The Bolton Family

To say that the last week has been interesting would be a huge understatement. Chris and I have been struggling with how to pay for our international adoption. Through our agency, we would be looking at $20,000+ by the time our adoption was finished. After a LOT of prayer and late-night talks, we decided a week or so ago, to drop our agency and continue our adoption independantly. Although it would mean we assemble our dossier on our own, it would end up saving us about $10,000. A huge weight felt like it was lifted off our shoulders . . . until last Wednesday. That's when we received an email from our coordinator letting us know that as of August 31, 2010, Rwanda will be suspending international adoption while it becomes Hague compliant. Basically, if a dossier is not received by a Rwandan embassy by closing tomorrow, it will have to wait until Rwanda reopens its doors. Obviously, ours will not make it. The door for us to adopt from Rwanda is closed for the time being. We're not sure what our next step is, but we know we're called to adopt. Chris and I are looking into other adoption options and we'll keep everyone updated on our progress. Tonight though, we have a huge prayer request. Please take a minute to pray for the families around the world who are jumping through every hoop imaginable trying to get their dossiers submitted in time. These families have spent months, maybe even years, preparing their dossier, their homes and their hearts for their soon-to-be child in Rwanda. It's inevitable that so many families dreams will be put on hold tomorrow, but join us in praying for as many dossiers to get through as possible.

Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

The next garage sale extravaganza is just around the bend. We will be having it the second or third weekend in August, location TBD. The last garage sale extravaganza was hugely successful and helped us to cover some of our initial program fees with America World. Our next goal is to get our homestudy started. Thank you to everyone who has already brought items to be sold at the garage sale. We are still looking for more items as we'd like to put our last garage sale extravaganza to shame. Books, dvds, toys, clothes, furniture, lava lamps, that weird 70's shoe holder that your not sure where it came from, we'll sell it all. As always thank you for your thoughts, prayers, questions and encouragement.

Till next time,
Chris

Here is a pic of one of the necklaces brought back from Rwanda. They really are gorgeous! We are asking for a suggested donation of $20 per necklace. All funds will go directly to covering the cost of the home study. If you are interested in purchasing a necklace, contact me. Thanks to those of you who have already purchased necklaces.

We are also collecting items for our next garage sale which will be on July 31. The donations we have received so far have been amazing! We have boxes of stuff sitting in our apartment waiting for the big day, but we can definitely use more. We can especially use bigger items such as old furniture, kitchen items, kids stuff, etc. Let us know if you have anything you would like to donate and we will arrange to pick it up.

Thanks!
Nicole (Chris, Cade & Eli)

Hey everyone. First of all, Chris has been crazy-busy at work lately so we'll be tag-teaming the blog. If nothing else, you'll get to see each of our perspectives from opposite ends of the spectrum. Chris is the eternal optimist; me . . . not so much. We'll try to remember to sign our posts so it doesn't get too confusing.

As far as the adoption goes, we are at a temporary stand still. We have been struggling with our desire to rush things along regardless of the cost with our belief that God has called us to financial wisdom throughout this process. After much prayer and deliberation, we decided that we don't feel comfortable going into debt to speed this process along. We have a set amount of our income that we have pledged and we are going to trust God to supply the rest according to His will and in His time. As difficult as it is to wait, we know that God chose our child for us long ago just like He chose Cade & Eli.

Anyway, we have been eagerly following the blogs of the last AWAA group to travel and their children are gorgeous! Seeing all of the months (& years) of preparation and worrying and waiting come to an end for those families is so encouraging. I can't wait to watch their new journey with their new children.

One of the families was even kind enough to bring back necklaces made by Rwandan women for us to use as a fundraiser. (Thanks Becky & Sarah!) I'm so excited about this one!!! Not only is an awesome fundraiser for our adoption, the original cost of the necklaces went directly to Rwandan women to support their families. I love it! I'll post a pic/info soon & anyone interested in a buying a necklace, contact me. You can facebook, email, call, whatever.

Thanks again to all of you who have donated already, prayed for us or even just asked how things were going. This would be a much more difficult road without you!

Nicole (Chris, Cade & Eli)

Hey all,

It's been a while since our last update. There has been a lot going on. I sat in on my first America World conference call for adopting parents from Rwanda, that was pretty cool. Right now we are wading through a significant amount of paperwork/organizational stuff for the homestudy and at the same time for the whole dossier. There have been times when I've questioned God's foresight in matching me with my wife because we truly are polar opposites but I have never been more happy to be married to a "list maker". I am utterly convinced that if she weren't here this thing wouldn't happen because I have the passion just not the organizational abilities. She has both.

A little run down as to where we are:
- Taking our Hague convention class (intro to international adoption)
- Reading the required reading for our home study
- Filling out all necessary medical paperwork/legal paperwork/home study paperwork
- Connecting with our home study coordinator to get our home studied and our dossier underway (last update the wait is looking like 9 months from submission of your dossier to being matched with a child)
- Planning our next garage sale (looks like it's going to be in the next month or so...I'll post again with a firm date)

That's what I can think of right now I'm sure there's more. As always we appreciate your support more than you know. Please continue to pray for us as we still have several hurdles in front of us and no grand idea to get over them as of yet, but we press on.

