Antiques For Sale.........

We have been blessed with some unique items to sale to raise money for travel expenses to Ethiopia. I have posted them below with a brief description and asking price. Please take a look at these items and pass them along to anyone you know who may have an interest in them. I will be glad to take more photos for anyone with a genuine interest in an item. Please e-mail us at lilysprayer@gmail.com if you would like to purchase any of the items or if you need more photos. If you live outside the middle Tennessee area shipping costs will be applied.

We appreciate all your prayers and support. Please feel free to make a donation using the paypal buttons.


Horse Clock in good condition...has no. 315 on the back.....$50.00 obo


Churn Stamp with a pineapple design for the stamp in good condition....$50.00 obo




Old Coffee Grinder... has ARCADE on the lid....$75.00 obo




Mirror.....$50.00 obo



Trunk....needs work on the latch........$40.00 obo



Rocking Horse.....50+ years old ...$50 obo




Nice picture frame...not sure what the wood is but the frame is solid and detailed...$75.00 obo...SOLD



Front......we have 4 plates like this one, one has a chip on it, one in very good condition, 2 in fair condition....$12.00 for all 4 plates. Back of plates below.




1 plate..Double Phoenix, NIKKO Japan 7 1/4" plate...$7.00




7" plate..front above...back below....$5.00




Ceramic Pipe........$10.00 obo




This was my great grandfathers dinnerware...these were made in the USA... 40yrs+ pic to the left is everything I have. 6 cups, saucers, bowls, 5 plates, 1 serving plate & 1 large bowl.


This pic is of 5 complete sets together....$40.00 for complete set obo





In HIS grip,
David

87 Days to Go

We have a court date!!! I received a totally unexpected call from our case worker on Thursday morning. I heard the words "Would you like a court date?" I of course screamed "I would love a court date!". Words can not express how excited we were to receive our court date two weeks after court had closed. We weren't expecting this phone call until the end of September or early October. We will get to meet Jadon in about 87 Days! Our court date is November 19th. That is just a couple of days before my birthday! What a wonderful Birthday present!

Our case worker said they would be doing everything they could to rush getting us in for the last embassy date before the end of the year for our agency. That date is December 23rd. That means we will be spending Christmas most likely in Ethiopia or in airports trying to get home. It doesn't matter to us because we will all be together as a family of four for our first Christmas! God is with us at all times and will be with us where ever we celebrate HIS son's birth! Jadon will have a forever family for Christmas and We will have the long awaited new addition to our family! What an awesome God we serve!

Another huge praise is that having such an early notice has helped us get a very reasonable airfare for the first trip. We have just enough money to cover purchasing our tickets at the end of this week! Praise the Lord. Now we will have to raise about 2200 to cover our shots, our accomodations while in ET and some miscellaneous expenses. We are planning to have a HUGE yard sale in September (possbily indoors).

We did receive a ballpark estimate for travel expenses for our embassy trip in December and since it is around Christmas it is going to be more expensive. Also Lily will be going with us especially now so that she is not left alone on Christmas! The figure is coming in around $9500 for our second trip.

We know that God has not brought us this far to forsake us now. We have total faith that he will provide for Jadon to come home in December. Please continue to pray for Jadon and our remaining journey! If you feel led please feel free to donate via our paypal button or contact us for our address. Any donation amount is greatly appreciated. Little is much when God is in it!

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

A Year in Review

Give God a year and look at what only HE can do! Wow. I have been reflecting a lot about what has transpired in our lives over the last twelve months. I am truly AMAZED. It has been almost a year since God began stirring our hearts toward adoption for the third year in a row. The first 2 years we said no, last August we finally said yes and look at what a journey HE has taken us on. So many of you have been a huge part in this journey and we are so very grateful for each and every one of you. We have been truly humbled by your generosity to show your support through giving toward our fundraisers, yard sale items, and your prayers. God is not finished writing HIS story yet and we can not wait to see how the journey continues.

Jadon was born three years ago and it was three years ago that God began calling us to adopt. Although it was three years ago that we began having serious discussions of adoption we have been praying for this child for ten years now. We have had this love for him long before we knew who he was and long before he existed. There have been many seasons of depression, grieving, questioning and longing for another child. We've told Lily so many times over the years that "God will bless us with a child all we have to do is keep praying". Never did I imagine God would answer our prayers through adoption BUT I am so glad that HE has. HIS timing is so perfect too. Jadon did not become eligible for adoption until the week we became officially eligible to adopt!

Have you ever bought your child the perfect gift for Christmas but there was a problem with it? It wasn't anything he had asked for specifically, so you began to "help" him desire that perfect gift by dropping little hints over time. It's Christmas morning and little Johnny opens his new bike that he didn't know he wanted and says "I love it. It's just what I wanted!". That's what God had to do with us! HE had to take us through some dark valleys, HE had to show and teach us some things, HE had to reveal HIS plan slowly to us so that our hearts would desire what HE desired for our family when the final call came in to adopt.

Our faith has grown so much over the past year and God has used this journey to grow the faith of others around us. It has been so cool to see God at work. He is always at work in our lives and the lives around us. We just sometimes don't stop to join HIM. We have prayed throughout this journey for God to use us for raising awareness for adoption and we now have been given the opportunity to speak at two different churches! We are so excited to join God and give HIM ALL the praise and glory!

