Today was the day! We had our pancake feed fundraiser that I have been bugging all of you about! Ha! It was so much fun to get to see everybody come and just hang out and eat breakfast with us! So several people have already asked how we did today. In our heads we were shooting for a total of like 500 dollars. We thought that was probably a good estimate for a pancake feed and I really felt like we could maybe make it to $500. Well....we didn't get $500, but don't worry we aren't disappointed....because the total was $1300!!!!!!!!!!!!!! REALLY??? I mean REALLY!?!?!?! Why is this such a theme in my life??? Why do I get so surprised when God totally blows my expectations out of the water?? Tears come to my eyes when I think about the love that my community of family and friends have for us! You all are seriously just making me speechless because it's not something that I can comprehend. I truly pray that God blesses you all doubly for the blessing that you all have been to us. Despite everybody's busy weekend activities we had an awesome turnout!! I promise you all that as our child grows up he/she will know that this community is what made all of this possible. It takes a village right?
So here we are...still waiting. Our agency has contacted us twice within the last 3 weeks about 2 different birthmothers who are desperately trying to make a decision about choosing a forever family for their baby and we were asked if we would like to be presented to them and of course we said yes. We aren't sure if anything will come out of it. It may and it may not...we just wait and see. These are the things that keep us going. Just when we are getting weary of the silence....God knows just how to rebuild our hope/endurance/patience.
Just keep praying for us! Pray for patience. Pray for hope to remain strong and for us not to want to give up. Pray for this child that God has already picked out for us, and pray for that birth mother who is having to make the most difficult decision of her life.
We love you all so much! Thank you so much for coming out this morning and thank you to all my friends and family who volunteered their time to make this all happen!!
Love
The Nuzum's
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Breakfast Anyone??
Hey friends! :) My blog posts are starting to have a theme....waiting. Ha-Ha. I hate to not keep updating you all, but just assume when I know something...you'll know something :) There really isn't a whole lot to update right now. Like I said...we are still waiting. It can be tedious sometimes. It can be draining most of the time. But it's going to be so rewarding and totally worth it in the end. That being said there HAS been some activity going on with our adoption profile...more activity than the USUAL activity. It's very small, and I don't think that anything will come out of it, BUT it was something. It was a little break in the silence. And it was enough to refresh us and help us stay excited about the end result of this adoption. SO in the meantime while we are.....waiting :) we are going to be having another fundraiser. We still are needing about $3,000 or more to be fully funded. You all have been soooo good to us in the past that I can't even begin to express our gratitude for our family and friends and our community. We are excited about this upcoming fundraiser and we hope that you all will participate and come hang out with us. Here it is:
On Saturday March 29th we are having a Pancake Feed!! It's going to be at the Annex here in Pleasanton and the time is going to be from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM. You can come anytime during that time and eat breakfast with us drink some coffee and just hang out and talk!! There is no set fee we are doing everything based on donations. :) I hope you can make it!!! Thank you all for your support. We love you!
The Nuzum's :)
On Saturday March 29th we are having a Pancake Feed!! It's going to be at the Annex here in Pleasanton and the time is going to be from 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM. You can come anytime during that time and eat breakfast with us drink some coffee and just hang out and talk!! There is no set fee we are doing everything based on donations. :) I hope you can make it!!! Thank you all for your support. We love you!
The Nuzum's :)
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
The Waiting Game
WOW! It has been 5 months since my last post! How crazy is that?? Stay with me guys because this may be a long one after I catch up on all the new information!
Where do I even start?? We had our home study in August and passed with flying colors! We were so nervous about having somebody come into our home and studying our lives and how we do things and decide if we were fit to be good parents. It was with a big sigh of relief and gratitude when she emailed and said that we passed our home study! So that was VERY exciting for us!
After we passed our home study that meant we were eligible for our website profile to be put on our Angel Adoption Website. So now our agency has been passing out our paper profile to potential birth mothers and our online profile is available for any birth mother to view from any state. Angel Adoption updates us every month about how many birth mothers have our paper profile. As of right now we know that at least 15 birth mothers have our paper profile! That's very exciting to us! Once birth mothers have profiles to go through it could take up to several months for them to make a final decision. So we pray for those mothers who have to make the hardest decision of their lives. We pray for direction and peace for them.
