Inspired and Amazed by YOU

Hey all!! I've been trying to blog for the past couple days and everytime I tried it wouldn't work. I have been wanting to give an update on how amazing YOU all were for our Ordinary Hero Grant Contest! Our grand total earnings were $2526.29!!! That goes straight to our agency and into our pot for when we get matched and have to pay our agency fee! :)

So here were the grand totals of items that you purchased to help kids or families in need:

7 donation combos = 14 children got raincoats, and 7 kids got a blanket and water shoes!!

7 sheep = you fed 280 children!!!

3 Amarhic bibles = 3 kids and probably their families and friends can now hear the Word of God!

3 backpacks = 3 children don't have to carry their books to school anymore!

3 half sheep = you fed 60 children!!!

3 raincoats = 3 more children can stay dry when it rains!

1 donkey = you are helping a family survive so a woman can carry everything she needs to make money!!!!

3 aqua shoes = 3 more children don't have to walk around barefoot!

2 fleece blankets = 2 more kids can be warm at night!!!

I mean YOU are all seriously amazing!!! I love seeing how many children and families YOU helped provide essential needs for. God really put it on my heart to challenge others to purchase for others this year, and with that they will be helping bring our daughter home. That's exactly what YOU all did!!! :) 

 

I have to be prideful of our little sisters real quick here. Now, I know everyone sacrificed by giving, but our little sisters are 11 years old. They have the biggest hearts and I could cry right now thinking of what they did for us. So, my mother-in-law asked them if they wanted to give to this as part of their Christmas, and they were both on board. The girls asked how much their parents spend on them, and she told the girls. The girls each said they wanted to spend half of their Christmas money, each on buying something for someone else in need!! Half each of their Christmas's!! They looked through the website and chose a sheep and a pair of tennis shoes. Those are big compassionate hearts right there! They are 11 and still kids, but they understand there are children and families who don't have enough. Their parents have instilled that in them, and God has wired them that way and we couldn't be more proud. Again, I know and I appreciate everyone else that gave and gave above and beyond, but I just wanted to point out that childlike faith as a reminder. :) 

 

We still don't have a timeline, but Kyle and I have been praying to be matched by Christmas. We just think that would be the most wonderful Christmas present this year. God always works in His time, but He is also a God of miracles, so we can't wait to see what He does. Some days are harder than others and I become inpatient, but I have to remember that God didn't call us to adopt because it was easy. God reminds me of how hard it must be for our daughter who has no one right now. We pray every night that God will give her peace and a sense of comfort, because I can't begin to fathom how she must feel on a daily basis.  So, if you get a moment or you think about it, pray for our daughter and pray that we get matched soon so she knows that someone is coming after her to bring her home!! 

 

We love YOU all and we are so so BLESSED!!! 

Food for Thought

Well you guys helped us WIN on day ONE!! Thank you so so much! We got the $100 for the day on top of our sales, that so put us at 227.89 that goes straight into our account at our agency to use when we accept the referral of our sweet little one. You all ROCK!!

With that being said, I wanted to have some food for thought today and do a little challenge. Could you imagine walking a mile or more to get your water, then carrying that giant jug of water back another mile on top of your head or on your back? Could you imagine carrying in ALL of your groceries by hand with no bags or boxes. Could you imagine making meals out of nothing and having no protein in your diet to keep you strong and healthy?

This is a very real reality for many villages and families who live in Ethiopia. They have to walk to get their water, then carry it back, then boil it when they get home. I don't know about you, but I would be exhausted!! If YOU or some friends could go in together and buy a donkey or half of donkey (that will be paired with another person who bought half) could help a village or family not have to carry their water or their food for miles. What a blessing YOU could be to a village or family. Maybe you'd like to purchase a sheep and provide 40 kids with a meal and some extra protein in their diets. How amazing would this be to have as a Christmas present that you tell your kids about?! Explain to them how many kids they are helping feed, by having 2 less presents this year. I think kids would jump on board and I think families would jump on board with this idea. I would love to know that I was helping feed 40 kids rather than having another scarf, and giving Kyle another book. These are all these things are nice to have, but it is a NECESSITY for kids to eat and not go hungry.

So, be challenged and think about purchasing a donkey or a sheep or half of an animal and help a village or family in need. What a blessing YOU all could be. You can also help bring our little girl home. Don't forget to choose Megan Chaffee in the drop down box next to Affiliate Name at http://www.ordinaryherostore.org/Donations-For-Children-In-Need-c15/

Thanks again!!!

Challenge Accepted

Okay friends... its HERE!!! It's our last chance at the Ordinary Hero Grant Contest for the month of October.

You have ONE week, but we need YOU everday!!!

