We are Here and AnnaBella is with us!

Just a quick note to my awesome blog readers! Grace and I arrived on Monday the 5th here in Sofia Bulgaria. We picked up AnnaBella on Wednesday the 7th. She is AWESOME!! She ran right to me when we got there!

Can I just tell you, she was sooooooo well cared for! When she came to the center 1.5 years ago, she was NOT mobile, and very unresponsive! They have cared so well for her, that now she is running and VERY interactive! What an amazing blessing they have all been!

We have just a little more than a week left in country before going home! Tonight we got to face time with everyone back home and introduce AnnaBella to everyone! That was awesome! We did FaceTime with my Dad, too! Yay! Grampa LOVES AnnaBella.

Little Does she know....Little Does she know we are COMING!!!

We got our travel letter today to pick up AnnaBella! We need to arrive in country on Tuesday, September 6th, and our "gotcha" day of our precious girl will be Wednesday, September 7th! 

We will be able to travel home with her on either Friday, September 16th or Saturday, September 18th! 

We are OVER the moon excited about this and sure do covet your prayers as we prepare everything here for travel! 

This trip it will be Grace and I going to get AnnaBella. Grace came with us 2 years ago to get Jerry and JoyAnna! Glenn is going to stay here with all of the kiddos!

God has been sooooooo faithful to us in how He worked this ALL out in His perfect timing! What a blessing that we didn't get travel dates the whole time that JoyAnna was in the hospital, and that we also got to meet our newest grand baby who was born last Monday! 

What a blessing, too, that Glenn's work schedule (he's self employed) has worked out perfectly, too! 

AnnaBella's Bulgarian name is Pepa. This means..."God has added!"...and He truly has! This will be one of her middle names here in America! 

God is good...ALL the time! This adoption, our favorite song and our theme has been John Waller's song, Jesus Hears the Orphan. Please take a moment and watch this. It's based on his own adoption story, and this is actually footage of their adopted daughter. What a blessing this has been! What a touching story! Jesus truly does hear the orphan! And truly, little did she know they were coming for her! That's how we feel about AnnaBella! 

Thank you ALL for your love, encouragement and support! We sure do love you!

AnnaBella is truly a Daddy's girl! 

This is her energy ALL the time! So kind and loving! 

Hang on sweetie! We are coming for you! 

It's Official!

Got this news this morning our time..."Court went well! She's officially a Winslow!" Our precious AnnaBella is coming VERY soon! Thank you for your prayers and encouragement!

FULLY FUNDED!!!!

Praising God this morning that we are MORE than fully funded for our adoption of Little Miss AnnaBella! What an amazing blessing from the Lord! Thank you Jesus! We got accepted last night by Gift of Adoption for an amazing grant, and along with VERY generous donations over the last 2 weeks, that puts us MORE than over the top which will allow us to get some important things we need to help get things ready for her when she gets home! God is good! ALL the time! ALL the time...God is good!

Good bye for now our little one...

Yesterday we said goodbye to our precious little AnnaBella. She blew us kisses from the doorway and waved to us as we got into the taxi. It was hard, but we are grateful for the 

wonderful care she will receive until we come and pick her up in a few short months. So for now our treasure:

обидам те

виждате много скоро
виждате много скоро

translation:  We love you! See you very soon!

God has truly added! To God be the Glory!

Our God is an awesome God! He is good, He is sovereign, and he truly has added an enormous blessing to our family in this little one. We have completed 3 days of visits with her and will have today and tomorrow as well.

Let me tell you a little bit about her. She is fiesty, she is full of joy, she LOVES to laugh and smile and run. She is determined, and she LOVES both Glenn and I as though she knows we are her parents, after only 3 days maybe a total of 9 hours or so of visits. She knows. She feels that there is something about us.

