Praise the Lord!!

For those who have been following our blog, you know that Caleb just celebrated his birthday and Jackson is about to. To celebrate we have asked people to donate towards bringing them home, for things like their airline tickets, medicals and visa at the US Embassy, and passports. You may also remember that we had a goal of $4300 by January 4th. Well, $1450 has been donated so far!!! Woohoo!! $2900 more to go to reach this goal, and then all of the above things will be paid for.
Thank you all for your donations and prayers!

Notice anything?

Did you happen to notice anything different on this blog? How about the little train along the side. The one that shows how much more the boys need to come home. Well, it just jumped up $900!! Praise the Lord!!! He is so good!

Thank you to all who gave us gifts of money this year for Christmas. Thank you to all who donated to Jackson's Angel Tree fund. I can't tell you how much it means to us and even more so to the boys!

Praising Him in the storm

What does that really mean, to praise Him in the storm? I used to think it meant that while we were going through really big trials we would still praise God for all He has done, is doing, and will do in our lives, to praise Him for us becoming more like Christ through this big trial. I was partly right...I now know that it means to praise Him in the light drizzle also :)  As we have gotten caught up in the busy-ness of getting everything ready for a homestudy and dossier, we forgot to pray without ceasing. We forgot to glorify God in all we do. We didn't forget Him completely, just when we weren't still and quiet, which was most of the time. So during this, we had trials. Not big ones, just the little ones that sneak up on you and become part of every day life. Like not treating your spouse like a gift from God, or grumbling over something when it was prayed for (but of course, it didn't come in the form "I" thought it should). These are the light drizzles we need to praise Him through...everyday life!! We have had a couple set backs on our homestudy that I really wanted to grumble about, or at least feel sorry for myself about. But I forgot, it's not about me!
So how do we praise Him in the storm, or the light drizzle? By rejoicing in the light drizzle and seeing it as opportunity to shine His light!! By praying for others instead of moping for ourselves! By praying about the light drizzles, we are to take EVERYTHING to Him in prayer! By seeing Him in everything, seeing His beauty, His creation, instead of the light drizzle!
So even though things aren't going "my" way, I will rejoice and praise God that they are going HIS way!!

Thanks to all who had a part in the boys birthday party last night! What a wonderful time we had celebrating and talking about how much more wonderful it is going to be next year with them here to celebrate with us.
As for our goal of $4300 by January 4th, we are on our way! We have raised $160 so far and we have a small craft bazaar we are doing today where we hope to raise more funds and awareness for these kids. Please pray that it goes well, and lots of people stop at our table.

Oh, and we got our first check from the coffee fundraiser!! Woohoo! God is awesome!!

Woohoo! Made $68 at the craft bazaar! Thank you Lord!

Updates

First update, we got our first set of papers off to EE!! Woohoo!! Took 3 tries to get the papers just right, but 2 weeks later and lots of time spent with a notary, county clerk, and Secretary of State employees and we have successfully sent them on their way :) Please pray they get where they need to go in a timely manner and that all is well with them. Continue to pray as we have to finish up our dossier and raise the remaining funds to bring these boys home!

Second update is the coffee fundraiser. We sold our first bag!! Yay! I know $5 isn't much but it is a start :) And I am told the coffee is really good. My sister-in-law got the Ethiopian and really like it so please consider giving up your normal coffee for a couple months to help with this great cause. Click on the link to the left of this post to order from our fundraising page and $5 for every bag purchased goes to us.

Third update, well more like a reminder :) The boys have birthdays coming up (December 10th and January 4th). Please help us celebrate!! Those who are local can come to a birthday party some friends are throwing. (email me for info) For those not so local, you can help by donating. Our goal is to raise $4300 between now and January 4th (Jackson's birthday) to fully fund the boys airfare home, their visas, medicals to come home, and passports. Please consider donating to any of these so that next year the boys can be celebrating with us. Please consider donating so these boys don't have to spend another birthday in an orphanage in a crib with no one to celebrate with, no cake, no presents, no birthday cards, and no mom and dad to give them extra hugs and tell them how much they love them. We will be posting updates on how we are doing towards our goal. We know God can provide and we are resting completely in Him to do this for these boys. And anyone making a minimum $25 donation can get an ornament with Caleb's picture on it! You can donate either on our blog or on RR site, just email us and let us know you did and your address so we can send you an ornament. If you donate a minimum $35 on RR site under Jackson on the Angel Tree page you can recieve an ornament from them with Jackson's picture on it.

