Fingerprints Done!

Yesterday was our scheduled day for our biometrics appointment to have fingerprints done at the USCIS office in Nashville. This is one step in getting approval to bring an orphan into the country. Now we continue to wait for the approval letter. Please pray that it comes soon!

We were also able to get a lot of paperwork authenticated through the county and state today. Paperwork has to go through a tedious process of authentication prior to going to China. We hope to be able to send our paperwork to China (DTC) soon after receiving our USCIS approval.

We are still hoping to get enough puzzle pieces sponsored to cover our next payment to the agency. I hope to be posting an update on puzzle progress soon. Could your donation be the one that puts us over this next hurdle?

We are also asking for recipes to include in the recipe book that we're putting together to help raise funds to cover the required orphanage fee. Please send your favorite recipes to mom4sadie@yahoo.com.

Are you the missing piece?

Praise the Lord there have been 45 new puzzle pieces which have found sponsors this week! What a blessing! I decided to show you what a difference each donation can make to this puzzle, and to the life of a little girl in China.



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                   Current Progress===>




We would like to finish out the left hand side of the puzzle (275 pieces) by July 1. Our next payment is due soon after we receive our approval from USCIS, so hopefully sometime in July. If we finish the left hand side it will give us enough to finish our next payment which is due at that time. Can you help us reach that goal? Are there puzzles pieces awaiting your name? Are there members of your family that you would like to sponsor pieces in honor of? You can sponsor pieces by sending a payment via Paypal to johnanddeb2011@yahoo.com (a convenient donate button is included on the left) or by sending a check to John and Deborah Rich, 780 Sweetwater Cir., Old Hickory, TN 37138. Please specify what name you would like put on the back of each piece that you sponsor.

Thanks

Showers of Blessings!

We just wanted to say thank you once again to everyone who contributed to our yard sale. It was a huge success. We had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people and share the blessings of adoption, and we were blessed with the amount of money made. We made almost half of what we need to make our next payment to the agency. While we were dodging rain showers throughout the weekend God sent us showers of blessings.

We are awaiting news from USCIS about fingerprint appointments. We hope to have those done later this month. Please be in prayer that we can get a quick appointment.

The Latest Dish

It's been a while since we posted. We finally received our completed homestudy this week, after weeks of agonizing delays. We've sent our paperwork to USCIS to get approval to bring an orphan into the country. We hope to have this process completed in less than six weeks.

In other news...we need your help!!!  We need recipes! We're putting together a cookbook to help raise at least half of the $5,000 we need to pay the required orphanage fee. Please help in doing this.  Send us your favorite recipes. The more recipes-the better. We need appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, vegetarian dishes, heart healthy dishes, low calorie dishes, sugar-free dishes, desserts, etc. 

You can send them via e-mail to johnanddeb2011@yahoo.com or snail mail to:  Deb Rich-  780 Sweetwater Circle -  Old Hickory, TN  37138.  We need your recipes as soon as possible.  Our cut off date is July 1st...so get your recipes in.  Be a part of helping us get Brooklyn home!!!

THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!

Puzzle Donation Instructions

For those who would like to make a donation for puzzle pieces you can do so by mailing us a check at 780 Sweetwater Cir., Old Hickory, TN 37138 or by clicking on the Paypal donate button.

We appreciate all who have donated so far and look forward to the day when we'll be able to post that all of the puzzle pieces have a name.

God Bless You!

Puzzle Update

I just wanted to post an update on the puzzle progress:

As you can see while we have a good start (this is actually over 10% of the puzzle) there are still plenty of puzzle pieces that need to be sponsored. Thanks again to all who have given! I know that Brooklyn will be happy to see your names on the backs of her puzzle pieces.

We are approaching the next milestone in the process. We had our last homestudy visit last week and expect the homestudy to be complete by the end of the month. At that point our next installment of $2776.25 is due. As soon as that's completed we'll need $890 to apply for immigration approval from USCIS. We would love for you to help us to reach these milestones. Remember, you can sponsor as many pieces as you want. It's only $10 per piece sponsored.

Puzzles, paperwork, coffee, and more

It has been a busy week at our house. We completed our 4th homestudy visit on Wednesday. Our final visit is scheduled for Tuesday. We have also submitted all of the required paperwork for clearances. Please pray that these come through quickly so that we can have the homestudy portion of our journey completed soon.

Deb has also worked tirelessly to get the puzzle completed this week. It has now been assembled and can be reassembled with names of donors on each piece. There are still lots of pieces which have not been sponsored, and lots of expenses coming soon. We've spent about $4000 so far towards this adoption, but this is only the beginning of the costs. Your generosity is needed in order to help finance this adoption. Thank you to all of those who have already given.

Also, you'll notice some changes to the blog layout. First, the Donate button for the puzzle pieces has been moved to the left side of the blog text. Thanks to a a dear friend in the adoption community we've also added a grab button on the right. Feel free to use this to share our blog.

Additionally, if you love coffee we have a unique opportunity for you to help with our adoption. We have teamed up with Just Love Coffee. They offers a variety of delicious coffee flavors. Deb and I have had some and it is really good. For every bag of coffee that you buy through our website at https://justlovecoffee.com/coffeeforbrooklyn Just Love Coffee will donate $5 toward our adoption.

Finally, we're in the process of preparing to have one or two yard sales to support our adoption. We'll post the dates as soon as they're set. In the mean time if you have items which you would like to donate to our yard sale we would be extremely grateful. If you're in the middle Tennessee or Williamsburg/Corbin/London KY areas we'll be glad to come and pick the items up. We will donate any unsold items to Goodwill unless you specify that you want them returned.

Please share this blog on your Facebook pages and let everyone know about these unique opportunities to help bring Brooklyn home!