Wonderful News

 

As you read the title of my post you may have thought "Oh my goodness, is there news on a baby?"...I will start off by saying we are still waiting. A little over a month ago I worked very hard on applying to 3 different grant agencies to see if we could get approved for an adoption grant of ANY amount. The awesome thing about grants is its money you could be awarded that isn't a loan or due back in any way. I knew before I started that it was going to be very involved and lots of application paperwork, very detailed budgeting information, essays to be written similiar to ones we wrote for the adoption agency, etc. I had also heard from the adoption agency and other adoptive couples and the grant websites that very few grants are award but LOTS of people apply therefore it is no garauntee that if you work very hard on the paperwork portion you will for sure get a grant. It was toss up to me for a long time as to whether I had the time to allocate for getting the grants applied for. Though I knew if we were awarded one the work that it took would pay off as "free money" so that's not easy to pass up and seemed a little irresponsible not to at least try for it. They also required our references to write another letter of recommendation on our behalf for each grant had specific questions for their purposes to be answered so it wouldn't be a generalized letter. The pastor, and 2 very good friends pulled through the application process with me and helped meet the deadlines for each grant. It wasn't easy and I fully appreciate the time they spent as well helping make it possible, that part was completely out of my hands. The information was emailed direct to my references and they had to send it directly back to the grant agencies....I had no idea what questions were even being asked about us. I heard from 2 of the couples that the questions were very in depth. After all needed documents were gathered and completed we began another waiting process, this time to hear about the grant results. Boy I have never had so much patience testing in my life as these waiting periods we have been going through and to say the least it really never leaves your mind...you wouldn't forget for 1 day that you are in the adoption process and could get a call any day about being matched with a birth mom and now in the grant process waiting to get notified as to whether you were approved or not. However the 3 agencies I applied for I heard about from 2 different families that had already gone through the adoption process and they were awarded grants from them so I felt like instead of trying to apply to 10 or so initially I would apply to these 3, Families Outreach, Gift of Adoption, and JSC Foundation.
    We submitted our applications a little over a month ago and I knew some were a 30-45 day review period, some say you will only hear a response if you were awarded a grant because so many apply at one time, etc. A week or so after we submitted the one to JSC Foundation I got an email asking for additional information to be provided and I answered their questions that night by email. This additional information request got me excited because I told Billy if they had looked at the initial information we sent along with all the other applicants for that grant period and ours didn't seem like as big a need as another applicant they probably would have already said no and wouldn't need anymore information. They thanked me for the update and said our application was ready to go in for review. I tried not to get my hopes up too high but I still did. Last week was the 1 month mark and I knew it to the date on my calendar and I had been anticipating an email of any sort to give us the news, but none came. I had to tell myself that we had up to 45 days though. Then yesterday I was at work when an email popped up on my phone, I had been busy all day but somehow it caught my attention right then and I immediately saw it was from JSC Foundation, I couldn't open it fast enough and my eyes were reading it so fast and I got to the part that said we had been awarded a VERY generous grant!!! I was so excited, I felt like jumping up and down and crying tears of joy all at the same time. Obviously I didn't because I was working and my office has a wall of windows. But I had goosebumps stand up on my arms that wouldn't go down for like half an hour because I felt so overwhelmed by the perfect provision of God, it was once again a huge affirmation that we are not alone in this process and He has the whole thing figured out especially the finances of it. I am fortunate to work with my sister and she was there on shift so I ran to find her and the words came spilling out. I told other co-workers and called my husband at work and we were all celebrating the blessing of it! This organization is actually in Colorado so that's the other amazing part, we weren't just in a pool of people from NC that applied, it was people all over the nation probably and who knows out of how many applications ours was chosen. So many people do a lot of work applying for these grants and don't hear anything back and are never awarded anything but only by the grace of God we applied for 3 and with the tremendous blessing on the first grant we were awarded I feel blessed beyond words. The JSC Foundation specifically asked for us to not disclose the amount of the grant we were awarded on social media sites, blogs, etc because they are a private organization and I will respect their wishes for that. But I did still want to share with you that we were indeed awarded 1 of the 3 grants and we still have yet to hear from the other 2 which could mean there is more blessing to come. :)
    The last thing that Billy and I want to complete for CAS but have had trouble finding the time to get it together is a 2 minute video of our family so that the birth mom can have a better idea of what we are like in personalities than just the words on our website page and the photos. I think it is an excellent idea and I have been wanting to get this completed for over a month now. We have been working on clips of video here and there of us doing things with Maylena and now we just need some of us around the house all together. That's been the hardest part. If we can successfully complete it I will let you know to check us out on their website again so you can see what we put together. I still try my best not to check the "waiting families" daily on the website to see who has been put On Hold or who has received placement and whether they had a Boy or Girl. Its really hard not to keep looking at it. There for a month or so it could be like 2 families every week to week and a half put on On Hold. Then there weren't any updates and now last week another family was put On Hold and each time I see it was a family that had put a video on the website I feel like we really need to get ours done. I know that there is a certain baby out there for us and nothing can really speed that process up but I know too that the video could help the right birth mom connect with us. So pray we have time to finish that portion up.
    We are still staying incredibly busy through work and fun summer activities to go and do. Also my sister is engaged and getting married August 2nd, only 6 weeks away. There is a lot of activity and things to plan and get done for the wedding (we are all 3 in it and Maylena can't wait to be a flower girl) but I know without a doubt if a baby came right now I would be thrilled!!! Thank you for all your continued support and encouragement to our family. We appreciate our awesome friends and family.