Saturday, November 30, 2013

Both Hands.....One for Wanda, One for Caleb

So many of you have emailed, Facebook messaged or texted us to ask about our project last Saturday! Thanks so much for your prayers and encouragement! I've been promising to blog all about it so that you could hear about it all in one place, so here goes!!



We had an incredible day! I got there later than intended due to some GPS problems combined with the fact that I have no natural sense of direction whatsoever!! Thankfully Steve had gotten there bright an early at 7:30 so that he could be the first one there. I left our house a few minutes after he did and took Joshua to our friend Lori's house for the day. (As a side note, Lori brought two precious kids home from China last year and Both Hands was a huge blessing to her, so she wanted to bless us by offering free childcare to anyone on our team. She is a beautiful example of how loving and helpful and supportive the adoption community has been to us!! ) I finally got to Wanda's at about 8:30 and was relieved to find I was not the only one who had GPS issues finding it! I had intended to start the day with a group prayer and pass out name tags and have everyone sign waivers, but that didn't happen due to my tardiness - people were already hard at work!!


Waste management had brought us the biggest dumpster I've ever seen!! My first thought was "Wow. That is one huge dumpster. They could have brought a smaller one!" But by the end of the day that thing was overflowing!!

So here is a list of what we spent our day doing:

MASSIVE de-clutter of house and shed. SIX FULL VAN LOADS to the local DAV and did I mention the overflowing gigantic dumpster??

Overhauled yard. Major trimming, cutting and clearing of overgrowth, bushes and trees.

Tilled and re-seeded yard (with special seed for cold weather seeding) and covered in straw.

Weeded and mulched flower beds.

Tore down rotted privacy fence (and cleared massive overgrowth covering it!) and built a new one.


This is a "before" picture of the rotted, overgrown fence...



And here is the "after!"

Replaced kitchen faucet.

Patched 3 holes in her ceiling from a roof leak (roof has since been replaced!) and painted ceiling.

Installed new dryer vent.

Patched a large section of wallpaper.

Created gravel path in her back yard where she had previously had a bunch of nasty rotten carpet scraps making a path.



Replaced front and back porch lights

Replaced front door lock.

Repaired rotted wood on cellar door.

Due to the very cold weather and running out of time, we did not get to paint the exterior trim as we had hoped. We also did not get to complete the construction of the hand rail for her front stoop. Steve plans to go back down after Thanksgiving and finish the handrail and we plan to go down in the spring and paint her trim. We had the supplies for those projects donated and fully intend to do those things for her! Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, we got NEW WINDOWS donated to Wanda and they will be installed sometime in the next month!!

I've spent this week processing everything that went into this and I just can't put into words the blessing that this was on so many levels! Late that evening after we were home, a dear friend who had spent the day working with us texted me and said "I feel like we need to be debriefed. My head is spinning!" I couldn't agree more!! The obvious blessing to Wanda meant so much to her and the blessing of helping her touched us all. The more I think about it the more humbled and grateful I feel to our team! We had four team members that were 60 or over, 2 that were pregnant, and several that haven't known us even a year! Our videographer was an eighteen year old friend of a friend who'd never met us but wanted to help! Every single person who worked on this was such an amazing blessing to us! The fact that they would all give up an entire Saturday to work their tails off in the freezing cold - and not only that- they actually seemed to enjoy themselves!! I mean we are talking about some AMAZING people!! Many of these people did not know each other at all or had only briefly met at our two planning meetings. New friendships were forged and some serious male bonding took place over hammers and saws. God is so good!

God continues to provide on the fundraising end of this as well. We are nearly halfway to our goal for funds raised for the project, but still have a ways to go. We will post a video this week (it is currently being finalized!) Please spread the word that IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO GIVE to this project and bless our Caleb by helping us bring him home! Thank you so very much to those of you who have already given generously! 

If you would like to give to this project (every single penny helps us bring Caleb home!!) you can mail a check to : Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744 and be sure to write "preference Porter #3934" on the memo line. You can also give online at www.bothhands.org/steve-and-amy-porter.

This Thanksgiving was especially meaningful to us on the heels of this project and in the middle of this adoption journey. We are so very thankful for you!!

Amy

Friday, November 22, 2013

Widows and Orphans, Hardware Stores and Windows!

Tomorrow is going to be such an amazing day! We have been planning and working on our Both Hands project since we were approved for it in September. I cannot say enough good about this organization and the people that run it. They are the real deal!!

For those that aren't familiar, Both Hands is a 501c3 organization that exists to help orphans and widows. They partner with adoptive families to do service projects for widows while raising money for their adoptions. Here is how it works: We found a widow who was in need of some repairs and clean up work at her house. We gathered a fantastic team of friends and family who committed to spending one day (tomorrow!!) working all day on her house. They all sent letters to their family and friends asking them to sponsor them for the day just like they would for Race for the Cure, Light the Night Walk or a golf-a-thon. Every penny that is donated helps us bring Caleb home!! We got local merchants to donate all the supplies for the workday so the only cost we had was the postage to mail out the letters! Beautiful.

Our sweet widow is Ms Wanda Cales. She lost her husband 19 years ago and spent the last year taking care of her elderly mother who just passed away in May. Her primary help came from her nephew who tragically died in August. Ms Wanda has given so much of herself to others that we decided she needed some blessing!!



