Plans and Prayers

Hi friends,

It's about time for an update. Many people have asked how our process is going. Usually my response is "slow". We have experienced some delays in some of the initial steps of the process. We have been able to meet with our social workers and go over some needed revisions to our homestudy documents. We have finished gathering some of the additional information that needed to be added. Now we have to wait for the process to work again. Join us in praying that everything comes together correctly, and that we can have this first major step done before Christmas. We have been praying for direction and praying for specific waiting children. Pray that the right parents will adopt these children. That parents can provide a healing environment and that family bond that everyone needs.

I have also begun a new money making venture to help bolster our finances a little. I am now an independent consultant with Jamberry Nails. What are Jamberry Nails? They are an awesome new nail art product made from vinyl based material with a heat and pressure sensitive adhesive that forms a bond to your nail. I'm hoping I will be able to save most of my earnings from this business to help pay for some of the costs associated with our adoption. It's fun, I get to host parties online and in person to show off the product, I like the fact that I can work from home and not have to quit helping Abe with his church related ministries. It is also something that I can potentially continue after we become parents and our schedules and priorities change.
My website is MyLittleMani.jamberry.com

God bless, Bethany Kennedy

Based on a true incident: Chalk

I really can't say anything about this video except I know why we are doing what we are doing.

It's PARTY time!

 A busy week or two for us and we have two reasons to PARTY! The first is that our social worker met with us last week and looked at our house. Everything seems to be in order and she told us she will begin writing the home study report this week! We were really excited to hear that. Pray that no needed details get left out. We have heard of people having to get the home study re-done because of something small.  

In the meantime we are taking an online course teaching us more about the different aspects of inter-country adoption. We are both learning so much about the process, the needs of these precious children, and how we can be better parents to them.

To get ready for upcoming expenses we will be sending out a support letter. If you would like to receive one send me your mailing address at artistbethanykennedy@yahoo.com. We will also be hosting an online fundraiser PARTY! It is running from now until April 13th.
Shop at: https://www.mythirtyone.com/shop/catalog.aspx?eventId=E4391091&from=DIRECTLINK&extern=true
Our consultant, Paula O'Brian, will be donating 25% of the purchase price to help with our adoption. Thirty-One Gifts: Buy trendy and affordable purses, totes, bags & accessories and help support a great cause.

Learning to Connect

 As part of our home study and approval process, we are required to be educated on parenting an adopted child. I find this very valuable. We recently finished some required reading in the form of the book "The Connected Child". I enjoyed reading this book. Parenting will likely be one of the most challenging things we have ever done. I know I appreciate all the help I can get. I plan to re-read this book again in a year or so when we are getting ready to bring home our child.

The case studies of different children and what helped them get through behavioral and emotional obstacles in their lives were very insightful. I was impacted with how important developing healthy attachment and trust with parents is for a child. It made me wonder how much of that we are losing as a culture who sends our children to daycare for most of the day, then sets them in front of the television for the rest of it. I am also very grateful for the loving, healthy, whole, Christian families my husband and I were raised in. 

Abe has been able to use some of the techniques used in the book with the children he works with at the Lighthouse After-school Program. He has been able to connect with some of the children and correct some behavioral problems already. We will be receiving two and a half hours of educational credit for reading this book.

We are waiting for our social worker to schedule our next visit. Pray that we will be able to connect again soon. In the meantime, we will continue to work on fulfilling our educational requirements. On the financial side of things, we still have a long way to go, but we are making progress. God is faithful to provide our needs and even our wants! We were blessed to be able to acquire a "new to us" microwave and a new toaster-oven after our microwave broke a few months ago. We are given free food regularly as well. We raised $100 more with the help of friends who have helped sell fundraiser bracelets and necklaces for us. We also received two more donations. Praise the Lord!

Fundraiser update

 We recently had a couple of good fundraisers to help out with upcoming expenses. Our final update for our Delicate Fortress fundraiser is the following.

7 orders placed from 5 states
Benefiting 7 artisan groups in 5 countries
Fighting human trafficking and extreme poverty
And raising $80 to help the Kennedys in their adoption expenses!

Thank you to all of you for your support for the Kennedy family and our artisans. You have made a beautiful difference!

We received $231 by donations and by selling necklaces and bracelets here in St. Croix. Many of our friends have been helping out by buying jewelry and even helping to sell it. We also got three donations: one from a friend, and two from complete strangers! Thank you to all that are helping make this happen. We are now $311 closer to our goal.

Delicate Fortress

We met with the social worker last week. The meeting couldn't have gone better. Thank you to those of you who have been praying. We had a pleasant interview and our social worker should be able to come to our home this week for her second visit. Needless to say I have been busy with cleaning and reorganizing my house to be ready for the visit. Abe had been helping out, but I still have alot to do!