I just want to thank everyone for all the prayers, donations, and sharing of our info to others that you are all doing! Thank you for doing this, not for me and my husband, but for these little boys who need a forever family to love them. I can't wait until we can share photos of them here at home with their loving family :)

Upcoming Birthdays

Please help us celebrate Caleb's and Jackson's birthdays. Even though they will not be with us this year, we are still celebrating. We'll be having a party with cake and ice cream, presents and friends! We even have a friend video taping it for us to show the boys when they do get home.

If you don't live close enough to attend, you can still celebrate with us! Please celebrate by helping these boys be home by their next birthdays so they can celebrate with their loving forever family, get to eat the cake and ice cream, play with the friends at the party, get to open their own gifts, get extra hugs and love on their special day, instead of spending it in a crib at an orphanage.

For their birthday, their wish list is the following:

Passports to come home - $600 each
Visa's and medicals to come home - $550 each
Flights home - $1000 each
Flights for their parents to come get them - $4000
Lodging/food/travel in EE for parents while waiting for court dates to make it all official - $5500
Facilitator fees to get the paperwork translated, submitted to EE gov't, legal/court fees, and much more - $9000 each
USCIS (immigration) applications and fingerprinting for parents - $1600

So please consider donating towards one or more of these items for their birthdays! Please share this with others so they can help bring these boys home also! That's all they want for their birthdays :)

Caleb's birthday is December 10th and Jackson's is January 4th.

Thank you!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for all God has blessed us with, more than we could ever list :) We are particularly thankful this year for the 2 little boys that will be joining our family soon! We cannot wait until next year when they will be here to celebrate with us. One friend put it this way, "Next year you will have high chairs, bibs, and mashed potatoes on the floor"!! We can't wait! (and neither can the dogs LOL) We are also ever so thankful for all of you who are helping these boys get home as soon as possible to their forever family. Thanks to all who are fundraising, donating, helping us with fundraisers, and most of all praying! God knows what we need and when we need it, and I thank you for allowing Him to use you in this wonderful work. We pray that He will bless you as you are blessing these boys and us.

Enjoy your turkey and your football!!!! We are going to work on the boys bedroom and have sloppy joes!! :)

New fundraiser

We are now doing a coffee fundraiser. Click on the following link, order your coffee and $5 from every bag purchased goes to our adoption fund!!! Please share this information with your friends/family/co-workers/neighbors. I know many of us have that special coffee we just have to have, but please consider buying this coffee to help bring these 2 little boys home. Thank you!!!

http://www.justlovecoffee.com/theGoldens

our family page on RR

Woohoo!!!! Both boys are now on our FSP on the RR website! :) Seeing both of their pictures side by side brings tears to my eyes. These are our sons, God willing. We already love them and miss them, even though we've never met them. That sounds crazy to some, but there are those of you out there who know exactly what I mean. Whenever that pile of paperwork seems overwhelming, or I start to think of the funds still needing to be raised, or just feel weighted down by the whole process, I just look at those two wonderful faces and know that it is all worth it. God loves them so much more than we ever could, He will provide. So to all of you who are out there fundraising for these two little boys, or just simply donating, we thank you!! You are such a blessing!

Craft sale fundraiser

Thanks to all who helped! We didn't have as many people come as we would have liked but we still made $500!!! Praise God!!

Reminder

Just a reminder to those donating $25 or more, if you would like a christmas ornament with Caleb's picture, please email us your address. Without this email we won't know that you would like an ornament. For those who have already donated for an ornament, they are on their way!! I will be shipping them out in the next couple days. Thanks for your patience :) 

Fundraiser

My sister-in-law Melinda is selling handmade ornaments to raise funds for the adoption. If you are interested in one, please email her at goldendillicious@gmail.com They can easily be folded and mailed as gifts/stocking stuffers, and fanned back out. She can also take large orders! They are super cute, but not as cute as Caleb & Jackson :)

‎$5 for one, $12 for three. The "small" ones are about the size of a baseball and the "large" ones are slightly larger with scalloped edges. This pricing does not include the ornaments with Caleb's picture. Those are given with a donation of $25 or more :)

Thank you!!!