We began to dream of ways to bless her. We didn't want to get our hopes up too much, though because with it being so close to the end of the calendar year, we didn't know how much we could get in donations. Many businesses have a certain allowable amount they give to charity per year and we had been told that this was not an optimal time to ask for donations. We began to approach businesses with our Both Hands letter and ask if they could help us and we have been blown away!! We have so many donations that Steve is picking up a 16 foot box truck this afternoon to transport it all to Wanda's house!

I have to take a moment to brag on my husband here. Steve is a man of few words, but let me tell you... he is a man of action!! He has worked his tail off on this project and has done an amazing job securing donations and organizing projects. He was dreaming big...so big I feared he was setting himself up for disappointment. (Oh me of little faith!!) He saw that Wanda's windows were in some terrible shape. She hadn't been able to open them in years...maybe never. He began to call window companies to see if they had any windows in their stock rooms that were extra that would fit in Wanda's house that they could donate. (Sometimes if measurements are slightly off, windows don't fit right and have to be re-ordered, so those go into an overstock area until they can find a use for them.) Unfortunately none of the companies had any in the right sizes, so we thought it wasn't going to happen. Then, the president of Window World called Steve. She said they so much love what we are doing that they wanted to custom make all seven of Wanda's windows for her for free!!!!! They won't be ready to put in tomorrow when we do the rest of the project, but Steve and our dear friend Sean (who is on our team and used to install windows professionally!!) are going to go install them next month when they come in!!!

Here are some other merchants you may want to support: Sherwin Williams donated all the paint to paint one inside ceiling, her porch and walkway and all the trim around the outside of her house. 84 Lumber donated all the lumber to replace her privacy fence that had rotted. Franke Otte Nursery donated all the seed and hay to re-seed her entire yard. Waste Management is donating the use of a dumpster for the day.  Klein Brothers donated a new lock set for her front door. Star Drywall donated drywall to patch some damaged ceiling inside her home. Chick Fil A is providing lunch for the entire team working. Meijer gave a $100 gift card used to purchase bottled beverages and snacks for the team as well as paint supplies and a few other small items for the yard work. Walmart, Lowes and Home Depot donated supplies to build a hand rail for her front steps, replace her kitchen faucet, replace two porch lights, mulch and gravel for the landscaping and more smaller items needed for the day.

So tomorrow we serve a widow to help bring home an orphan! We are so thrilled to have this opportunity! You may have received a letter asking for a donation for this project that will help us bring Caleb home. Maybe you've already given. Thank you!! This is such a team effort!! We are honored, humbled and grateful that you would choose to partner with us in this. All donations are tax deductible and we can receive donations into this account until Caleb is home....so it is NOT TOO LATE!! If you would like to give, you may send a check payable to Lifesong for Orphans with "preference Porter #3934" on the memo line to :
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744
Or you may donate online here.
We hope to make enough from this project to be fully funded!! We sent out 600 letters. If only half of those people were to give us $33, we would hit our goal of $10,000! Can you help us get there??
 We will post a video of the project and before and after pictures here soon! Please pray for our project! God has done amazing things to bring us to this point and we know he will continue to do so with your prayers! Please pray especially for a warmer than predicted day tomorrow!
Digging to China,
Amy








Thursday, November 14, 2013

It's A.....

BOY!!!!!!

It is with unspeakable joy that we introduce to you our son, Caleb David Bao Porter.


Caleb is currently living in Baotou City, province of Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. If the process follows the typical timeline, we will bring him home sometime around May! He is currently 15 months old. These pictures are old, but they are all we have for now. We have requested updated pictures and information on him and we will definitely share them when we get them!


Look at that smile!! This mama is falling in love with a picture of a little boy on the other side of the world! "Bao" is a Chinese boy name that means "precious treasure." How perfectly it fits him....our precious treasure, born in Baotou City. We felt it was the perfect addition to his American name as we love the meaning and it also honors the city in which he was born and spent the first year and a half of his life! He currently is assigned a Chinese name by his orphanage and it will officially be changed when the adoption is finalized in China.


We received his file from our social worker on Monday, November 4th. We spent the next days praying and having his file reviewed by medical professionals. Caleb has a minor heart defect that is very common and often needs no intervention. As we knew was the case going into this process, we really won't have a firm grasp on his overall health until we get him home and evaluated by our pediatrician. By all indications from his file, this seems to be a minor issue and one that our family can easily care for. On Thursday, November 7th we submitted our letter of intent "LOI" to adopt Caleb. That had to be reviewed and evaluated by the China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption. On Monday, November 11th we got word that we were approved to adopt him! We spent the next few days telling our families and close friends and finalizing his name!


Now that we have seen his face, the pain of the wait intensifies for us! We can't wait to hold him in our arms and kiss his precious face! We can now send him care packages (just in time to send Christmas presents!!) and will be sending him a photo album with our pictures so hopefully we may seem a tiny bit familiar to him when we show up and take him away from the only life he has ever known. Adoption is beautiful, but it always starts with something ugly and painful. This precious boy was abandoned shortly after birth by the person who was supposed to care for him. Praise God that He is in the business of redemption and making beauty from ashes!!

We have so much going on this month! November may seriously be the busiest month in Porter family history! This quick referral was an unexpected blessing amidst our current craziness and we are so very thankful!! I have so many things to share on this blog, and will over the coming weeks and months, but for now, we wanted to share this precious gift with you!

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Amy