When we come in she runs to us at full speed with her arms in the air. She LOVES to be held. The first 2 days she truly favored Glenn. It was absolutely the sweetest thing. If he puts one arm down, she grabs it and puts it around her. She takes his hand and puts it on her face and makes it go up and down. She loves to be loved! 

She also LOVES to hold hands and walk. Here we had taken her out to get her visa photo taken.

Then yesterday, she wanted me to hold her, and me to hug her and she kept wrapping her hands around my neck and then placing my arms around her neck and squeezing me so hard. She is making up for lost time! 

Dear blog readers, she is in a wonderful place. She was moved there in November of 2014. When she came there, she didn't walk, and she didn't really make any sounds at all. Now she is running and jumping and communicating very well, not with words but definitely with gestures and sounds. She is ready to explode with learning! Of course it will be very hard to say goodbye for now to her on Friday morning, but we rejoice that her care is exceptional and she is LOVED here, she truly is. Of this we are extremely thankful! And so...we'll say our tearful goodbyes and then come home and wrap up the rest of our US side of things as quickly as possible and get the ball rolling back to Bulgaria for the final process. How long?? We don't know.

Would you like to help out? We sure could use prayers, as well as some additional funding, too! On the side of our blog are 2 ways to contribute. You could give a tax deductible donation to our Reece's Rainbow family support page, HERE or you could give to our You Caring Page  HERE. Either one is fine! 

You may wonder why none of the photos on the blog show her face?? That is because we are not allowed to show her face on a public media setting until after the court in Bulgaria declares her our daughter which will be in a few months from now.

Until then, please pray, and of course give generously, and from the heart!

Thank you all sooooooo much! 

For now, from Bulgaria!! Much love! 

Jesus Hears the Orphan

We have our referral of precious AnnaBella! We'll take our first trip to meet her March 19th-26th!!! We'd be honored if you would partner with us!!! Check out our blog side bar! You can give tax deductible donations to our FSP at Reece's Rainbow, or our You Caring Page!!!

Thank you! 

We sure do LOVE you!

A gift opens the way!!.....

I'm pleading with God to do what only He can do!

The count down is on! These are the final hours to give a tax deductible donation to help bring AnnaBella home! We sure do thank God for you! Look to the right of the blog. 

You can give a tax deductible donation in 2 ways:

#1. ---(most important!!)  Our Life song matching grant! This is a way to double your money! That's right! The money will be matched! Check it out: HERE Click on donate to an adopting family and then put in our account number which is 5534, and put in our name:  Winslow.  Right now we need $1,100.00 to meet our grant of $3,500.00. That's only 11 people to give 100.00!!! This will give us $7,000.00 which is what is due for our agency fees! What a blessing that would be!! 

2.  Our Reece's rainbow account.  This is money that will be used in traveling and in country. We'd love for that to read $4,000.00 before we take our first trip! That would be such an encouragement to us! You can check that out HERE

You can give to our You Caring Page HERE. This goes directly into our checking account and can be used for anything we need! This is NOT tax deductible! 

Thank you so much! We truly could NOT do this without you ALL!!! 

"A gift opens the way
and ushers the giver into the presence of the great." Proverbs 18:16

This is the heart of Jesus!

Have you ever found yourself longing to make a difference in the life of a child? 

 
Christians have a clear command to care for orphans, and there are many ways to get involved—praying, giving, mobilizing your church or adopting. Whichever you decide, you can walk down this incredibly rewarding path. Our hope is that you begin to see the face of Christ in these children in one way or another! 

We have been blessed with a really great gift! We have a matching grant with Lifesong for Orphans. That's right----matching!!! Lifesong will give us $3,500.00 once we raise $3,500.00! And you know what?? We are almost there! We only have $1,300.00 to go! We are just about 2/3 there! That's only 13 people giving $100.00, or 26 people giving 50.00, or 52 people giving $25.00!!

The end of the year is approaching, and ALL of these donations are fully tax deductible!!  The donation just needs to be post marked by December 31st!!!

