Wednesday, April 23, 2014

"We Thank Our God Upon Each Remembrance of You!" Philipians 1:3




"May the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done."  Ruth 2:12

Words can NOT express our thankfulness for all of you!! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! We LOVE you ALL sooo much. Many of you we may never meet until we get to heaven! "What a day of rejoicing that will be!"

You have allowed us to come within just $500.00 of being fully funded! BIG HUGS to you all!

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Let the Count Down Begin!! 10.....9.....8....7....6....... "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

Praising the Lord this day...we are just 10 people away from our goal! That's right...10 people to give $100.00 and we will be FULLY funded to rescue our children! Thank you Lord! Thank you Jesus!  We are sooooo close. We covet your prayers and encouragement! Thank you and HUGE hugs to ALL of you who have stepped out and come along side of us!



So...a few announcements!! It's NOT too late to join in the Give A Way!! Please visit that link:  Wrapping It Up Give A Way

We also have a sweet gal that has stepped forward to help us reach our goal in another way. Check it out here!  Paracord Products for Orphans

Here is the blurb she wrote about us:  


Do you LOVE the Winslow Gang like I do? Did you love and pray for sweet Zoey before she went to her new home in Heaven? Were you, like me, touched by the Winslows' dedication to bring home a second child after suffering such a painful loss? I don't know if they have a Family Warrior or not, but since they are my 'family of the month', I'm planning to shout about them regularly until they are fully funded! If you would like to help this amazing family bring home TWO sweet children, would you consider dropping a little $$ in their FSP, or saying a prayer? From now until April 30 you can also order a custom, handcrafted paracord bracelet for you, your kids, or someone else you love, from me via this page (https://www.facebook.com/paracordfororphans) and all proceeds will go to the Winslows! So far I've got a little over $40 with their name on it... can we get to $50 by the end of this week? That's only two more bracelets! AND you'll be blessing me by giving me something to do! Please message me (either personally or via the page) for details on ordering your personalized bracelet!

And so...would you please consider joining with us and partnering with us so that we can reach our goal as soon as possible?? Thank you in advance! We promise to keep you posted!


We have our Article 5 next Tuesday the 22nd. Here is what that is:

Article 5 explained:
 
The Bulgarian agency representative attends the visa interview at the US
Embassy. At this meeting, the US Embassy representative will review your
home study, dossier and the child’s information and will approve the
adoption to continue. If they have any questions about items in the home
study or with discrepancies between the I-800a approval and the child’s
referral, they may ask for additional information. If they approve everything
as is, they will issue the Article 5 letter the following day. You will be
notified via email when this happens.
Once the Article 5 letter is received, it is translated & authenticated. This
process takes a little over a week to complete. Once that is complete, it is
submitted to the MOJ, along with all the second stage dossier documents
that you completed.
Your dossier file is now officially complete.

Then from Article 5 this is what happens:
Preparing the dossier for court
Once your dossier is resubmitted to the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) , it goes through a series of
steps that take about a month to complete. It is first given to the attorney,
who reviews the file and prepares the official consent for adoption by the
sending country under Hague. It is then given to the Minister for her
signature. After the Minister signs the dossier, it goes back to the attorney,
where the court petition is prepared. The dossier then goes back to the
Minister for a 2nd signature. After the Minister signs off on the dossier this
time, the dossier is taken to the courts by someone from the MOJ.
Then it's time for: Court
Once your dossier is sent to court, it is assigned to a judge. The official time
line for this a judge to be assigned is 14 days. Once it is assigned to a judge,
the judge has 7 days to assign the court date. How far out court is depends
on the judge.
Some judges will ask for additional information from the adopting family
before court and others will not. You will be notified of your court date and
any additional documents required via email from your case manager.
An attorney from the Bulgarian agency represents you the day of court. You
will be notified via email the day of court about the outcome of the
proceeding. The adoption will be granted unless the judge or prosecutor asks
for additional information, in which case, court will be postponed and a
future court date given.
Once the adoption is granted in court, there is a 7 day wait period before the
adoption is finalized. After the 7 days, it takes 3-5 days to obtain the signed
court decree from the judge.
Once the court decree is obtained, the new birth certificate is applied for.
This takes up to 5 business days. At the same time, the court decree is being
translated.
You will receive a travel date for trip 2 after the birth certificate is
obtained. You will be notified of travel dates via email.

