Rocky

I know you're not supposed to have favorites and I love you all, but my favorite gift for Michael was from my cousin Emily. She knitted (crocheted? I don't know the difference, shame on me.) this stuffed animal named Rocky! As in, from scratch. There was nothing and now Rocky exists. She had a little tag around his neck that said "Hi! My name is Rocky!" I looked up, found her in the sea of faces at the Adoption Celebration and said "You made this by hand didn't you?" She confirmed with a nod. My heart got all chokey (I seriously wish I could just deal with emotions like a normal human).

But wait. It gets better.

I pull this book out the gift bag. "Oh how cute!" I think, "She made the character from this book!" I open the book. YOU GUYS. SHE WROTE THE BOOK. Emily wrote the story and her friend Alex did the illustrations and they had the book printed (we have the first edition, I feel like such a rock star. They have the second and third copies.)

She wrote a book and made a stuffed animal by hand for our son. 

Emily - thank you, thank you, thank you! We love you so much!

Michael's Room

The. Room. Is. Done.

Well I'd like a tiny little boy in the room, but I can have to wait for that.

 Marc and I found a similar idea for this bookshelf on Pinterest so we went to Home Depot, bought the supplies and made it!

 His closet with his tiny clothes!

 Dino bed!

 Security Guard in position

She's sniffed and investigated every inch of the room and every object that has come into it!

(they have no idea what's about to happen...)

Oakes

Marc and I first met 22 years ago. That is long enough to know in what situations we work well together and which situations we should work separately for the sake of still liking one another at the end of the day. House projects most often fall into category two. That being said, we are capable of doing different projects in close proximity to one another so we can still laugh and talk.

When we moved into our house the entire place was laminate wood floors except the back two bedrooms. I've wanted to put wood floors in those two rooms the entire time we've lived here. It should come as no surprise that such a project is expensive so it had to go on the back burner for a number of years. When we got Michael's referral I saw my opportunity to pounce.

We headed to Home Depot (Home Depot, as a side note, thank you for recognizing veterans and offering a veteran's discount - it means a lot to them. Lowe's, hats off to you as well.) and picked out floor samples. I suggested getting enough samples to just craft a floor ourselves. I thought it was a very Pinterestesque idea, but alas, Marc said no. After getting home, laying the samples out on the existing wood floor, squinting, moving them around a bit, and squinting at them some more we picked one that was a near match.

Our friend Oakes is a man of many talents. One of them is constructing things, he's the owner of A.O. Fletcher Contracting. We asked him if his company would put in the wood floors in the back two bedrooms for us and he said "Pssshhht. I'll just come over and do it with you guys. It'll be my gift to you and a good time to just hang out." Two birds, one stone. I was sold. (Seriously though, we love Oakes).

So one Saturday in May he came over and he and Marc spent 8 hours putting down the floor in Michael's room. I forgot to take "before" pictures of Michael's room, but we got "during" and "after"

Two cute assistants helping

For the record, I didn't shut them in the closet in this photo, they were no longer in the room

Then he came back for another Saturday in June and helped us with the spare room (and I snagged some "before" photos this time!)

I (we) love it.

Oakes - thank you for your time, your talent, your conversation, your laughter, your advice, your faith, and your love for us. Thank you Sarah, Maddox, Cam, and Stella for giving up your husband and dad for two entire days to come help us.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We. Are. So. Blessed.

(For anyone keeping track, the only remaining item on my "house projects" list is a kitchen back splash.)

Goals

You guys. If you've EVER even THOUGHT about meeting me, you know I'm what some may call "goal oriented". You'd also know that I'm very determined when it comes to meeting these goals and many of you have to slow me down and remind me that people have feelings and that it's ok to meet a goal in a casual manner, in a fun way. You may also know that I h.a.t.e./loathe/despise asking people for money.

The adoption journey tends to combine these two opposing forces. Dagnabit.

Our journey to Michael will end up costing about $30,000. We've paid about $20,000 from our own funds. And you guys, that was all God leading and providing for our finances over the past 4+ years. I can assure you we didn't just have $20,000 sitting around and were like "hey what do you want to do with all this money? I don't know. Adopt? Hey why not!" Both of us switching jobs near the beginning of this journey and actually making LESS money per year may have also seemed like an odd decision. There is more to that story, but that's for another day, another blog post. We needed help with the last $10,000. Rats. This meant I had to ask for help. And for money. My life is so hard, right?

We filled out more forms, more applications to apply for grants (secretly I like filling out forms and applications so this part was  not a burden...). We received two of the three grants we applied for and, for a variety of reasons, decided to only accept one of them.

Twenty two of you gave to Hand in Hand. You gave $4,100 and Hand in Hand matched $2,500 giving us a total of $6,600. WOWZA! This will take care of our airfare (heads up: no one at the airlines thinks it's neat you're adopting and offers free tickets)!

