This has been a great family weekend. We celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary, Lauren's 12th birthday, and Jim's birthday!!! It was good to have fun as a family of four. We are anxious to get Eli home but also realize that our life will be different then. I am so thankful for a great husband and father. 17 years has brought a ton of adventures and I wouldn't want anyone else by my side. It is fun to look back and see how perfectly God puts people together. I am blessed to have someone who is perfect for me. Love you Jim!! We also celebrated the joy Lauren brings to our home. She constantly amazes me with her tenderness and heart for God. I love to see her mind working and watch her develop in to a beautiful, young woman. It is sad to think our time with her is going fast but fun to see her grow in wisdom and independence.
A God story.... a few weeks ago I received an email from a gentleman who is the director of Seeds for the Fatherless. It was one of those friend of a friend emails. He was wondering if we had raised all of our support or if we were still in need of funding. Their mission is to honor Jesus by helping care for the needs of orphans. One of the ways is to help adoptive parents get to their adopted child. This was an encouragement to us because most grants you get you have to fill out lots of paperwork and get your friends and family to give references. God just brought this to us!!! Each day we wake up excited to see what God will do. He has brought so many people to help us bring Eli home. Thank you Jesus for being so generous to us.
Some current prayer requests....
That we would get our court date SOON!
That ticket prices would drop at that time.
For Eli as he will be moved to the transition house.
For our children as we will be seperated from them while we are in Addis.
For our Pool Party, that the weather would be great and lots of families will be able to attend.
We appreciate your prayers for our family and Eli. We are seeing again how big our God is and it is exciting!!! Thanks for sharing our story with others and helping us Bring Home Eli!
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We are so excited to announce our Pool Party on Friday, July 16! Anyone and everyone is invited to join us. We are celebrating how far God has brought us in this process and hope to raise enough support to take us the rest of the way.
Help us spread the word by reposting this on your blog/twitter/facebook page.
Visit the How You Can Help page to see more ways you can be a part of this.
A couple of weeks ago Jim's parents were going through some of Grandpa and Grandma Weimers' things and they came accross this little guy. One lone little figurine in the middle of Precious Moments.
After looking at him Jim's mom flipped him over and his name was Eli. A sweet little black boy dressed in cowboy clothes and named Eli. I love that Grandpa and Grandma Weimer have had him all of these years and his name is Eli.
The winner of the tshirt contest is.......... Jenn Rogers!!!! She was randomly picked via Random.org. I will get you out your tshirt on Monday. Thanks for posting about Eli!
The tshirts have arrived! Thank you to all those who preordered theirs.
And it gets better - we're giving one away!
HOW TO ENTER
-Comment on this post (not on facebook) telling what size tshirt you want and who it's for
EARN ADDITIONAL ENTRIES
-Post this on your blog/twitter/facebook page and leave a comment letting us know that you did
-Add our new button to your blog (on the right side of the page) and leave a comment letting us know that you did
HOW TO WIN
-The winner will be chosen via random.org on Friday, June 18th
They look even better than I expected, and I made sure to reserve one of the smallest for Eli :)
If you want to get yours right now, click here.
$15
Adults - XXL, XL, L, M, S
Children - L, M, S, XS (the extra small is about equal to 3T)
Many of you have been calling and wondering about totals from the garage sale this past weekend.....Drum roll please...$1045.11
rom our garage sale at my parents and Jim's parents!!!!!
Praise the Lord!!! Thanks for so many great donations and time setting things up. Again we are so thankful.
And the Pizza Hut numbers are still not in, we will post that as soon as we know something.
I have been putting off writing this post because it is filled with mixed emotions. Last Thursday, Jim's Grandpa Weimer went home to heaven. He has been in hospice, and we knew his time on earth was short. The last few weeks he has been in a lot of pain and more confused. So on Thursday morning God healed him by taking him home. He is no longer in pain; he is dancing and singing hymns in heaven. I can see him scouting out fishing spots and finding all sorts of wonderful things to eat. He is happy and we are happy for him. BUT, we also miss him.
He has been the most amazing grandpa and great-grandpa. We have sat around our table talking and laughing about all the things he did. One thing I especially appreciated about him was how much he loved us. He LOVED us. He was so proud of his family and grandchildren. He loved spoiling us and taking care of us. But other things we appreciated about him, is how much he loved Grandma Weimer. He loved her so very much and was always serving her and caring for her. He set a great example of what love is. I also love that he loved Jesus, just in the last weeks he would sing hymns and songs of praise. This Friday and Saturday we will celebrate him and all that he has meant to us as a family.
Due to this, we have decided to postpone the parents night out. We had many great volunteers we were willing to do it for us, but we just want to focus on celebrating Grandpa Weimer this week.
I'm gonna end with a verse that I have been thinking about constantly since we have gotten Eli's referral... Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in him!