This months challenge is a daily challenge... each day is a contest. If we get the most in sales each day, then we will win $100 on top of the 40% we recieve when you purchase something. If YOU help us WIN each day, then we get an extra $500 at the end of the week. That can add friends and all that money will literally help us bring our daughter home.

We are hoping to get to see the face of our new daughter in the next couple months. We will get the picture and medical history of her, and then make decision to accept her match and pay our fee. If you all help us WIN this grant contest, it will be helping us pay for our match :) How exciting is that?!

I had posted a couple weeks ago about praying and thinking about stretching your thinking of this contest. Let's see what we can do for OTHERS. :) There are some cute items in that store right now, and I would love to see people wearing the Ordinary Hero gear around to help raise awareness. Kyle and I would also love to see people step out in faith and buy for others in need. Like I said a couple weeks ago, maybe there is someone in need of some clothes in your community, you could buy them a shirt, maybe someone needs a bag to carry things back and forth to work, but they can't afford that bag... That's where you can come in. Maybe you want to start buying Christmas presents... Great!! You can buy items for them, or you can buy a sheep and help feed a village. How cool of a present would that be to get?! I would love to know that I was helping out others who can't eat on a daily basis, when I have pantry full of food that I pick and choose what I want to eat.

So today... think about what you can do someone for else. Find some friends and go in together to buy a donkey, a sheep, a box of bibles for people in Ethiopia! Think about this too... we need to win EVERYDAY, so maybe you want to purchase a couple things.... great, buy one each day so that we can get tha credit each day of the week to increase our chances to win each day!

Love you all and be prepared to see this all over facebook and in emails... each day I will challenge YOU to purchase something different. Thanks in advance and we are so thankful for all of you!!!

Get Ready for a Challenge

Good Morning Friends!

Well I said I would post again about something I want to challenge you all on. I'm not sure if you all remember last year when Kyle and I did the Ordinary Hero Grant Contest. I filled up Facebook about it, and you probably got far more emails than you were hoping for. Well, we won that contest and it helped a lot towards our adoption costs for our agency, and it was such a humbling experience for us to see all the people who stepped up and purchased something and helped us through our process.

There is a grant contest going on right now, and there will be another coming up in October. They have gotten a lot of new merchandise that is super cute, they have also added a lot new items to purchase for villages, kids, and families in need. This is where my challenge is going to come in.

I brought this idea up to Kyle and we talked about it, and want to encourage and challenge other people with it. So here it is: We want to challenge YOU and/or you FAMILY to purchase something for someone in need. We want you to start thinking about it, praying about it, and searching out what might be a possibility for you and your family. I also want to encourage you to reach out to others and go in on something if it is a more expensive item, how cool would that be?! Now, we are not saying don't buy anything for yourself or someone in your family as a gift or just because you want them to have it. We would love to see other people promoting Ordinary Hero and all that it stands for. :)

Maybe, you know someone in need at your church, and you could purchase them a shirt, or sweatshirt. Maybe, its someone across the world that you want to purchase a goat for and feed their family. There are so many people out in the world, and in our communities in need. So, I urge you to stretch your mind and your heart about this.

Again, this isn't until next month, and I will be posting about the dates when I find them out, but I just wanted to get you all thinking and praying. Last Christmas Kyle and I did this for his parents and his sister and brother-in-law. They didn't need anything, so instead we used that money we were going to spend on them, on someone else. We then presented them with a certificate I made up to show them what the money went towards. Maybe, this Christmas you want to open a new idea to your children and explain that not everyone in the world gets Christmas presents, or Christmas dinner, so you used some of the Christmas money for that. What a great thing to start early, and have your kids get excited about helping out a person or family in need. I know its October, but I'm sure its something you can talk to older kids about it, or if your kids are younger just wait closer to Christmas.

Thanks for listening to my challenge, and I can't wait to see what God does through all of this. It will not only help bring our little GIRL home, but I truly believe YOU will be touched through this experience. Have a wonderful day friends!!

A minor Change

Hello Friends!!

I have been wanting to post for almost 2 weeks now, and have just been so busy. Again, I'm sure many people are laughing and thinking, "You think your life is busy now?!"

Well on that note, we have some news... Kyle and I have decided to go down to one child and we are waiting for a toddler girl. We said age 36 months or under, but we are willing to go up to 47 months. We will see how the timing goes, but we are pretty high up on the toddler girl list... like unofficially #2!!! :)

Now, I have to admit, I felt kind of bad about going to down to one child, and I was going to let people down because we said we were adopting 2. Kyle and I have had many conversations about this, and he more than myself has had reservations about bringing home 2 children at once since the beginning. Like I said Kyle and talked in depth about this topic and we want to be able to dote over our little girl, spoil her, and make sure she adjusts well here in the US. If we had a baby within that mix of a toddler, we often wondered if we would pay more attention to a baby because they need the attention, or if we would be a little bit of a house divided, trying to make it all work well. We want to keep our marriage strong and we like the idea of building our family a little more naturally, as in typically 1 child at  a time.

