Fundraising Friday: Pancakes!

Our homestudy will be wrapping up in the next few weeks and that means it's time for John and I to start the next leg of our adoption journey: applying to the Russia program at our agency and starting the paperwork for our little guy's visa. Right now it takes about 50 days to get that visa (that does not mean we're bringing him home in 50 days). We want to have all the paperwork ready to mail as soon as we get our home study approved by our placing agency.

This is very exciting! It is also very expensive!

Which means we are swallowing hard and sweating a little bit as we think about the $15,000 we need to reach our goal.

Lord I believe, help my unbelief!

We have three new fundraisers planned for this month, so let me just apologize in advance for filling your news feeds with fundraising announcements, event invitations, donation requests and the like. I have mixed feelings about my posts lately; on one hand, I know I'm probably getting a little (a lot) repetitive and a smidgen boring with all my fundraising posts. Right now that's what we're spending most of our time and energy. On the other hand, I don't feel bad at all because I have this Mama Bear thing going on where I'm basically going to do anything to get to my cub.

Mountains of paperwork? Yep.
Three trips to Russia? Yes I will.
Tear down a wall with my bear hands? In a heartbeat.
Get a little monotonous with my fundraising posts? A touch annoying on Facebook? I'm okay with that.

Once you see his face I think you'll agree- he's worth it.

He's also worth eating pancakes for! (Grammar people: how do I not end that sentence in a preposition?)

You are cordially invited to a Russian Pancake Breakfast, held at our church, on Saturday March 3. That's one month from today!


(Find the invitation on facebook through me or John and we'll post a link on our church's FB page as well.)

As I have recently discovered, Russians love their pancakes and have a number of varieties. John and I will be trying out different recipes in the next few weeks in order to decide which kind to serve. Our choice will be based on taste and ease of making in mass quantities (based heavily on flipability (read: blini are unlikely)). If you have a Russian pancake recipe send it our way!

I'm also looking to borrow a LOT of patterned tablecloths. Any shape, any size, any pattern (except Christmas patterned). They will be laundered and returned. (Disclaimer: They may come into contact with jam, coffee, or other staining foods so don't lend me your great Aunt's hand-stitched heirloom tablecloth.)

We so hope to see you there!

In other fundraising news:

We are less than 2 weeks away from starting our online auction- thank you to all who have donated! We've been so blessed by people's generosity. Before we made the decision to start our adoption journey we went to an adoption event and I so clearly remember the speaker saying, "When you are fundraising ask everyone for help. You will be surprised at who gives and who doesn't give." We have been blown away by people from all different parts of our lives stepping forward to help us. Some friends we haven't even seen in years! We are humbled and have been inspired to be more generous ourselves. Thank you!! We have a few item spaces left open, so if you have an item or service you were thinking about donating we would LOVE to include it! The items we have right now range from $30 dollars up to one valued at $1,000! If you're worried your item is too small- it's not. :-)

And finally, we have our T-shirt designs, we've met with the printer and we are weeks away from having them in hand! I cannot wait to share them!

Wishing you love and lots of pancake cravings in the coming weeks. :-) xo