41 days til Courts open! We are praying to have the first trip's expenses in place by the end of September because we will most likely not have a huge notice for when we will leave for court. The first trip if we are lucky will be about $5k. We have about $1900 already of that money. Our second trip will be more expensive because we have to stay longer in country, we would love for big sister to be able to go with us and we will be paying for Jadon's visa and plane ticket as well. We are looking at $7-8K for the second trip . We have applied for grants but haven't heard anything yet and one particular grant takes four months to process for a decision. We applied at the end of July so it will be most likely early December before we know if are receiving any grant money which could be too late for either trip!

Please continue to pray for Jadon and the remaining of our journey to bring him home! We can't express enough how much we love this little guy and are so anxious to have him here with us!

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Lily's Thoughts

GOD IS WONDERFUL ,AWESOME, AND AT WORK!!!!!! I was overjoyed when i found out that we would be getting Jadon! I may not know him yet but I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART and am proud to call him my brother. No matter what people say , what he does, or what color he is I will always love him and be proud of him!! HE may be different from me but to me he is just the same and my WONDERFUL little brother!!!
I think its amazing how GOD has had me meet several new people who are adopting and go through the same things. This past week I meet a wonderful college student whose family just got her two year old little brother. His name is Kadon it was oringinally supposed to be Jadon. Isn't it funny how his name is spelt the same way except with a K? GOD works in funny ways. They may seem funny how it works but in the long run it really helps you understand what GOD has in store for you.
Also I believe that GOD put her in my life to encourage me. I've had a friend who said adoption stinks it doesn't rock. That made me mad but I didn't stop trusting that GOD was going to have it work out just fine. (which it did!) She went through something similar to that. There will be hardships through the time he gets home probably until the day he dies or JESUS CHRIST comes back but until then GOD will help us through it.
This past week on the middle school mission trip GOD called me to ministry. I don't know what kind of ministry yet but just maybe it might be the adoption ministry. Isn't it crazy how GOD works?
We were on the list for 13 days and got a referral when most the time it takes 9 months. Isn't that crazy?
This summer i have grown in my spiritual walk with CHRIST which has helped me decide to conquer my fear of flying to go get my little brother(who i can't wait to see). I trusted in GOD! Through this adoption process I realized if there is something your scared about trust in GOD! I was scared when we started the process to be honest i was scared we were going to get matched with a child and then lose him I'm still scared about it. But I am trusting GOD is going to have it work out fine.
Today I found out that if Jadon hadn't been put in an orphanage and he was my age he would be working or he could possibly be married. It broke my heart. That is why I am so excited and grateful that we are getting Jadon or he would live in poverty for the rest of his life or could possilbly die. 12% of children die before age 5. That song Hosana says break my heart for what breaks yours today GOD did!
I AM VERY PROUD TO SAY JADON IS MY BROTHER!


LOVE,
LILY

P.S. GOD IS AMAZING! AND LOVE GOD MORE THAN ANYTHING!

Speechless

We are so speechless at how God moved such a huge financial mountain in twelve days. I never want to loose the "awe" factor with God. We were able to send off the signed papers and check on Monday. Our agency received it Tuesday and we are moving forward to bring our sweet boy home. It looks like we will not travel for the first time until October. We are praying that it will be early October to give us better chances of bringing him home before Christmas. Please pray for Jadon that he is being well fed and loved daily until we can get to him.

Thank you all for your continued support!

Blessings!

ALL GLORY BE TO GOD!

P.S. I'm still emotionally and mentally trying to process what God has done in our lives over the last couple of weeks and hope to write a more "deep" post soon.

Blessed Beyond Belief

Can we just say that we have the BEST family, friends and yard sale shoppers ever! We are BLESSED BEYOND BELIEF! Thank you to everyone who has donated $$, donated yard sale items,prayed, posted our story on Facebook, Twitter, and/or your time helping with our gazillion yard sales we have had! Most of all we are raising some praise for our awesome God, a.k.a our provider!

A summary of the recent events to quickly catch everyone up....

We finally after about nine LONG months of paper chasing etc. we make it on the waiting list to be expecting a child from Ethiopia June 18th .as #47 out of 48 waiting families. We were expecting to have the next six to nine months to fundraise for our referral fee ($8235).

Thirteen days later we have a referral for our son Jadon. Never expected this so quickly but very grateful. When we hung up with the agency we knew we needed $5800 of the $8235 to secure him as our son. By the end of the day God had dropped that amount to $5500.

After much generosity from many people, family, friends and complete strangers and a last minute yard sale God has reduced the amount to $1000 that is needed for this huge step in getting Jadon in process to come home.

Our agency sent us the official referral packet and forms to sign this past week with the official request to send our $8235 within 5 days. This means our signed paperwork and payment to accept Jadon is due by Wednesday.

Please help if you can by donating any amount you are able. Little is much when God is in it!

Many have asked what is next after this step. Once we turn in the required paperwork and payment this week they will begin preparing our paperwork in Ethiopia and working on requesting a court date. We wait and continue to raise money for our travel expenses for two trips. Due to courts closing in Ethiopia from August through early October, we don't expect to travel until mid to late October for the first trip. After the first trip we will come home for 4-6 weeks before traveling the second time to actually bring Jadon home. We have a small window of being able to get Jadon home before Christmas but with God anything is possible!!! Keep praying for our journey and for Jadon especially!

F.R.O.G (Fully Relying On God)