Caleb's brother

Please meet Caleb's brother, Josiah (Jackson on RR)!!! We are so excited God has led us to these two little blessings! My husband and I prayed and prayed for God's will in committing to a second little boy and we feel He has said yes and that Josiah is that little boy. Please continue to pray as we now have double the paperwork and more funds to raise. We know, though, that nothing is too big for God!!! He loves those little blessings way more than we ever could. And even though we cannot get them for a few months, we are resting in the fact that they are in God's hands, even in that orphanage so far away.
We know some, no, many people will not understand us adopting 2 special needs children, but we count it as a blessing that God would choose us to be the parents of these two little boys. So please pray for us, these two little ones, those who don't understand, and about donating or helping get donations to bring them home.

Ornament Fundraiser

Good news!!! We have someone making ornaments with Caleb's (Sebastian) picture :)  Since we were committed to him before the Angel Tree started he is not one of the kids that has an ornament through Reece's Rainbow website. But our wonderful sister-in-law has offered to make some for us. So those who would like to donate $25 or more can receive an ornament!  Yay! And all of the donation goes directly to the adoption fund. You can make a tax deductible donation to Reece's Rainbow (either on our family sponsor page or by sending a check to RR with who it is for) or a non tax-deductible donation here on our blog. Please email us with your address and we will mail you an ornament.

What a great gift idea, too!!

A name has been decided!!

We have finally decided on a name for our little boy :) Caleb Daniel Golden, known as Sebastian on RR. We cannot wait to bring this little one home, God willing, in the spring! 
Also God willing, we will be bringing home a brother for him as well. We are sending in soon all that is needed to commit to this second little fella. As soon as we are officially committed we will share his picture and info with all.
I cannot wait until my days are filled with loving and taking care of my boys instead of fundraising to bring them home!!

Thank you to all who have donated, prayed, and encouraged us!!

Our family page is up and going!!

Our family page on the Reece's Rainbow is up and going! We are officially committed to Sebastian :)

If you wish to make a tax-deductible donation to help bring this little boy home, please go to the link below. My making a donation directly to Reece's it is tax-deductible and if for some reason we are unable to adopt him, the money will stay with Sebastian for the next family to adopt him!! So please share this link with your friends/family/neighbors/co-workers and give them all a chance to help in bringing this little guy home and out of the orphanage!!

If you send in a check rather than use paypal, there are no fees taken out and the full amount will be applied towards his adoption fund! Thank you!!

http://www.reecesrainbow.org/sponsorgolden

As soon as I figure out how, I will get his picture on the blog :)

Paperwork!!!

Got an email today containing the long, long, long, long, list of paperwork needed to complete our dossier!!! Excited for this next step, yet a little overwhelmed when first looking at it :) I will go back tomorrow and read through everything more thoroughly. We also have our first appointment set with our social worker! She will be here next week. So please pray all our paperwork is ready by then. Also that the stair railing gets installed :)
We are so excited to be on this journey. God is teaching us so much through it! And at the end of this journey we will begin the journey of parenthood :) Thank you to all who have been praying, donating, fundraising, and helping to set up fundraisers!!!

Praise God!

God is so good!! When we are obedient, it is amazing the blessings He puts in our path!! We got home today to find a donation from someone we do not even know! And were then told of another donation from co-workers of our sister-in-law. Neither of these are large amounts, but we are so very thankful for them. It doesn't matter if all you have to donate is $5, it means so much to us that people are willing to donate at all to help us bring this little boy home. We also had a young girl at our church decide to donate the full $20 she earned from her grandma for getting good grades to help bring this little guy home. This is a girl who does not usually have extra spending money, so this makes it even more of a sacrifice. I can't wait to put up pictures on here for y'all to see the precious one you are donating to :)

I must admit, we had gotten off track for a few days, hadn't been putting God first. When we realized we were letting all the little details of the adoption process frazzle us and distract us from God, we stopped and turned to Him. We could do none of this without Him. It is because of His love for us that we are able to love others as we do, including this little boy we have never even met.

Prayer Please!!

Please pray as we are making the decision of bringing home one little boy or two! We are praying for God's guidance in this and would appreciate all of your prayers as well. What this would mean is more time in country (which means more funds for food/lodging/cab fees) as well as about $12,000 more in funds needed. We know that God will provide if this is His will. Please pray that we would have wisdom and discernment about this decision.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!

