A Treasure Principle To Remember

A couple of years ago now, our small groups at church studied The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn. Looking back, maybe that's where the seeds began to finally take root in my heart regarding His money. I've by no means "made it" to some wonderful, awesome spiritual maturity when it comes to money, but I'm learning and I'm trying to apply.

It's really helped as we began and continued in the adoption. When we began, we were just trusting the Lord to provide. We had a gift commitment of $2,000, a very part time job for me that I could do from home, and hopefully a tax return.

To date, we've not yet gone in debt and we've covered just over $9,000 in expenses. We've had about 2,600 of that covered in fundraising and gifts. The rest was us getting down and dirty with our budget. No vacations, dragging every dollar when we needed it, no using tax returns for new furniture or appliances or carpet...you get the picture. That's where the treasure principle #2 comes in for us:

Our heart always follows where we put God's money.

Right now, a good chunk of our heart is in Haiti. And that's where our money is going. It's amazing how God can transform a heart & a pocketbook simultaneously.

We're continuing to stock back the money and pray against any major appliances or cars breaking down! However, the reality is after I subtract what we've saved so far for the remainder, we still need:

$11,000
We'll need $6,500 when our child exits IBESR, which could be before 2008 is finished and that would be our hope. The rest is travel (about 2,400) and readoption expenses back in the states (about 2,000)

These are big numbers, folks. I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes I look at the numbers and go "How in the world???" I also look at what God's already provided, and it's quite amazing. So, there's this peace that I didn't have before when I wasn't adopting! Does that make sense? Our hearts truly do follow our money and God gives peace to our hearts along the way.

However, I did want to share our numbers publicly today, for a few reasons.

1. You may already have a cause or something you consistently give to. If you don't, I'm asking you to consider giving toward our adoption. This is a way that you can care for the orphan, very practically, by assisting in their homecoming.

2. So you can know that we're real people. Not millionaires. We own two houses (one we've been trying to get rid of for almost 4 years now...we finally got a 'bite' and someone who wants to buy it when we began the adoption process...wow! However, we still haven't closed and we won't be making what we owe!) We're not debt free. We have two kids. We homeschool. We're just your every day run of the mill kind of people.

3. If we have fundraisers over the next few months (and we plan to) we're not doing it to bug you. We're doing it to glorify God. We do hope to not go into debt. We're asking you to take part, and believe it or not, we're hoping your heart begins to follow your money, and before you know it, you're asking us what it takes to adopt from Haiti. Wouldn't that be WONDERFUL???

I've set up a "ChipIn" account in my side bar. I've set it up just in case anyone would like to give outside of a fundraiser, or maybe plan a certain amount between now and the end of the year. The money would be directly deposited into our paypal account. I made it for "travel expenses" because I'm hoping to raise enough with fundraisers for the remainder of the country fee. I hope so, anyway.

Please consider this cause & continue to pray with us that God finishes this adoption & that we glorify Him in every detail.