The Bolton Family

This past week Nicole and I both missed a call from a out of state number. When we checked our messages it was Teresa from America World saying "Hey Chris/Nicole this is Teresa, I have some great news for your family. Call me back."

If you've been following along we've been waiting on a response from America World as they evaluate our qualifications to be placed in their Rwanda adoption program.

We called Teresa back and were ecstatic to find out that we have been accepted into the program. On top of that we've been able to raise about $1,000 of the $1,500 that we need as we enter into contract with America World.

God has already started to open doors, to connect us with other people who want to join us in this journey and to burden us/those around us with adoption. We continue to be amazed, humbled and awe-struck by God's faithfulness and God's people's faithfulness.

I couldn't say thank you enough, but once again thank you for joining with us in this journey even if it's only to read this blog. Our prayer is that it stirs you to act.

Chris, Nicole, Cade & Eli

We heard back from America World this morning and they needed some additional financial information that wasn't included in our original application. One of the questions was how are we planning on financing the adoption...our answer...any and every way possible...donations, fund-raisers, no interest loans, I'm wondering what the black market will pay for a kidney. I only need one. Needless to say it seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch our first fund-raiser.

Within the first couple months we are going to need to raise $6,000 (of the total $20,000 needed) which covers the 1st installment of our program fee, our home study and then all the preparation of the dossier. Unfortunately we can't apply for any grants or any loans until we get an approved home study, kind of the "yes, these people are okay to adopt and not lunatics" box gets checked.

With that said, we are planning our first fundraiser. It's going to be an awesome, huge insanely productive garage sale. We are gathering together everything that's not nailed down and having a big garage sale.

Date: Saturday, May 8th, 2010
Where: TBD - We will update you once we nail that down
Why: To raise money to bring home our baby
How you can help: This comes in many parts
1) Pray: I'll be honest we don't have the means to cover the adoption (see above), but believe God has called us to adoption and at the end of the day who am I to tell God "sorry, we don't have the money right now"
2) Donate items to sell: We will sell anything, seriously anything, if it doesn't get picked up at the garage sale we will sell it on Craigslist or Ebay or to our cooky neighbor
3) Host a garage sale yourself: I know we have a lot of supporters and at the end of the day we will have more impact having more than one garage sale, if it seems like something you'd be willing to do we could help coordinate people bringing their stuff over to your place as well
4) Did I mention Pray: Sometimes I stop and think about what we are doing and when I am done breathing into a paper bag I am reminded that we are not adopting for the necessity of having a child, we have two children we love very much, but this is the opportunity to breathe into another childs life and show them love, support, Christ, faith and how to play a recorder with your nose (as well as a multitude of other things).
5) Donate money. Whatever you feel led to donate, even if it's only five dollars. I think that might be half the cost of preparing one of the documents we need. Every dollar gets us that much closer to our goal.

Thank you for everything. Thank you for praying, for helping, for donating. Thank you for sharing with us in our vision and for partnering with us.

Chris, Cole, Cade & Eli