My friend Stephanie (we used to work together, but have both moved on to new adventures) contacted me and said "I sell Silpada jewelry, let me hold a sale for you and donate my  proceeds." Me, "What? Oh, but I couldn't!" Stephanie: "I'm doing this for you." An obvious paraphrase of our conversation, but she gave her time and talents to organize a fund raiser - it was such a huge help to us and she took it and ran with it at a time when I was feeling bogged down by so many other things. Stephanie - THANK YOU! So many of our friends look even more beautiful with their new jewelry...and we narrowly missed ruining one Christmas gift of someone who bought a piece of jewelry for his wife when we sent the thank you card. Luckily it was intercepted. Whew.

So many of you were just like "Hey we want to help, here's a check." You guys. For real. I get all weird in those situations because I missed the class on how to show emotions, so I get all choked up on the inside and then usually just make a joke or say something awkward and never actually say thank you in the moment and tell you how much you mean to us.

Our local Holy Yoga community came together and donated $655 to our family to help with this journey. It has been so great getting to know these women over the past year and hearing their stories, absorbing their advice, and sharing laughter and love has been incredibly encouraging to me. It's amazing how many adoption stories people have to share!

All that to say our goal was $10,000 and YOU helped us raise $10,125 in roughly three months.

We. Are. Blown. Away.

Why? I have no idea. It's not like we didn't KNOW you guys were awesome. That you loved us. That you were walking alongside of us. But when you see love in action, it's carries a huge weight to it, doesn't it? Words can get lost sometimes in life, but giving sacrificially of yourself, interrupting who you are, what you do, to give to us, to love us - that speaks volumes.

These are the stories I want to whisper to Michael in our quiet moments. How he was loved by so many before he was born. How he was loved by his  people when all we had was a picture of him to oooh and ahhh over. How God has been providing for him, for us, this entire time. That God has been writing his story - Michael may be frustrated by parts of his story, not understand the "why" of parts of his story, but it's a story that includes all of you. For that we will be forever thankful. You are loved. Not just by us, one day by Michael, but by God, who is writing your story too. Settle in and give it a read sometime. You might find you like it and want to dig in deeper.

Anonymous

To You Anonymous,

You're actually on my bad list because I don't know who you are (Marc said I wasn't allowed to tell you that). 

But seriously, your gift to Hand in Hand rocked our world. Typing "thank you" here doesn't seem like enough. How do I convey my  heart through my fingertips into a blog post that everyone else can read (that you may never read)?

Thank you for loving our family, for caring enough to give so generously of yourself. You helped us meet our goal - you helped us exceed our goal. I don't have to worry about travel costs now (which opens the doors for me to worry about other things! The world is my oyster!).

Thank you Anonymous, from the bottom of our hearts. We appreciate you and are so thankful for listening to the promptings of your heart. We are blessed by you, please know that.

Love,

Sara, Marc, and Michael

Eighty Three

Eighty Three. That is how many thank you notes we've written to people who have blessed us on this journey to Michael. That's eighty three acknowledgements in the past four months. In all honesty, it should have been more if we're including the people who have been praying, asking how we're doing, or answering our questions over the past 50 months!

We were (are) so blessed - old friends from high school wanted to help - there is a chance they may never meet the little boy they helped, but loving us and giving us a push on our journey was more important to them and that means more to us than we can express. People from our church gave to us, former co-workers helped out in incredibly generous ways, giving much of themselves. Friends have given toys and clothes. Literally the only clothing we've had to buy is socks. Michael has enough clothes to last him until at least kindergarten by our rough estimates :) Our family has been right there for us this whole way - even the far away family that had to send their love through the mail - their written words are cherished. Far away friends gave up an entire weekend to come celebrate with us and share in the joy - (loud) late night hang outs and lots of food made for the perfect weekend! (Also, as a side note, Marc finally believes that I'm not the loudest out of all of my Tuscarora friends. He hasn't believed me for years.)

I was a little grumbly while I was writing the thank you notes (I know, what an awesome attitude to have, right?). My hand hurt. I was complaining about what a burden it was that people liked us and were so generous to us. Why couldn't people not like us so I didn't have to spend time writing these notes?!

But you know what? Once I started writing out to each person what their generosity had meant to us, how it had impacted our growing family, my attitude started to change. My heart became full, then it started to overflow with love and gratitude toward our people, our community, our village, those who are on this journey with us, no matter how big or small their role has been or will be.

My hand was still dead at the end, but it didn't seem so bad anymore :) Marc and I long ago established that my handwriting is nicer so I handle the card writing duties in the family. He was a total champ though and brought us to the finish line by signing his name, putting cards in envelopes, sealing, stamping, and addressing each one.