He has been the most amazing grandpa and great-grandpa. We have sat around our table talking and laughing about all the things he did. One thing I especially appreciated about him was how much he loved us. He LOVED us. He was so proud of his family and grandchildren. He loved spoiling us and taking care of us. But other things we appreciated about him, is how much he loved Grandma Weimer. He loved her so very much and was always serving her and caring for her. He set a great example of what love is. I also love that he loved Jesus, just in the last weeks he would sing hymns and songs of praise. This Friday and Saturday we will celebrate him and all that he has meant to us as a family.
Due to this, we have decided to postpone the parents night out. We had many great volunteers we were willing to do it for us, but we just want to focus on celebrating Grandpa Weimer this week.
I'm gonna end with a verse that I have been thinking about constantly since we have gotten Eli's referral... Psalm 34:8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who trust in him!
Today we are unveiling our new tshirts, custom designed by Sara Fitzgerald! They feature John 14:18 which says,
"I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."
John 14:18 is a special verse to our family. I love the simple statement. God's heart is for adoption; we are his adopted children. He did not leave us as orphans, but he sent his son to die for us so that we could be his children.
When we felt God leading us to adoption we had no idea of how hard the process was or just how draining it would be emotionally. We just felt like it was his design and that we needed to walk in faith to see what he had planned for our family. This journey has been a total walk of trusting God. We don't have a large bank account or any knowledge of Africa, but we do have are hearts that want to be obedient and trust Jesus. In the verse God says he will come to us and we long for the day when we will get to come to Eli. Just like God's adopted children bear the name of Jesus, Eli will be our adopted son bearing the name of Weimer. He is our son and we will come to him!!! Waiting on God's perfect timing to bring him home.
100% of the proceeds goes directly to our adoption fund.
$15 each
Adult Sizes - XL, L, M, S
Child Sizes - L, M, S
To pre-order your tshirt, click here.
Enjoy a night off and drop your kids off with us! Friday, June 11th, we are going to have a great time with some of the PLC Children's Worship team singing songs and playing games. Dinner will be provided.
To sign up, email bringhomeeli@gmail.com.
Please help us spread the word by reposting this to your blog/facebook/twitter page!
Today is our Pizza Hut day, if anyone is in the Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Waverly, or Grundy Center areas we would love to have you get pizza today!!!!!!!!!!!! You have to have our flyer for us to get the 20%. Please eat pizza today and help us bring Eli home!! Our family is planning to eat at the College Square Pizza Hut around 5:30 if you want to join us.Three weeks post referral. We can't believe how time has flown. Once we got our referral it got us moving in the direction of planning for bringing home Eli. Since our dossier had said any child age 0-5 years boy or girl, we hadn't done any planning. It is amazing to me how things are coming together. So many of my wonderful friends have brought over clothing that their children have outgrown, Eli has some very cute things to wear. It is nice to see his closet growing since our budget doesn't allow for shopping. :) Thanks!!
So if we are three weeks post referral we think in the next couple of weeks we should get our court date. It is crazy to think that in 4 weeks or so we could meet our precious boy!!! We just read last night that we should be able to spend some quality time with Eli on our first trip to Ethiopia. Sweet to bond, but hard to say good-bye!! So far I feel like time is flying by and that the wait to meet him hasn't been as bad as the wait for referral. Granted it has only been a few weeks. It is nice to have his face to look at and know we are working toward bringing him home. A picture that I have fallen in love with. He has the sweetest, biggest brown eyes I have ever seen. Can't wait to post his picture for all of you to see.
Thanks to everyone for your support. This has been a group effort and we are so thankful. Please continue to pray that God provides. He has been so faithful. Also pray for Eli, that God would begin to prepare him for his new family. For good health, to be safe, and to feel love from his current caregivers.
This weekend the weather has been perfect, hopefully, a sign of what is to come. The hotter, the better for me, although Jim prefers around 70. So one of us is always happy during the summer. :) Last weekend we had a lot of fun as a family. Our first trip to the pool, first barbeque with friends, annual family pictures with the Weimer clan and finished a few odd jobs around the house.
Jim accomplished a big project at our house, getting our large tree out of the front yard. We transplanted it when we moved into our house and the first year a large storm came through and it fell over. Every storm since it seems like we lose another limb or two. So Saturday Jim decided to put it out of its misery. It looks so bare now when you drive by our house. He is hoping to plant a new tree that in about 30 years will provide some shade. :)
A cool God story to end you with. Just this week my parents had a neighbor stop by their house and asked if they were collecting pop cans for our adoption. They said sure. He brought over enough cans to fill my mom's jeep and Jim's truck. The grand total was.....$130.60. All in pop cans!! Crazy. What is cool is how God is using people who don't know us to help us bring Eli home. Last week brought so many encouraging things, each day someone else bought a necklace, passed out a Pizza Hut flyer, or gave a donation. We are so encouraged that God has this. He didn't bring us this far to not get us to Ethiopia and back. Thank you Jesus for loving us so much that you care about this sweet little boy in Africa. We love you Jesus!!
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