Redeemed,
Chris, Nicole, Caden & Eli

I recently told someone that I am convinced that God is clearest in the unexpected places. This was all the more evident this past weekend. We had our first garage sale and were able to raise ~$700. We pulled up at 6:00 AM and before we had the second box on the lawn there was someone coming to look at what we had. At 2:00 PM we closed shop and literally had people sifting through the boxes as we were loading stuff back in the garage. The most expensive thing we sold was $40, but on average we were selling stuff for a buck or two. Between the first garage sale, donations and the money we've raised selling stuff on Craigslist we've raised the first 10% of our $20,000. With that I am beside myself. Our family, co-workers and friends have been so encouraging and inspiring. We've had boxes of stuff donated, money donated and help coordinating every aspect of the garage sale. All we can say is thank you. Everyone has been amazing and God has been incredibly faithful.

We will be having another garage sale coming up in the next month or so, different location (TBD), lot's more clothes, old DVD's/VHS's, McDonald's toys, etc... If you have items to donate and missed this last garage sale please let us know and we will do whatever we need to connect the dots.

We go forward,

Chris, Nicole, Caden & Eli

Reasons to be excited...

- Today America World receieved our signed contract and first program deposit. We now get matched with a family coordinator and begin assembling our dossier/do our home study. We are so appreciative for those who have asked us questions, for those who have shared in our excitement, for those who have shared their adoption stories with us and for those who have either partnered with us financially or our partnering with us in volunteering their time/energy. We are surrounded by people who amaze us.

- Saturday is our first big garage sale. We are very excited to see what happens this weekend.

- Nicole just brought me a Starbucks brownie at work. My wife rocks.

- There are a million more reasons to be excited, but that's what tomorrow's for, eh?

Chris

P.S. I always thought it a little ridiculous when you read people's adoption blogs they often talk about there overwhelming compulsion to be constantly checking their email/phone/mailbox. I thought life moves, you aren't going to get anything sooner just because you check it a million times. Unfortunately I must confess I have fallen into the same trap. I have checked our email for further correspondence from our coordinator about 35 times since this morning when I know she received our documents. My apologies to all whom I have judged and I am going to deny the temptation to constantly monitor my email, we've got plenty of time for that.

As many of you know, our first fund-raiser/way to raise money for the adoption is here. Well, technically it's Saturday. Our place has never looked so clean what with the extreme spring cleaning we have been doing over the past two weeks. Thank you to all those who have donated and to those who are still digging in their garage thank you in advance. Please bring in any donated items as soon as possible so that we can coordinate delivery to the destination garage. We do have more garage sales being held in the next couple weeks so if you miss this one don't resign that box of forgotten McDonald's toys to collecting dust in your garage. Please bring them. If it's not this garage sale we'll work it into the next one.

Details:

May 8th, 2010
7:00AM - 2:00PM
14320 Cabell
Bellflower, CA 90707

What we're selling: A whole lot of awesome stuff. Toys, clothes (both adult and kids), books, DVD's, tools, couches, etc...

Any questions my cell is (714) 658-0679

Redeeming one thing at a time,

Chris, Nicole, Caden & Eli

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

James 1:26-27 "If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Nicole and I have always been "interested" in adoption. It has always been that thing we thought we'd do some day. We wanted a big family and thought why not, but 3-4 months ago it started to get brought up more often, we started thinking about it more and what/how/why and where all started being discussed. One thing that really added fuel to the fire was that our friends, brought home their son, from Rwanda, making their two, three. It has changed their family and added a face to international adoption.

As I type this Nicole is in the other room working on our application to America World Adoption Agency to adopt a child from Rwanda. We are both more burdened today than yesterday for adoption/adopting our child. And this continues to be true every day. We believe in adoption and God's call to the Church in support of adoption and so we are stepping out in faith. We are confident in a couple things:

• We serve a big God.
• We believe the Church is called to global adoption and that we, the Church, have the ability to abolish the need.
• We, personally, have room in our hearts for another child.
• A child, tonight, as I write this, is in need.

and that's all we need to know. No more excuses, no more waiting, we walk.

Please join us in global adoption...what that looks like, most importantly, is...

1. Pray

- For guidance as we go down an often frustrating, very demanding road.

- Wisdom - we will be bringing home a child of a different race, a different culture, a different background and experience.

- Grace

- Steadfastness - that we will continue to be the parents that Caden and Eli need.

- How you might join in the global adoption vision. We believe to our cores that all people are called to adoption, just because you aren't called to adopt doesn't mean that you aren't needed.

2. Come along side us

- First and foremost please come alongside us in prayer, we need that above anything and everything else.

- We will be coordinating a couple fund-raisers this summer so keep your eyes peeled.

This is just the beginning. We will be on often and keep everyone updated. Thanks to all who just took the time to read above and to those who support, thank you and to those who take up the mantel of global adoption ... thank you.

Broken Vessels,

Chris, Cole, Cade & Eli