are ready to be filled.

We did this in the beginning as a family and easily saved $25.

Then I came across cute little jars decorated as banks and decided to make my own.

Please send us an email here or contact us through our facebook page here to let us know if you would like a jar to fill. Tate has enjoyed doing this and the idea of filling the jar for his sister makes it super exciting for him. Maybe your child will enjoy it too!

 

 

Thank you for supporting us on our journey!