Would you be willing to make a difference and help us to meet our grant?

That would be awesome! Thank you so very much! 

You could give in one of two ways....

1.  You could donate through paypal online. You can find the link HERE. Select “Give to an Adoptive Family.” Complete the online form and fill in “Family Account Number” which is 5534 and “Family Name” fields which is Winslow. Note PayPal charges an administrative fee (2.9% + $.30 USD per transaction). Your donation will be decreased by the amount of this fee.

2.  You could mail them a check, post marked by December 31st!! 

Checks should be payable to “Lifesong for Orphans. In the memo, note “family name” and “family account number” (Winslow / #5534) to assure it goes to the correct account. Please mail to Lifesong for Orphans, PO Box 40, Gridley, IL 61744. Lifesong has been blessed with a partner that underwrites all U.S. administrative and fundraising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). That means 100% of your donation will go directly to the adoption. 

Truly, helping the orphan and helping us to rescue our precious  AnnaBella (listed as Claire on Reece's Rainbow) is  the heart of Jesus! He says so in His word!!!

We sure do love you! 

Philippians 1:3--"We thank our God upon every remembrance of you!"

 

1 day and 13 hours left to give!

Just a quick reminder that on the 5/5/5 Reece's rainbow, the link is HERE....there is just one day and 13 hours left to give to the 5 families and one of them is us!!! 

Please take a moment and consider giving to help these 5 families rescue their precious children! 

It's tax deductible and would be an amazing blessing! Please give and share!! 

Thank you!!

It truly is a way of storing up your treasures in heaven...where moth and rust will NOT destroy! And truly a wonderful Christmas gift in honor of our Lord and Savior! :) :) :) 

Thank you Lowman Family! Our new prayer warriors!

Rainbow Family Warrior for the Winslow Family

See this big ole family....they are our dear friends in
Real Life.

Doing life with this gang is always part of OUR
 adventure....
their daughter Grace teaches piano to our kiddos,
 some of their
daughters run Bright Lights that our daughter
Kiara is a part of,
camping trips, Alert Cadet trios together,
retreats, and even home
 school days together.  But.....
the coolest thing about their family
and ours is our LOVE for Jesus
and the Orphan!

Our journey began around those last two 
things and we have walked
 along side their family through 
all of their adoptions....
it has been fun to see them
 grow in size as well as experienc

What does that mean?

Our job is to support them in prayer...
.we are working 
on a prayer team right now to lift up their 
needs as they come in.

They have stepped up to bring 

home this little sweetheart

 and make her a part of their family.

We thought it would be fun to step up 
for them to be 
their Reece's Rainbow
 Family Warriors....

What does that mean?

Our job is to support them 
in prayer....we are working 
on a prayer team right now to 
lift up their needs as they come in.

We also put their financial needs out there....
did you see their blog?  
They have a matching grant 
right now from LifeSong...
.it needs some boosting folks!  
There is a deadline on that..
.what a GREAT 
way to double your money ...
more bang for your buck!

We are also working on a fund raiser.
...look for that soon.  

Check out their blog at .
winslowsix.blogspot.com

So....check back often for
the latest and greatest on this
 new endeavor at our home ....
so excited for the
Winslow Gang and their new sweetheart..
..oh, and
I thought I would add this
 photo from our camping trip
together this summer at Moosehillock in NH.

This precious family...

We got this gift given to us at our little church today from a dear family who has loved us so much and been so very generous to us. And guess what?? It has put us more than half way to our goal for rescuing AnnaBella! Yes, you read that right!! Half way to our goal of $29,500.00!! 

Thank you dear family for "giving generously to us with a joyful heart and we are trusting that the Lord God will bless you in ALL your work and in everything you put your hand to!" Deuteronomy 15:10

Blessed Abundantly beyond measure this day!