We would like to put in our paperwork shortly after we get our little girl home and go on the infant list and wait for whatever gender comes first, which will more than likely be a boy, but you never know! There is a certain amount of time that has to be between adoptions and we want to make sure she is well adjusted and making sure she has her place within our family.

This weekend we are going to get her bed and a possibly a dresser. Kyle and I are getting so excited about this next adventure! :)

I will be posting again this week, hopefully, about another Ordinary Hero Grant contest. It's going to be a bit more of a challenge this time go around, so we will see. :)

Companionship

Again, it's been awhile, but we are still in such the waiting game stage, that there isn't a ton to post about when it comes to the adoption. We are still in the process of updating our home study, but we are waiting for a little longer because of another opportunity. I unfortunately can't say anything about it at the moment, but as soon as I know more, I can let some other people know. :)

Today, Kyle is on his way to Kentucky to visit family and I'm really going to miss seeing all of them. I am in Kokomo visiting with my grandma and aunt who are in from Ohio. I won't be able to see them probably until January, just because the holidays get so crazy. So, we decided to both visit as much family as possible today.  I am away from Kyle daily because of work, but today as I was driving to Kokomo I started to realize how much I truly missed being with him. Now, I drive to Kokomo a lot by myself, but he is usually at work or something. I was thinking just how truly blessed I am to have the companionship of Kyle.

When I was growing up, all I wanted was to have children. I just wanted to be pregnant, and have kids. There were many times I honestly didn't think I would get married, but I knew I wanted to have children. Yes, yes I know... that shouldn't have been a thought without the thought of a husband. That's just how I was wired to be honest. Now, after all Kyle and I have gone through with the infertility and this whole adoption process, I could NOT imagine doing any of this without Kyle. We of course still want children so so much and we are so excited to build our family this way. But if for some reason we weren't able to build our family through adoption, then I would be happy just to be with Kyle. He makes everyday better. I know how much we love each other, have respect for each other, and just have so much fun together.

A lot of our conversations revolve around kids, whether it's our sisters, nephews, or friends. We love everything about kids and enjoy talking about kids. When we have these conversations I can just see how wonderful Kyle is going to be as a dad. He is a wonderful uncle and brother and friend, so I can't imagine what he is going to be like as a dad. I can't wait to go down this road of parenthood with my companion. :)

Happy day off tomorrow!!

Guardrails

It's been awhile, but honestly there hasn't been a whole lot going on with the adoption stuff. Although, we are still climbing in our numbers. I'm sure we still have quite a wait, but I have to remind myself that we haven't even been on the waiting list for a year yet, and we are a lot further than I really expected. When we first got on, I was hoping we would have our kiddos home by Christmas, but I came to a quick realization that wasn't going to happen. That's okay though. Of course I have my days where I don't think it's okay, but majority of the time, I know that it is all in God's timing. (So tough to learn...) We are beginning to update some paperwork for our Dossier. We by no means have to re-do any of it, just updating our homestudy. A lot of that was because I changed jobs, so we have to release that information to our homestudy agency. Kyle and I started listening to a sermon series by Andy Stanley. He is from GA, and he is just an amazing speaker that God has truly blessed with wisdom and a way of speaking right into people's hearts. The sermon series is called Guardrails. We are really liking it and it has sparked some really great conversations for us. One of the main points in the first sermon was playing with that line of sin. Now, I know we all play with that line on a daily basis. However, the examples were a little bit more than I was thinking, like drinking, lust, etc. Kyle asked me what mine would be and I said honestly, I play with the line of not thinking I need to be in the Word as much. I listen to Christian radio, I read Christian books, I go to church, I went to a Christian elementary school and college and I know a lot of the stories. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is HUGE deal. God's Word isn't just stories, but it's a daily guide for us to use. I think so often we forget that, and just pray about things. Which is great, but we also need to be seeking God's Word wit that. With that being said, I'm going to strive to get into the routine of being in the Word daily. I'm also grateful that I have this time while we wait for our kids. I want my children to see me in the Word, I want them to see how important it really is. Kyle on the other hand is leaps and bounds ahead of me and I couldn't be more proud of him. So today, I challenge you to think and think hard about what line of sin you are playing with. I also challenge you to listen to the sermon series by Andy Stanley, and see how much you grow. Kyle and I are actually going to do the study for the series and we are so excited :) Blessings to all today!!!