We will be meeting with her about five times, so she can write a report about us to send to the country we are hoping to adopt from. When the report is finished, sometime in March, is when our next payment to our agency is due. Our agency will then be helping us gather the necessary documents to send to the country.

We need as much help as we can get to make this dream a reality. We will be hosting a one day only fundraiser on February 4th. We are partnering with with Delicate Fortress Creations (www.delicatefortress.com) to help raise money for our adoption. 

Every purchase you make on February 4 with coupon code "KENNEDY" will not only help bring our family together but will also be helping impoverished and vulnerable women and children around the world.  We are very close to our next financial goal. Thank you to family and friends who recently donated getting us only $1249 away from our next goal of $6270. It would be awesome if we could raise this much with this next fundraiser. We need your help to do it. Plan to shop next Tuesday and invite your friends. 

God Bless,
Bethany Kennedy

Remember, buy something with coupon code KENNEDY on February 4th and support two good causes at once!

Phone Calls and World Awaits!

Friday the phone rang. The social worker called! Our first appointment to meet with her is scheduled for Thursday morning. This is the official start of the interview process that will allow us to become adoptive parents. We have been waiting for this call for a couple of weeks and are excited to see the process start moving.

Looking ahead, we will need your help to adopt a child. We will need lots and lots of prayer, as well as financial help to bring a child home forever. We have decided to celebrate each time we receive a donation for our adoption by adding a piece to this 3-D globe puzzle. A donation can be $1, $15, $800 or more. No amount is too small to help. The last piece we add will be the piece with the country we are hoping to adopt from. We are very grateful that we have received seven donations so far. Part of Antarctica is already put together! You can help our future child/children and donate today by clicking on our Paypal button or by sending a personal check. Contact us for our mailing address.

Making a home for the Holidays

With the nostalgia that surrounds the holidays, it was easy for me to find myself thinking about my children. Life for an orphan is nothing like the life that I grew up in. I grew up in a great family, with two parents that loved God, each other, and me and my siblings. We had family traditions that go back as far as I can remember, as well as cultural traditions like what foods you eat on Thanksgiving and Christmas, or what you do to ring in the new year. I was sobered the other day, by the realization that an orphan has none of these. They grow up in the care of the few staff that work in their orphanage, unable to get the close attention they need, as the staff are over worked and over stretched already. They don't have anyone to show them how to eat a turkey leg, or how to dunk an Oreo. This lead me to a familiar place now, as I began again to pray for the orphans, both the ones that will be mine, and the others that may or may not be so fortunate.  I have no idea where they are right now, but I know God knows them very well. That is a huge comfort to me, as I trust them to His care and protection.

 
Well, with most places closed more days than they are open, the holidays were a slow time for getting paperwork filed and processed. No reason to get upset though, we found other ways to spend our time productively. Bethany has never had an adult passport before, and mine expired this summer, so it was off to the passport office for us. We were happy to find it open, and were able to fill out our paperwork for new passports. I have never been happier to sit down and get my picture taken! After all, this little picture is part of the road that will lead our child home, so every step is worth it.

After the passport office, it is time to start preparing our home for the inspections that are to come. Bethany started the cleaning of extremely dusty book shelves, while I tackled the joyous work of installing child safety locks on our cupboards and closets. While the preparation of our home far from finished, we've gotten a good start, and look forward to making greater steps in the future. Adoption is a long road, with many bumps and twists along the way. We've only just started, but we are confident that our path is ordained by the Lord, and that He already knows what will come.

T-shirts and Legos

Our T-shirt fundraiser has closed now. We are glad to announce that we were able to raise $132 through that fundraiser. Thanks to all who participated, and purchased shirts. That money, along with more to come, will be used to bring our child (or children) home, and for that we thank you. God is good, and I have often found that when I have no idea what to do, that is when God shows me something spectacular.

The Friday night before Christmas, Bethany and I were on our way home, and decided to make a unplanned stop in Kmart. We went in, and as we wandered through the store, we came to the clearance isle. I came across several sets of legos that were marked 70% off. Legos are never on sale! This was amazing! I showed them to Bethany. Being the smart girl that she is, she reminded me to check their going rate on Ebay, just to make sure. I did, and found that this were about half of what they were selling on Ebay. We purchased several sets, and put them on Ebay two days after Christmas. After all, who doesn't want to buy legos with their christmas money, right? The bidding ended, and I am happy to say that we made more than 100% profit on the venture. We spent about $70 on the legos, and we gained $106.59. We are now $238.59 closer to our goal! God is good, and shows us even small ways to finance our adoption.

God Bless,
Abe Kennedy