Yard Sale Success!

I can't list the number of people who helped, donated, bought, and prayed for the success of this.  We didn't even plan on doing this 2 weeks ago, but then again 4 weeks ago we had no plans for adopting a special needs child or a child from a different country.  This just proves that God has his own timing, and if we are sensitive to His Spirit, we will be blessed!

We had a church from a near by community donate their remaining trailer full of very nice used clothing as well as racks, tables and some other misc. items.   Several complete strangers dropped off several truck loads of very nice items as well as items from family and friends.  Special thanks go to our pastor and his wife (Harold and Debbie Carman) for use of their enormous tent and their land: the Rodriguez family for their help in set up, translation and prayers: Heather and all her help (and truck): Steven and Ashley for all their help and tent set up (not a fun thing, way too many spikes and sledge swings):  And many others who I can't remember right off hand.  Your talents and gifts of items or time are a blessing to us and this precious little fella we are trying to bring home.

We raised a total of $1473.50 over two days of sales!  Lots of hours, little sleep, lots of hard work and a lot of talking to people about the adoption!

You Guys Rock!  Thank you again!  Please continue praying, this process is going quicker than we thought!

Our first post, an introduction

Welcome to our first ever blog!  We are thrilled that you took time out of your busy life to take an interest in what God is doing in ours!

My wife and I were married shortly after high school and have been together for over 15 years now!  We have been unable to have children although there is no medical reason that the doctors have found.  It is our belief that our first 15 years of marriage has been a time to enjoy each other, pursue what we wanted and learn to love each other as we were made to do.  Now, we feel it is our time to use what we have learned and pursue what God has in store for us.....and what a ride he has planned!

We have felt a pull towards adoption several times over the last 5 years, doing a class here or there, looking at children on foster sites, observing others who have gone through foster parenting or adoption, but we have lost heart in the past.  Feeling that adoption might be right but not knowing when, where or who!  Well, after a recent visit to a friends house to see their 2 baby girls (9 months and 5 years), we knew our calling.

Our friends had gone through a program called Reeces Rainbow (www.reecesrainbow.com) and had, through a multiple set of miracles, just returned home with 2 sisters from Ukraine with downs syndrome.  After telling us some of the circumstances that these children face over there we prayed, and acted upon what God was guiding us to do.  See, these children are seen almost as "throw away" babies over there (here too but 90% are aborted).  Most Downs children are put into an orphanage at birth and between the ages of 4-5 are sent to a mental institution to live out the rest of their lives, with little or no hope of ever knowing a real family.  We are now in the adoption process for a little boy in Ukraine with Downs Syndrome!  We can honestly say, we never thought we would have the desire to do this....after all, everyone wants a perfect, healthy baby, either through natural child birth or adoption.  And though I do still desire that child, this one seem so special to me.

God reminded me, I was a misfit, someone who didn't measure up to His sense of perfection (who could, He's God), I sinned every day against Him and His standards (my actions, lack of actions, words, even our thoughts), but He still pursued me!  He gave me chance after chance after chance (the longsuffering we read about) until He changed my heart.  He called me His son, He no longer sees my sin (Jesus paid the price, the sacrifice that needed to be made to atone for my sin), I'm seen worthy to be in His presence, Worthy to be called His son!  That's why we are doing this, this little guy is worth to be called our son!  He is created in the image of God, just like all of you!  Worthy to be loved, demanded of our Heavenly Father to be loved and cared for (the widows and the orphans), cherished in God's eyes and ours!

We have been cautioned, warned, tried to be talked out of, but we can't.  God has put such a passion in our hearts for this little guy, we have to....but not with a sense of having to, but one of pure joy!  We know this is a life long decision.  We don't know the full medical, emotional, physical conditions (although Reeces Rainbow does their best to accurately describe any known or though problems) but we feel that no one is guaranteed that even a healthy child will not succumb to problems on any one of these levels.  We simply know in advance, and that is a blessing from God.

We have seen many ups and downs over the past week and a half as this has taken off quickly!  With every down God provided us with an amazing lift that can only come from Heaven.  He loves us!

Trust in Him!

Joel and Rachel