Current Financial Goal: Because of donations and side job opportunities, we currently have enough to cover our next cost of $945 due in just a few weeks. Our next Agency Fee of $3,563 will be due when we MATCH with our child and accept the referral (an estimated 8-10 weeks from now.) Praise God that we are not far from that goal, either! We will also be qualified to apply for grants and scholarships once we have a completed Home Study! So that will be very helpful in reaching our $35,000 goal!
Current Prayer Requests: We are hoping to finish up our Home Study this week! We are finishing the last few items from our checklist, and we’d love your prayers for our final visit with our social worker this Thursday, 8/30! We’re so excited to be finishing up this phase of the process! It has been a LOT of work! But we know it’s all going to be SO worth it!!
Current Prayer Requests: We are hoping to finish up our Home Study this week! We are finishing the last few items from our checklist, and we’d love your prayers for our final visit with our social worker this Thursday, 8/30! We’re so excited to be finishing up this phase of the process! It has been a LOT of work! But we know it’s all going to be SO worth it!!
Join us as we continue to Fundraise!
We’re selling T-shirts! You can buy them online here: https://linkadoptiontshirts.bigcartel.com
Shop to Adopt! We’re hosting a Yard Sale the weekend of September 21-22. We’re accepting donations the week before the sale, so please contact if you want to arrange drop off or pick-up the week of Sept. 10-17th!
Hire the Links! We are available for an array of side jobs. Consider hiring us to help us work towards our huge financial goal for this Adoption! Steven: Handyman work, landscaping, and pressure washing & Kristin: Babysitting, House sitting, Pet sitting, and editing work!
Check out our ongoing fundraiser here:
A Place to Call our Own
It was Saturday, August 19th of 2017, and we had been riding in the car for what felt like all day looking at houses in the Dacula and surrounding area. We were visiting properties that we had found online while house shopping, and as we visited the homes in person, the prospects were turning out to be slim pickin’s. Working with our price range to buy a home in the Dacula community was beginning to feel impossible. Our dreams of being near our church were not only fueled by the fact that this is where our people are, where our community is, but where we both work and where we wanted to stay near for the sake of using our home for hospitality opportunities.
We had checked off a few homes from our short little list, unimpressed, agitated, and not really on the same page about what we were looking for in a home. I was done, ready to give up and try again another day, but Steven wanted to drive just a little bit more. He said, let’s just look at one more neighborhood.
We pull up to Flint Hill off Mobley Road, to which I didn’t even know existed. We drove up, and the first house on the right was an adorable little blue house with a white stable fence surrounding a large backyard. We pulled up right in front of the house and we see two things:
1. A For Sale Sign in the Yard
2. Somebody’s personal belonging strewn across the driveway
So, it seems there may have been an eviction of sorts happening here? Not the most appealing situation to step into, admittedly. But the For Sale Sign and the striking potential of this home piqued our interest! The neighborhood was nice and quiet and had an old charm to it. We immediately called the agent’s number on the sign to inquire about the property. He answers the phone and tells us,
“Oh, yeah, that property hasn’t been listed yet! It will go on the market this week. The seller is looking to sell it for $__________________”
(Insert the exact amount that we are approved to buy for!)
We were shocked. We asked if we could set up a showing of the house with my father, our agent, and he agreed to do so the very next day! So, that Sunday afternoon we got the chance to tour the home, and we saw it for all the potential it had. It was just in need of some freshening up and some minor projects to become the little haven we dreamed it could be!
Having the chance to make an offer on a house before it ever even went on the market? Only God. We saw His hand in this so clearly! We immediately went under contract that week, and by September 29th we purchased our very first home!
And it was on September 30th that Steven took some buddies and some power tools and began the demo phase on our new little house, and from that point…it was no turning back! He and his brother, with the help of different generous friends along the way, took the next several weeks to help renovate our little cottage, and they completely transformed it into the peaceful, refreshing, haven of a home that we had prayed that we might own one day. This house now has all the characteristics of the home we spent many months praying for and longing for. It made it ALL worth the wait when we moved in the week of Thanksgiving in 2017.
As I reflect back on the months of waiting for the renovations to be completed on our home, watching my husband work so hard day in and day out, getting our home ready for our little family, it was our Pastor, Kevin Miller at the time that said something that really stuck with me. He and his wife were transitioning into a new role, leaving the lead pastor role of Hebron, and becoming house parents at Eagle Ranch. One of the questions that they wrestled with when seeking the Lord’s direction for their family in the previous year was,
“We have empty rooms in our home. What does the Lord want us to do with those empty rooms?”
That question struck me as we moved into our very first home and gained more space and square footage than we had ever had in our 7 years of marriage together! And so I looked at the two empty bedrooms that we now had with a different set of eyes. We were actively trying to get pregnant, of course, and I knew exactly how I wanted one of those bedrooms to be filled soon enough. But as the months passed by without the results we hoped for, and as our hearts for adoption began to open up, I began to see that these bedrooms may be used in a different timing than my own, and for a different little one!
And it was then that I realized the connection between our hearts for others and our willingness to open our homes. Love and hospitality flow from a heart connected with the Spirit of God, who is Love and welcomes others with open arms.
“We first must open the doors of our hearts before we’re ever willing to open the doors of our homes.”
Here are a few Before and After Photos that show all the hard work and effort that went into the transformation of our sweet, little home!
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