A picture truly is worth 1,000 words! Today we got the sweetest delivery by the sweetest ever delivery girl. She had emailed me a few months ago and said..."Mrs. Winslow, I'm having a theater camp this week and on the last day I'd like to have a bake sale and take donations and I'd like to give the proceeds to your adoption!"  "Would that be okay?"...."Oh yes, sweet Alicia!  That would be awesome!", and so I gave her all of our info and pictures of AnnaBella and our new business cards and thanked the Lord for her.

A couple of weeks ago, she told me that she had the money and she'd like to drop it off. We finally made arrangements for her to do this today! This was the baggie of money that she gave us! And that is the total!! $472.43!!!! This precious girl with such a heart for the orphan gave us this HUGE gift today! God please, please bless her richly for what she has done! This isn't her or her sister's first donation to our adoptions! They LOVE to give and have often given their own change and hard earned money to us before! They are living out James 1:27!!! Thank you!!! We LOVE you! 

The Bible verse on my calendar today says:  "I will praise the Lord no matter what happens! I will constantly speak of His glories and grace." Psalm 34:1

You've Done It Again Lord!! You've Done it Again!

 Why do I doubt? Why do I worry? I know that God will provide! In HIS perfect timing! And He did just that today! Today...the deadline of our agency fee. God is rarely early but He's NEVER late! Oh we of little faith. We wondered, we were worried...and God did it! Thank you Lord! You've truly done it again! Truly you have!

And I did just that! I pleaded with God this morning. I got down on my knees and pleaded with Him in my "War Room" I told Him what we needed. And I got out of His way. He did it! It was when I got out of His way! 

My faithful and powerful God has come through! He cares for us and He cares for the orphans! He cares for and LOVES our AnnaBella! 

We are praising you Jesus tonight here at Grace Abounding Farm! More than enough money has come in to meet our agency fee! AND.....ALL of our dossier documents have been submitted!! EVERY single one! Submitted and en route for our agency!! Praising God!!! 

God you are ALL sufficient!

We have stepped out in faith. We have a payment due to our agency of $2,600.00. It's due on Monday, October 12th. $1,300.00 has come in so far to Our You Caring Account!  to go toward it. We know that you know this God! You know every detail! God we know you own the cattle on more than 1,000 hills. God we know that you have raised up the people that you would have to give this money. We know this God. God we know that you are rarely early, but you are NEVER late. And so we are trusting in YOU, God, the author and finisher of our faith. We are trusting that your people will step up and that you will use them to provide this for us. We thank you God. We love you God! We know you want us to rescue Miss AnnaBella Grace !!! We are anxiously awaiting YOUR provision.  Thank you Lord! Thank you! We sure do LOVE you!

A MATCHING GRANT!!!!!$3,500.00!!!!

We have been studying the All Sufficiency of our God! We have been trusting God's word: "My God shall supply ALL of my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Phil 4:19 And..."My heavenly Father knows that I need all these things." Matthew 6:32

We are praising God this day! We just received word that we have received a matching grant from Lifesong for Orphans for $3,500.00! Wow! That means that this amount will be matched to total $7,000.00!!!! toward our adoption expenses! 

That's just 100 people giving $35.00!! Isn't that awesome!!! So how can you give?? You can go HERE and fill in our information. It would be under the family name of Glenn and Mary Winslow. Our Lifesong family account number is:  5534. Please indicate that! All donations are tax deductible! You can also mail a check to: 

Please make checks payable to Lifesong for Orphans.
In the memo please note your gift preference with Family Account Number and Family Name.
(ie: Preference 1234 Smith)
Please mail checks to:
Lifesong for Orphans PO Box 40
Gridley, IL 61744
Lifesong has been blessed with partners who underwrite all US administrative and fund-raising costs (TMG Foundation and other partners). 100% of your donation will go directly to the need...helping orphans. 