Right now we are in the waiting game. It's awful, it stinks, and I'm pretty sure i'm losing at this game! It's hard because we don't know ANYTHING. We just sit and wait, and we have no idea how long this will last. The waiting could end before I finish this sentence! It could end tomorrow, or it could continue on for another year or so. UGH! It's the unknown that is the killer! We will get through it, with lots of prayer and continuing to trust that the Lord is still in control of our situation.
SO, in October we went to the arts and crafts festival in mound city and we shopped around and looked at all the awesome crafts. While we were there I saw a certain booth and I got REALLY excited!! It was an adoption booth. This woman and her husband were adopting internationally and all proceeds they made went towards their adoption! I was so excited when I saw that and I couldn't wait to purchase something to help out. They were selling necklaces that they had made and so I was looking through all their necklaces and there it was....the only one like it that i saw. It was meant for me...I just knew it! I grabbed it immediately and knew I didn't have to look anymore. I had a special connection to this necklace already. Here is what the necklace looked like:
And this is my life right now.....waiting. Sometimes not patiently, some days harder than others, but this is where God has us right now, so this is where we shall stay.
When I am praying about our adoption it sometimes feels like I am wasting my breath and I am just talking to the ceilings. I KNOW that is not true, it's just how it is on some days haha. But on a Sunday in church a few weeks ago, Allen (our pastor) said something that has stuck with me, encouraged me, and brought back a renewed frame of mind. "God is still sovereign in
the silence". There it is guys....the whole point of our adoption story and what we want people to know. God is sovereign. He is in control of this adoption. All glory goes to Him. We want people to know that.
SOOOO let's wrap this thing up. We have some fundraisers in our minds that we are excited about doing. We are SO close to being fully funded. Maybe another 2 thousand or so?? In comparison to the almost 15,000 we started off needing...2,000 seems so small! It's been an amazing journey thus far and we are excited about continuing on through this adventure! So we will let you know when we get things planned out for fundraisers!
We love you all! We wouldn't be here without you! We are so blessed by you!
We love you
The Nuzum's :)
Where do I even start?? We had our home study in August and passed with flying colors! We were so nervous about having somebody come into our home and studying our lives and how we do things and decide if we were fit to be good parents. It was with a big sigh of relief and gratitude when she emailed and said that we passed our home study! So that was VERY exciting for us!
After we passed our home study that meant we were eligible for our website profile to be put on our Angel Adoption Website. So now our agency has been passing out our paper profile to potential birth mothers and our online profile is available for any birth mother to view from any state. Angel Adoption updates us every month about how many birth mothers have our paper profile. As of right now we know that at least 15 birth mothers have our paper profile! That's very exciting to us! Once birth mothers have profiles to go through it could take up to several months for them to make a final decision. So we pray for those mothers who have to make the hardest decision of their lives. We pray for direction and peace for them.
Right now we are in the waiting game. It's awful, it stinks, and I'm pretty sure i'm losing at this game! It's hard because we don't know ANYTHING. We just sit and wait, and we have no idea how long this will last. The waiting could end before I finish this sentence! It could end tomorrow, or it could continue on for another year or so. UGH! It's the unknown that is the killer! We will get through it, with lots of prayer and continuing to trust that the Lord is still in control of our situation.
SO, in October we went to the arts and crafts festival in mound city and we shopped around and looked at all the awesome crafts. While we were there I saw a certain booth and I got REALLY excited!! It was an adoption booth. This woman and her husband were adopting internationally and all proceeds they made went towards their adoption! I was so excited when I saw that and I couldn't wait to purchase something to help out. They were selling necklaces that they had made and so I was looking through all their necklaces and there it was....the only one like it that i saw. It was meant for me...I just knew it! I grabbed it immediately and knew I didn't have to look anymore. I had a special connection to this necklace already. Here is what the necklace looked like:
And this is my life right now.....waiting. Sometimes not patiently, some days harder than others, but this is where God has us right now, so this is where we shall stay.
When I am praying about our adoption it sometimes feels like I am wasting my breath and I am just talking to the ceilings. I KNOW that is not true, it's just how it is on some days haha. But on a Sunday in church a few weeks ago, Allen (our pastor) said something that has stuck with me, encouraged me, and brought back a renewed frame of mind. "God is still sovereign in
the silence". There it is guys....the whole point of our adoption story and what we want people to know. God is sovereign. He is in control of this adoption. All glory goes to Him. We want people to know that.
