Last week was a big week for us financially. We received two different grants towards our adoption!
We've applied for 8 grants so far, and each one has been a bunch of work. We knew, though, that if even one grant came through that it would be totally worth it!
On Monday, Randy got the mail and we had a letter from Show Hope. This is their website - Show Hope was started by Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. They do lots of adoption ministry and part of their ministry is giving grants to families who are adopting. We completed their application process back in August and were told to expect to hear back from them sometime in December as to whether or not we were being awarded a grant. The letter we got from them last week said that after reviewing all the applications submitted, we were being given $4,000 for our adoption!! We were absolutely blown away and so thankful. I know a lot of people apply for their grants, and I don't know why we were chosen but we are humbled and thankful.
Then, I woke up on Friday morning with an email from an organization called Katelyn's Fund. This is another adoption ministry that prays for families who are adopting and has grants to give to families who adopt. We applied for their grant a couple of months ago, but then the week before last we had a phone interview with them. This was one of the coolest experiences we have had so far during this process. The board of directors for Katelyn's Fund called us on speaker phone at 9:00 on a Monday night. They asked us some questions, like how we started on the journey to adopt, where we are in the process, how our faith has grown in the process, what songs or verses have been special to us along the way, what our hopes are for our girls, and then what some prayer requests are that we have. We had a great conversation and then they asked if they could pray for us! All four of their board members went around and prayed over us and it was just such a blessing - we could tell that they really cared about adoption and really understood the prayer needs we had. We got off the phone with them very thankful and felt very blessed to even have had that experience. Fast forward to this past Friday, and we got an email saying they were awarding us $3,000!! Whoa! Again, we felt very humbled and in awe that we were getting to experience God's provision in this way. $7,000 in one week - and we did nothing to earn it. Straight from God.
So now we are even closer to our final total! Our agency estimates that final costs will be anywhere from $27,000-$30,000. The reason this is such a big range is because of estimates of travel costs. We have $22,000 now! We are so thankful to be this close and are excited to see how God provides the remaining amount.
