Hello Family & Friends,
3/31/11
Just writing to give you a quick update on our adoption. . .
Wow. We had a blast at our Burrachos Fundraiser! It was great to see so many people show up. Very exciting! We had well over 85 flyers turned in and made a total of $349.77 toward our adoption travel expenses! This was a huge deal to us and we thank you all so much for coming.
Lots of people have been asking where we are at in the process: We are a BIG chunk of the way through. Our dossier is completed. We just need to have our 171-H form from the USCIS back, and then we are ready to send it off. Our fingerprinting date is April 6th and, from what I’m hearing, it usually takes about 3 weeks after that for you to get your 171-H form back. So, looks like our dossier should be sent in by about May 1st. Then, we will be placed on the wait list. When they have a child for us, they will send us a picture and any medical information (a referral). If all systems are a go, looks like we’ll be traveling to Ethiopia for court just a few months later! How long is the wait list now? Well, AS OF TODAY, it is about 5 months from when you send your dossier to when you receive the referral. BUT there have been many (not so super) changes with the process lately and that wait time is estimated to increase and become significantly longer any day. So, God’s timing is better than ours, and we are trying to take it all in stride at this point. Trying…
For now, we still have the coffee fundraiser going. It is $12.95 per bag of coffee and we make $5.00 off of each bag sold. To purchase coffee go to www.justlovecoffee.com/TheThomas. I am so grateful to those of you who have ordered coffee – some unsuspecting people have ordered to help us out and I really, really appreciate it!
We are having a Pampered Chef Fundraiser. We will make 20% of items purchased. I will be having a gathering for our consultant to show off some products on April 14th, but you can also purchase online from now-24th at: www.angelakruger.com. Our host name is: Thomas Adoption. If you’d like, you can have your orders shipped to me for $4.50. I’ll contact you when they come in and you can pick them up. Otherwise, you can pay more to have them shipped to your house. Remember, Mother’s Day is just around the corner! There are some great gift ideas from Pampered Chef!
Also, we have an account with Lifesong for Orphans set up. If you’d like, you can make a tax deductable donation to Lifesong and they will put it in an account for us. We then send them our adoption “bills” and they send in payment from our account (your tax deductable donations). They will send you a receipt for tax purposes. To send money: Please make checks payable to: Lifesong. You may preference how the donation might be used by writing “preference Thomas #1855 adoption” in the memo section of your check. (*Note: In following IRS guidelines, your donation is to the named non-profit organization. This organization retains full discretion over its use, but intends to honor the donor’s suggested use). Mail checks to: Lifesong for Orphans Attn: Thomas #1855 adoption P.O. Box 40 Gridley, IL 61744. Or you can make an online donation via PayPal (there is a 3% fee withheld by PayPal if you use this method though): Payment to Lifesong via bank account or credit card (remember to enter our name and account number – Thomas/#1855 - in to the “purpose” field). http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html
Your prayers and support for us are very much appreciated. Prayers right now are needed especially for:
- - Jaden working on finishing his songs and getting his songs copyrighted so he can record his first cd (ALL proceeds going toward the adoption).
- - That upcoming fundraising efforts and grant applications prove to be successful in both getting the word out about adoption and financially to bring us closer to being ready to go get our child!
- - For our future child and his/her birth parents who will suffer a great loss.
- - For our patience in this process and to continue to take it one step at a time!
Thank you all so much!
The Thomas Family
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