SOOOO let's wrap this thing up. We have some fundraisers in our minds that we are excited about doing. We are SO close to being fully funded. Maybe another 2 thousand or so?? In comparison to the almost 15,000 we started off needing...2,000 seems so small! It's been an amazing journey thus far and we are excited about continuing on through this adventure! So we will let you know when we get things planned out for fundraisers!
We love you all! We wouldn't be here without you! We are so blessed by you!
We love you
The Nuzum's :)
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
And this is our PLEA
Hey everybody! Well our 31 gift fundraiser put on by Jerri James is now over. And it raised $400 dollars!! That was so sweet of her to volunteer her hard earned money and time to help us with the adoption. We can't think everyone enough for the huge amount of support that has been given to us.
SO...here's the big news now! Our case worker got a hold of me today wanting to set up our home study appointment. It's going to be August 26th (Monday). That is only 12 days away!!!! Goodness!!! I instantly got nervous when we set the date. So much to do! You would think that knowing this was appointment was coming that we would be getting the house ready bit by bit so we wouldn't have to rush. I mean...that would be the responsible thing to do right??? Haha. Those who know me laugh because every one knows that I am the queen of procrastinators. I work well under pressure. I like it. Ha! So here we are...12 days away from meeting with the woman who has our future in her hands. The one who says yes you are capable of raising a child or no you are crazy, no child for you. haha.
So, this is our plea. Pray!! Pray for us! Pray for our case worker Rachel. Pray that she sees us as fit to parent a child. Pray that we won't be nervous. Pray we will continue to trust God through this whole process. Ultimately HE is the one who has our future in His hands. Not Rachel.
We also got word today that another mother has our profile. As you know...all it takes is one mother to choose us to parent her child, and we know of two mothers that have our profile. Please pray for those mothers. Can you imagine the decisions she is trying to make right now?? How hard this must be for them. Pray for peace for these two women.
We are so excited! We are slowly getting closer day by day!
We love you all
The Nuzum's
SO...here's the big news now! Our case worker got a hold of me today wanting to set up our home study appointment. It's going to be August 26th (Monday). That is only 12 days away!!!! Goodness!!! I instantly got nervous when we set the date. So much to do! You would think that knowing this was appointment was coming that we would be getting the house ready bit by bit so we wouldn't have to rush. I mean...that would be the responsible thing to do right??? Haha. Those who know me laugh because every one knows that I am the queen of procrastinators. I work well under pressure. I like it. Ha! So here we are...12 days away from meeting with the woman who has our future in her hands. The one who says yes you are capable of raising a child or no you are crazy, no child for you. haha.
So, this is our plea. Pray!! Pray for us! Pray for our case worker Rachel. Pray that she sees us as fit to parent a child. Pray that we won't be nervous. Pray we will continue to trust God through this whole process. Ultimately HE is the one who has our future in His hands. Not Rachel.
We also got word today that another mother has our profile. As you know...all it takes is one mother to choose us to parent her child, and we know of two mothers that have our profile. Please pray for those mothers. Can you imagine the decisions she is trying to make right now?? How hard this must be for them. Pray for peace for these two women.
We are so excited! We are slowly getting closer day by day!
We love you all
The Nuzum's
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Belyn
This post is dedicated to my ADORABLE and BEAUTIFUL new cousin Belyn! I am SO excited to welcome her to our family. My uncle and aunt (Brent and Christi) have been going through the process of adopting Belyn from Ethiopia and TODAY (Wednesday) they have left to go get her and bring her home!!!!!!! I am so happy for them and can feel their excitement all the way from here. This sweet little girl's life will never be the same now. She now has a forever family that will love her unconditionally. She will be home very soon and I can't even imagine the feelings that Brent and Christi are feeling right now as they are about to see their daughter in this orphanage for the last time and will get to bring her home! I thank God that He has brought this all together and I know that He has been glorified and honored in this process.