Our goal date for fund raising is December 1st! Please, please, please take a moment and pray and see how God would use you in this mighty way! Here is a note from Lifesong:

Glenn and Mary have sensed God’s call to care for the fatherless and have joyfully stepped out in faith and obedience to adopt a child from Bulgaria. As you may already know, adoption can cost $25,000- $35,000 and this financial burden prevents many godly families from adopting. Lifesong in partnership with Chosen and Dearly Loved believes God has called this family to adoption and has committed an Adoption Matching Grant of $3500 to help bring this child home.
Funds donated to Lifesong for Orphans will be given to help cover adoption expenses. Lifesong is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and your gift is tax deductible. 100% of all funds raised will go directly to cover adoption costs--nothing will be taken out for Lifesong for Orphans administrative costs.
Will you invest financially in the life of this child? It will be an investment with eternal return. God bless you for laying your treasures up in Heaven. 

Thank you ALL in advance! We sure do thank our God upon EVERY remembrance of you! :) :) Thank you for helping us to rescue AnnaBella! We'd LOVE to email you a photo of her! 

Love Is...

Love is...

Siblings working hard to bring home their new little sister!!! The kids had a ice water and snack sale at the end of our driveway today! What an amazing testimony to all that came by!

Love is... THIS for sure and for certain!

JoyAnna was excited, too! 

God is "In it to Win it!" and so is JoyAnna! /Reece's Rainbow

We recently put our You Caring Page on Facebook to bring awareness to our adoption process and our financial need. That day we received 2 anonymous donations. The donation that was for $300.00 had a wonderful message attached to it. It said: " If it's God's will it's His bill. He's got this! Blessings to your family." 

This just blessed me BEYOND words! It really is the truth, and God has proven it to be true time and time again as we have followed His lead on our adoption journeys that He's taken us on!

The picture I chose for this blog post is a TRUE picture of a life redeemed! Redeemed from lying in a crib for 7 years. Rescued from 4 unnecessary and damaging surgeries to her body. 

Did you all know that in her country, they cut the tendons at each ankle so that she could NOT walk???

WELL...TAKE THAT ENEMY!!! Look at her now!!!! 

This photo was taken Tuesday of this week at her physical therapy session! She spent 20 minutes in the gait trainer and propelled herself forward a LOT!!! This is our precious JoyAnna Yanka Deneva Winslow! Here she is!!!! She is in it to win it! 

She is a LIVING, breathing testimony to the fact that she was fearfully and wonderfully made, and that DEATH has DIED and LOVE has won!!!!

And now as we get closer to meeting our newest little blessing, we are thanking the Lord for introducing us to her! Our little one that will be named Annabella! She is listed as Claire on Reece's rainbow, if you'd like to see a photo of her. She is precious! We also have our own Family Support Page listed with Reece's rainbow for her.

We sooooooo appreciate ALL of your love and support and encouragement! We could NOT do it without you!  Our next step is applying for our I-800A! We promise to keep you posted! 

What happens when we say, "YES, Lord, YES!" Part One/Reece's Rainbow

 You know what? God is good!! and you know when?? ALL THE TIME!! That's right! He is! 
I can't write this all in one post and so I'll do it in a couple.

So, come January of this year, we were going along with our life, which is VERY full, with 9 kiddos at home, when God started the prompting. ....."Hey, have you considered who I will bring to your family next?"....

"What?" I said. "Seriously God, our plate is FULL, we have sooooooo much going on, we, we, we, we,....." I was full of excuses and so was my husband. You see, at the end of January, early February, we had enough money in our savings account to put on a mud room. We live in a VERY small cape, and our space is limited with 11 people living here. So we decided a mud room off the kitchen slider would be awesome. Give us space, places to hang stuff, keep dirt from coming onto our new wood floors, etc. We had it ALL figured out! Right hun?? That's always when is happens! ALWAYS. When one of us gets the "nudge" to do something.