This post can hardly sum up our hearts for you. Know you are loved, know we're so, so, so thankful you're on this journey with us, we want you to be part of it - even if life is crazy and we can't or don't express that in words often enough.

Drayke's Reaction

Our nephew Drayke had an epic reaction to finding out Michael would be his cousin. As a side note Michaelangelo is Drayke's favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Think You Can Help Us Raise $2,500 In A Month?

Dear Family and Friends,

As many of you know we have been following the call to adopt since July 2011. We received our referral in early March for Michael, our precious little boy! If all goes according to plan we will travel to the Philippines to bring Michael home at some point this fall. 

This road to adoption is full of many joys and challenges, the greatest joy being the expansion of our family now that Michael is part of the gang! The costs of adoption include the expense of a home study, adoption agency, lawyers, travel expenses, etc., with the total cost ending up somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000. 

We were recently awarded a matching funds grant to help with the expenses of our adoption through Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc. a non-profit private operating foundation.  Hand in Hand will match any funds, up to $2,500, that are donated through our friends and family for the expenses of our adoption.  All funds received through our friends and family will be matched dollar for dollar by Hand in Hand up to $2,500.   All donations are tax-deductible.

Please send all donations made payable to “Hand in Hand Christian Adoption” postmarked by June 9 to:

Hand in Hand Christian Adoption, Inc.  

Sara and Marc Pensyl

18318 Mimosa Court
                Gardner, KS  66030         

For tax purposes please include our name on the outside of the envelope only - do not put our name on the check itself.

You can find out more about Hand in Hand through their website at www.handinhandadopt.org , by phone 913-248-5015 or by e-mail at handinhandadopt@gmail.com.

Thank you for you for loving us, praying for us, and supporting us in this way!

Love,

Marc, Sara, and Michael

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And Then There Were Three

There is a new member of the Pensyl family!

We got our adoption referral on Friday, March 6...after a loooooong 34.5 months of waiting! I opened up the email while stuck in traffic driving out of town. After remaining calm, cool, and collected - and certainly not throwing my phone across the car with nervous excitement - I called Marc, and after making not-so-subtle suggestions that I should forward the email to him to read aloud to me, we decided we really did want to be together when we read the email! 

This meant we had to wait two days. And I thought 34.5 months was long. When I got back home that Sunday afternoon we said hi, generally acted ridiculous, made this gif, then we grabbed my laptop, sat down on the couch together and opened up the email and the attachment. 

I literally fell in love as soon as I saw his name: Michael. I have now experienced what it means to fall in love instantaneously. A true love burst. The feeling inside when I saw his name and then his picture was like nothing else I've ever experienced. We just look at his picture. I've looked at it so much that I can see it even when I close my eyes! 

We read page after page of information! We both "awwww"'d at his height and weight. After a brief pause we realized we actually had no idea how big he was because everything was in kilograms and centimeters. A quick Google search found us a converter...then we "awwww"'d for real!

Michael was born in Quezon City, Philippines and turned two years old on March 19. We had a party to celebrate! With cake! He likes to dance to music, can run fast, enjoys playing with the other children, waves "hi" and "bye" and more!

We have been so blessed already - a shout out of Jim Small, owner of the State College UPS store, who didn't charge us for the notarizations he did for us because they were for the adoption! The generosity of friends has just been so encouraging and heart warming! Our friend Oakes is coming over to help us install new floors in the back two bedrooms (one of which will be Michael's). Oakes is a contractor (AOFletcher Contracting) so he could probably do this in his sleep, but just wants to come over and hang out with Marc and I and help us out! Our friend Elizabeth is a yoga instructor (Elizabeth Hay Yoga) and each month donates the funds raised during her classes to a charity or special project. She texted to ask if she could donate to Michael's adoptions costs! Another family, who is very close to us, gave us an unexpected, generous donation! We are truly blessed and Marc and I have seen God at work in so many ways! I am so thankful and continue to pray for an open heart and eyes so I don't miss a moment of where He is at work!

I went to PNC Bank today because I needed cashier's checks to mail to the agency with the acceptance paperwork (so. much. paperwork. I told Marc that we're planting a tree with Michael when we get back as an apology to the Earth for the amount of paper the adoption process requires.) Anyway, the woman helping me at PNC shrieked with excitement when she saw what the checks were for and, it turns out, she had adopted a boy and girl from India! Then, the clerk next to her joined the conversation because SHE had been adopted from Guatemala, along with her sister! She was almost 5 at the time and remembers many things about it and was sharing stories and gave some good ideas of things we could do to help prepare Michael! Needless to say, the entire PNC bank now knows the Pensyls are adopting.

Up next is about six months of paper work, payments, and getting everything ready for the newest Pensyl. We will travel to the Philippines this fall for a week and return with Michael.

Blessings abound!

Michael (1 yr, 7 mo)