As for us, we have FINALLY finished the mountains of paperwork that we had to complete in order to turn our home study notebook in. It is now getting processed and we will be expecting a call from our case worker so we can set up a time for them to come to our house and interview us and inspect our house. There was SO much to fill out in this home study notebook that it was almost overwhelming, but you just have to breath and push through it. I'm not going to lie...it almost got to the point of being annoying having to fill out all this stuff. I just wanted it to be done so we could move on! HaHa! So after we get approved by our case worker we just wait. I'm dreading that part...waiting.... It could be short...but it could also be VERY long.
I know I have said this in our previous blog post, but we have raised and been given a little over $10,000. We are needing around 4 to 5 thousand more. My mom and my grandma held a garden party fundraiser recently to raise money for this adoption. They both worked VERY hard to make it a success and we raised around $800 dollars!! We were so thankful to them for their sacrifice of their time and money to make it a success.
We also have a friend, Jerri James who is a 31 Gift consultant. They have so many cute things to buy. Jerri has been so awesome to us. She is throwing a fundraiser with her profits going to our adoption. I can't thank her enough for being so giving. So everybody go check it out!! Buy some awesome things for yourself or for gifts and in turn help us get closer to the reaching our goal!!! LOVE this idea.
Other than that, not a whole lot going on right now, just waiting. We do know that one mother has our profile. One is obviously not very many, but it only takes one mother to choose us to raise her child. So we pray. We pray for whoever this woman is. Pray that she has the courage to make the decision to choose life for her baby. Give her the courage for the decisions that she will have to be making. It has got to be the hardest decision of a life time.
Anyways...we love you all. We are excited. We thank God for all of you who read, who support, who pray for us. We will keep you posted!!
love you all
The Nuzum's :)
Monday, May 20, 2013
BLOWN AWAY
Hey all you out there!! I know it's been a while since I have posted anything...but I didn't have anything to say until now! :)
Just filling you all in with what is going on right now! Well...this past weekend a very dear friend of ours Sharen Cunningham hosted and put on a yard sale with the proceeds going toward our adoption. That was so incredibly sweet of her and we can NOT thank her enough. So many of you out there donated items to sell and it wouldn't have been possible without all of you..so thank you. Then of course the people who came out and BOUGHT stuff (especially those who worked the yard sale haha)..thank you thank you. We had kind of set a goal in our heads for the yard sale. We thought it would be really awesome if we reached $1,000. And we thought we had set a pretty good goal...because really....$1,000 for a yard sale is A LOT and we knew it could be hard to reach. Okay...well let me just tell you what our God did this past weekend. He blessed that yard sale 3 times over than what we ever imagined. Our total proceeds from the yard sale turned out to be $3,900.!!!!! (we round it up to $4,000 because it's close enough for me! ha) I mean SERIOUSLY....FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS for a YARD SALE????? Who knew that was even possible? God has proven time and time again to me how little my faith is. I thought I had some pretty good faith for setting a goal of $1,000. God you are worthy to be praised and you never cease to amaze me. Thank you for choosing to bless this adoption thus far. I pray that you are getting all the glory and that everyone is seeing that you are real and totally involved.
Okay, so we have raised right at $10,000 for this adoption! Not gunna lie...that hasn't even began to sink in yet. In only a few short months we have raised $10,000!! (sorry I have to keep repeating it until it feels real) That is UNBELIEVABLE and I am completely blown away. We only have about 3 to 5 thousand more to go. How amazing! Which brings me to my next paragraph :)
We are doing another fundraiser so bear with us!! ha ha. Richard and I are selling T-shirts to help us get a little closer to our final money goal. I will put a picture below to show you what they look like. They are $18.00 each. We have a standard t shirt and then we have a cute fitted style but I will warn you that the fitted shirts run pretty small. Just to give you how the sizes are in the standard t shirt. I (amber) am wearing the Extra Large and it fits me perfectly. Richard is wearing the Large and it fits him perfectly. If ANYBODY would like a t-shirt you can comment on here...on face book...in person...haha...just let me know some how. (the picture below is an example of the fitted style)
I love you all. All the followers, friends, family, supporters. Couldn't do this without a single one of you helping to make this happen. We could never repay you for all that you have done. I pray God will bless you ten times over that what you have blessed us.