You see, even though our life was super full, it truly had settled GREATLY, and we were really sailing along quite nicely! (if I do say so myself!). To quote the lego movie...."everything was AWESOME! everything was cool with a capital "C" ". And...there was a mud room in our future to boot! Glorious space!!! YAY!! BUT....God saw something or should I say someone different in our future. God saw a way that we could continue to store our treasures in heaven, where moth and rust will NOT destroy. God saw a little girl. God showed us this little girl, again and again and again. And so in March, as a family we went and saw the limited release movie, "The Drop Box". 

 Have you seen it? It's out on DVD now! Precious blog readers, this movie changed our life! This pastor taught us so much about unconditional love! He's nearly 70 years old! A couple of the things he said in the film hit us right between the eyes and straight to our hearts:

Pastor: God sent them to earth with their disabilities. They’re not the unnecessary ones. They teach people. They live with smiles on their faces.

Pastor: We never faced any major troubles.

Glenn and I thought to ourselves, ..."how can we think that our life is too crazy with all that we have going on, and with JoyAnna and her special needs and all that we think is a LOT for us, when this pastor is caring for his own 27 year old special needs son with such love and compassion AND all of these other orphans in his care and the ones that get deposited into the box, too! 

And so we took  just about ALL of that money we had saved up for our mudroom, and we said, "YES", to this precious little girl. The mud room can wait! We were soooooo excited! We started researching and planning. Thing is, another family also said, "Yes" to our little girl, too! We said, "YES", at the same time.  And God saw fit that this little one would be matched with that family, why? Because God had another little girl perfect for us! Bait and switch?? NOPE! A total God thing! And you know what else?? God has put us in touch with this awesome family that God picked for that little girl, and they vacation only 1/2 hour from our home! We'll get to meet up with them next month! They are new to adoption and so God has shown us how we can minister to them and they can come along side of us. AND...how we can get our 2 Bulgarian beauties together sometime in the future!! Oh God is sooooooo good!

Okay, so we called our home study agency. They were just out to our house for our first post placement report for Jerry and JoyAnna. We asked them about a home study update for this new adoption. They told us that would be fine and someone would be in touch with us regarding when they could come out, etc. THEN, we got a call. A dreaded call. The agency had new management, and their clinical supervisor was NOT in favor of us adopting again so soon. Our children hadn't even been home a year yet. We needed to wait! UGH, and so we prayed. We prayed and asked God what we should do! We had NO idea!! We really felt like the door had closed! God prompted us to call back the agency and make an appeal to them. To tell them that Bulgaria had built in safeguards into their adoption system so that there was really no way you could bring home another child too soon! No way at all! You could commit to another child after 5 months, but that the new child or children would NOT come home for well over a year! So we made the appeal and they said, "YES!" We couldn't believe it! Well we should have believed it because God was in it! 

So they came for the update. Thing is, they were skeptical. Totally thinking that we were in over our heads! Seriously, the update meeting did NOT go well. Or so we thought. When they left, our eldest daughter at home said..."Mom, that didn't go well, and I do NOT like that lady!". So we prayed, and prayed, and prayed. They called us and said..."Okay, we are willing to do this, BUT, we have many parameters that MUST be met. They listed them......
1. Only one child.
2. You can NOT bring the child home before January of 2016.
3.  The child must be ambulatory (able to walk)
4. The child must be between the ages of 2-6.
5.  The child can NOT require surgery within the first year.
6.  The child can NOT have any severe special needs.
7.  Special needs accepted would be:  Down's syndrome, missing an arm, etc. 

The list went on! BUT you know what??? This list fit our little girl that God had shown us EXACTLY!!! And so today we just got this note from our home study agency:

"Hi Mary:

It is all complete!  Attached is a PDF copy and I am sending you two originals in the mail as well.  I’m also sending two originals to Little Miracles, per their request.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need anything else!"

WHAT???? This is a miracle! A total miracle!!!! 

This is truly what happens when you say, "YES" to the Lord!!! 

Can I get an AMEN?????