And She Pretended to be Shy!

I was looking at some old videos that were taken last June while we were in Haiti and in this one Destina is very shy! It is the first time she has been around white people, a video camera, and her own glass of ice, she was enjoying the moment. When I ask her if I am her mama notice how she nods her head. In this video is also Gracie and Malot. This adoption journey is hard and there is loss along the way, and I have to trust that I will be raising the children I was meant to raise. Gracie is playing with her eyelashes something she did when she was tired, I almost forgot that about her, I am glad I watched this, I don't want to forget the little things that made her who she was.



This is a great quote by Thomas S. Monson President of the LDS Church on Adversity!

"Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order to be tested, we must sometimes face challenges and difficulties. At times there appears to be no light at the tunnel's end—no dawn to break the night's darkness. We feel surrounded by the pain of broken hearts, the disappointment of shattered dreams, and the despair of vanished hopes. We join in uttering the biblical plea 'Is there no balm in Gilead?' (Jeremiah 8:22). We are inclined to view our own personal misfortunes through the distorted prism of pessimism. We feel abandoned, heartbroken, alone. If you find yourself in such a situation, I plead with you to turn to our Heavenly Father in faith. He will lift you and guide you. He will not always take your afflictions from you, but He will comfort and lead you with love through whatever storm you face."

I have felt that comfort and love through this process, and through other trials going on in my life. I have hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. This adoption process will end and one day I will be on here complaining about how hard it is to have little kids running around my house again, if I do that someone please slap some sense into me!

Garage Sale Success!

We held our garage sale yesterday and I have to give a BIG THANK YOU to all of you that helped, especially Tiffany and Cherish without the two of you this garage sale would not have happened! We braved the cloudy skies and the sometimes cold wind and we really enjoyed the 4 minutes of sunshine and we had a great day! People were coming non-stop all day long. The sale was supposed to end at 2:00 and we had people coming until after 3:00. There was one man that didn't buy anything but asked about the poster I had out about the orphanage and we were telling him that all the proceeds go to an orphanage in Haiti and he put a dollar in the donation jar I had set out and we continued to talk and he said that he was going to go to Haiti this year that was his goal! Pretty soon he asked me if I could break a $20.00 bill and after I did he put 3 more dollars in the jar and after a little more talking he went ahead and put the 10 dollar bill and the 5 dollar bill in the jar! This man did not look rich, he looked like he had seen better days and that he was still going through rough spots in his life but he was touched by our compassion for the little children in Haiti and in return he had compassion and showed it by giving what he had. It is people like this that have truly inspired me through this journey, people with not much to give but they give anyway...the meek and humble shall inherit the earth... When other people tried to bargain us down on the price we would tell them that all the money is going to an orphanage and they were happy (most of them) to pay the full price. It was a good day, it was energizing to be a part of something bigger than me, it was great to see once again "a small amount of people making a difference". At the end of the day we ended up making $665.00 for the orphanage, that is not counting the left over change that is going to go in the "pennies by the inch" Jar at the school which totaled another $32.52!

Fund Raiser Up-Date!

There has been quite a few things going on to raise money for the kids at our Orphanage! My "pennies by the inch" has raised just over $600.00 so far and I am running that until June 1st. There is a BIG garage sale going on in Utah that a lot of the other families are involved in on the 28th of April at the E Center and my friends here are holding a garage sale on the same day here in Bellingham. These are all baby steps towards a bigger goal of making the orphanage a safer, healthier, place where these children can thrive not just survive until we can bring them home.
Lori has been running an ETSY store on her blog and there are a lot of cute items, which have all been donated by crafty people wanting to help our cause! My sister has made some cute dolls which should be posted on the store soon and a friend has donated some hair bows, there seems to be new stuff every time I take a look. The link to the ETSY store is on the left side of my blog!

Lori has also been holding jewelery parties and her friend is donating 30% of the profits to the orphanage. The first week raised $550, that is pretty cool! Listed below is the information if there are any of you who are into cool unique pieces of jewelery and would like to order something, Mother's Day is just around the corner and they would make great gifts.

Great jewelry AND you help the kids. You can help us continue to raise
money towards our goal by:
1) Placing an order at www.liasophia.com/emilym and entering “Hope” as the hostess’s first name and selecting “Hope for Little Angels of Haiti” as the hostess. 30% of each sale will be donated.
2) Booking your own lia sophia show with me. (Emily's contact info is below)
3) Have a friend place an order or book a show.

Emily Mineer 435.251.9214 www.liasophia.com/emilym

I can't wait to present all the money that has been raised to the orphanage director Nadia she will truly be amazed that there are so many people that care about little children so far away! A small group of people can make a difference!
Thanks to all my friends who are always looking for ways to help even when things are tight in your households!

New Look!

I decided to change my blog around, if ya hadn't noticed, to reflect more about what this blog is about, which is our adoption journey. I just wish I had some good news to blog about. We have been in IBESR for 5 months and we are waiting to get Avrie's file in then the whole thing out! Time seems to go by so slow when I am waiting for something and it flies by when I look back at how long we have been enduring this adoption process. So now for some real entertainment the crazy video that makes me really laugh, Destina had just watched all the dancing and craziness of Carnival and was still on a "high" from that experience. She really is not this crazy but it is fun to see her wild side!

Got Mud!!

I know, finally a post that is not about Haiti! This is a video of Ryan riding the "big log on Evolution" at Galbraith Mountain. This "log" is about 6 ft off the ground, Ryan makes it look easy I have a video of Scott's friend riding this log and he is going really slow! This is what Scott a few of his buddies and Ryan love doing! On a good day they come home so muddy that they have to hose off before they come in the house.

The video quality is not the best the lighting was bad and the camera was marginal!

Superiority???

I love this picture!! When it was first taken none of these kids had a family, now all of these kids have their forever families! How awesome is that??

I have one more quote from the book that I just finished reading that again struck me and I wanted to put this out there.

"From birth, Americans are taught to believe that their nationality is superior to all other nationalities. White Americans are socialized subliminally to believe that they are superior en masse to the members of other races. Of course, generalizations are always dangerous and virtually impossible to sustain. Indeed, there are, likely, millions of reflective white Americans for whom such generalizations do not obtain. Most people, however, irrespective of race, are not reflective and do not think critically. They are lemmings obedient largely to the tide and social fashion of the particular moment.
In any case, Americans, for whatever reasons, had fenced themselves socially and culturally off from a respectful engagement with the better part of humanity - the brown, the black, the otherwise exotic - including the masses of Kreyol-speaking Haitians for whom Americans generally felt nothing or, worse, small contempt. Little wonder that they did, given all they had and had not been allowed to know about an artistic and gifted people whose history was as storied as any people's on earth."

I have to admit there was a time when I fit into this category pretty well, lucky for me somehow my views changed over time and they continue to change the more I learn and the older I get. There was a time when I didn't know WHAT Haiti was let alone where it was. I remember hearing about aids and boat people dying to get to Miami and I probably didn't feel anything for these people. Lucky for me my perspective has changed. The people of Haiti deserve more out of life than they are getting, why was I born with all the privileges that I have? What makes me more important than people born in Haiti or any other third world country? What then is my responsibility, for where much is given much is required...am I giving all that is required?