And so...there you have it! Please pray for a speedy process from this point on!! We sure do thank you and covet your prayers!


Love:

The Winslow Fam

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Thank you for "stepping up" and helping us reach our goal!!

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



These are exciting times here at Grace Abounding Farm! I can't help but jump for joy as Glenn has completed our stairs. The treads are on, and the newel post installed and trimmed out, and the hand rail is in place. When we walked upstairs to tuck in the kids last night, it was soooo awesome! When we had church here today, everyone loved them!

At the same time as our stairs are being finished (after almost 13 years of living here!), we are "stepping" forward and getting VERY close to being fully funded for our adoption! Now we are only $1,000.00 from reaching our goal!!! How exciting is that?? Did you know that $7,500.00 has come in during the last 2.5 weeks??? Oh my goodness! God is sooooo good in His perfect timing!!! 

Thank you all SOOOOO much for "stepping" up to the plate and helping us! It's NOT too late to join in the give a way! You can see all of the items here:  Our Wrapping It Up Give A Way!!






  We are loving our new stairs! Thank you soooo much Glenn, and we are also lovin' how close we are to bringing home our new blessings, too! Step, by step, here we come, Jeremiah and JoyAnna!!!

 

Friday, April 11, 2014

Plantin' Pansies, Barefoot, Snowman makin', icecream lickin', raking fun this day!

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens" Ecclesiastes 3:1.

In this Spring season..(hoorayforSpringohhowlongwe've waited for you!!! )we had much to do this day! (Today)----This was a VERY good day. My Dad comes home from Florida today, and in preparation for his longly waited arrival, we went up North and planted pansies in my Mom's window boxes as a tribute to her. You see, each year on her way home from Florida, she'd have my Dad stop and get her pansies to add that much anticipated color to her winter window boxes!

What a beautiful celebration of Spring we had today, the kids, the dog and I! The only thing missing was Maddie who had to work...sigh...

 On the way to my Dad's we saw this lone Tom turkey!
 So...there is still a GREAT amount of winter hanging on at my Dad's, and so Edward and Jon spent our time there clearing the over 5 inches of ice build up on the walk way to get in! Tough work it was!
 So over the years my Mom has become quite famous for her window boxes!! It was such a blessing to do this tribute to her this year!






 On the way in, many, many, customers and even the post mistress came over to comment how excited they were for the flowers and the beautiful color!
 So...give us a 70 degree day, and still 2 feet of snow near the garage of my Dad's and what do you get?? Some barefoot girlies deciding to "chill" out and even build a snow man! Crazy!!!









 Hazel even joined in the fun!


 Here is Olof, the Spring snowman. His days are VERY numbered!





 And then...as though they knew we were coming...Bobby-Sue's icecream opened today! So of course, we had an icecream lunch after all of our hard work! Yay!!





 Then..when we got home, the kids wanted to rake and clean out the flower bed! Wow! Of course you can, I say! I also got to put in my own pansies in my window boxes this afternoon!
 It was a VERY good day indeed! Thank you Lord!

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Our Wrapping It Up Just Got Better!

We are VERY excited about our Wrapping It Up Give-A-Way!! Please continue to check it out! We've been able to add our Project Hopeful Support page as an option, and also, this morning, my dear friend Ashley Plourd added a $25.00 gift certificate to her awesome website:  The Salve Garden. Check it out! She makes awesome Salves and healing balms! We use many of them every day here!!! We thank you all so much for your generous donations to our give-a-way! It's been such a blessing! Now we are only $1,900.00 away from being FULLY Funded!! Amazing! In just 13 days, $6,600.00 has come in! Wow! We stand amazed!!! Thank you so much! That's $500.00 per day approx.! Wow!!!  So please keep checking out the Give-A-Way. Take a moment to check out the wonderful items!  We love you!

Monday, April 07, 2014

Wrapping It Up Continues...

Posted on my facebook page:

Be sure to check out our Wrapping It Up Give away page!! New items were just added including this awesome drawing by our friend Daniel!! Isn't it great???? Also season 3 of Duck Dynasty, and an awesome Bulgaria plate, too! Please share this link with anyone you can! We are getting MUCH closer to our goal!!! Thank you soooo much! Just a small donation will enter you to win! You can also enter to win by just sharing about it on your facebook page, or your blog and letting Frankie Miller, know about it! Thanks again!!

See the whole give a way right here:  
Wrapping It Up