Love you all
The Nuzums :)
Just filling you all in with what is going on right now! Well...this past weekend a very dear friend of ours Sharen Cunningham hosted and put on a yard sale with the proceeds going toward our adoption. That was so incredibly sweet of her and we can NOT thank her enough. So many of you out there donated items to sell and it wouldn't have been possible without all of you..so thank you. Then of course the people who came out and BOUGHT stuff (especially those who worked the yard sale haha)..thank you thank you. We had kind of set a goal in our heads for the yard sale. We thought it would be really awesome if we reached $1,000. And we thought we had set a pretty good goal...because really....$1,000 for a yard sale is A LOT and we knew it could be hard to reach. Okay...well let me just tell you what our God did this past weekend. He blessed that yard sale 3 times over than what we ever imagined. Our total proceeds from the yard sale turned out to be $3,900.!!!!! (we round it up to $4,000 because it's close enough for me! ha) I mean SERIOUSLY....FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS for a YARD SALE????? Who knew that was even possible? God has proven time and time again to me how little my faith is. I thought I had some pretty good faith for setting a goal of $1,000. God you are worthy to be praised and you never cease to amaze me. Thank you for choosing to bless this adoption thus far. I pray that you are getting all the glory and that everyone is seeing that you are real and totally involved.
Okay, so we have raised right at $10,000 for this adoption! Not gunna lie...that hasn't even began to sink in yet. In only a few short months we have raised $10,000!! (sorry I have to keep repeating it until it feels real) That is UNBELIEVABLE and I am completely blown away. We only have about 3 to 5 thousand more to go. How amazing! Which brings me to my next paragraph :)
We are doing another fundraiser so bear with us!! ha ha. Richard and I are selling T-shirts to help us get a little closer to our final money goal. I will put a picture below to show you what they look like. They are $18.00 each. We have a standard t shirt and then we have a cute fitted style but I will warn you that the fitted shirts run pretty small. Just to give you how the sizes are in the standard t shirt. I (amber) am wearing the Extra Large and it fits me perfectly. Richard is wearing the Large and it fits him perfectly. If ANYBODY would like a t-shirt you can comment on here...on face book...in person...haha...just let me know some how. (the picture below is an example of the fitted style)
I love you all. All the followers, friends, family, supporters. Couldn't do this without a single one of you helping to make this happen. We could never repay you for all that you have done. I pray God will bless you ten times over that what you have blessed us.
Love you all
The Nuzums :)
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Patience!
Not a whole lot to give you all today, but I will just update the little that I can. :)
What we are doing right now is still...paperwork paperwork paperwork!!!! There is so much to fill out it is almost overwhelming! There is lots to do like: fill out form after form, criminal background checks, physicals, etc. So after we finish up this paperwork we will turn it in and then somebody will come to our house to complete our home study and tell us if we passed or not. Other than that...not a whole lot going on.
On a more exciting note: Richard and I have started getting stuff ready for the baby room, because once everything is complete we could get a call any day. Since we won't know the gender we have decided to do a neutral theme. We are going with a lot of different browns, greens, safari type colors. Now that we have started decorating the baby room a little, we both find ourselves just going to the room and staring at it! We are SO excited! HOWEVER....it is making it a lot harder to have patience!! Now that we are getting ready...we just want this precious baby NOW!!! :)
We just want to keep giving God all the glory for all that has been done! The support, the amazing deals we have found on baby furniture, and everything in this entire process!
Check out some pics of the baby room!!
What we are doing right now is still...paperwork paperwork paperwork!!!! There is so much to fill out it is almost overwhelming! There is lots to do like: fill out form after form, criminal background checks, physicals, etc. So after we finish up this paperwork we will turn it in and then somebody will come to our house to complete our home study and tell us if we passed or not. Other than that...not a whole lot going on.
On a more exciting note: Richard and I have started getting stuff ready for the baby room, because once everything is complete we could get a call any day. Since we won't know the gender we have decided to do a neutral theme. We are going with a lot of different browns, greens, safari type colors. Now that we have started decorating the baby room a little, we both find ourselves just going to the room and staring at it! We are SO excited! HOWEVER....it is making it a lot harder to have patience!! Now that we are getting ready...we just want this precious baby NOW!!! :)
We just want to keep giving God all the glory for all that has been done! The support, the amazing deals we have found on baby furniture, and everything in this entire process!
Check out some pics of the baby room!!
We love you all!
The Nuzum's :)
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