Whoa!

I'm always shocked when I click on our vine to see how our fundraising is going and see a large jump in the amount. That happened just now: someone gave us $100!! Thank you soo much, whoever you are. I guess that counts as 5 $20 donations :). I know of one other $20 donation on the way, so that's 7 down and 6 to go!! We can do this!

Do You Love Coffee?

I think most of us do, or know another coffee-lover who needs a Christmas gift. I am pleased to announce our newest fundraiser: Just Love Coffee, Just In Time For Christmas!

Here's how it works: you go to our store and buy some coffee. It's all fair trade. We get $5 for every bag of coffee sold. That's it! So easy. You can also click on the coffee button on the sidebar to get to our store.

There are several things I love about this fundraiser:

1. Absolutely NO work for us other than to advertise! Just Love takes care of processing and shipping and mails us a check each month! It is such a great organization.

2. Because Riley has special needs (I hate using that phrase, need to come up with a better one...), we can keep our store open INDEFINITELY to help pay for his medical expenses! How great is that?!

3. You get some awesome coffee!

Please check it out and consider buying some coffee for a Christmas gift, or just for yourself! Absolutely every penny goes to help bring Riley home.

Also don't forget we are doing our One-Week Challenge until Friday, Riley's birthday. We still need 12 more people to give Riley a birthday gift of $20 to reach our goal of $2000!

One-Week Challenge

UPDATE: We made it! Thanks, Katie, Nic, April, Erin, Michaela, Becca and Anonymous!

How much do you usually spend on a birthday gift for a friend, niece, nephew, cousin, sister, brother, or child? $20? Or more?

In just one week Riley will turn two years old. He won't get any birthday gifts this year. He won't have a party, he may not even know it's his birthday. I've been at orphanages when a child has a birthday and it's just another day for them. The nurses may tell him it's his birthday but there will be no celebration. If he's lucky, a relative might come for a visit that day and bring him some candy.

So I want to challenge you, friends, to give Riley a birthday gift of $20 or more between now and his birthday on Dec. 3. I am calling it the One-Week Challenge. We're about $260 short of having $2000 raised. That means we need just 13 people to give $20. I know there are at least 13 people reading this blog that have considered giving. Now is the time, friends!

To give some perspective, $2000 will fully fund Riley's plane ticket home, his medical exam, visa, passport, and a donation to the orphanage. Not bad.

Please leave a comment or send me an email if you are up for the challenge. That way I can keep a running total on how many people have donated, how many more to go, and update this post with that information.

We can't do this without you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a quick note to say Happy Thanksgiving! We are so thankful for everyone who reads this blog, prays for Riley, and has donated to help bring Riley home. We couldn't do this without you. We are very much looking forward to next year, when we'll have Riley with us to celebrate this wonderful holiday. And, God willing, we'd love to have Vika  in our arms by then, too.

Enjoy this day with your family and treasure them!

What's With The "The"?

I've gotten a lot of questions lately about "Ukraine" versus "the Ukraine": which is it?

I don't know why everyone seems to naturally refer to "the Ukraine", but I catch myself doing it, too. Grammatically, it's incorrect. Ukraine is a proper name, just like Russia or China. You wouldn't say, "I'm going to the Russia", would you? No, you would say, "I'm going to Russia". Same thing for Ukraine.

We do say "the United States" because it's referring to a plural, a collection of states. But Ukraine is a single country, so no "the"!

There you go, your grammar lesson for the day. :)

Map of Ukraine

My Favorite Kind of Update...

As a brand-new blogger I have been having a lot of fun and really enjoy posting. But my FAVORITE thing to do is update our vine as donations come in! Thanks to our generous friend, Melissa, we now have close to $2000 raised! This will cover Riley's airfare, visa and passport.

We still have a long way to go but I am going to celebrate every little victory! Thank you so much for your donations, they are soooo encouraging!

What Are You Thankful For?

This is the time of year when we stop to count our blessings. There's many things we are all thankful for, and I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this would say they are thankful for their family. I am, too.

But what if you didn't have a family? No one, none at all?

That's the reality for Riley, and hundreds of other orphans like him. And if you think he's too young to understand, think again.

I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Larisa.

Larisa came with us on our missions trip to Vorzel this past summer. She was adopted from that orphanage and this was her first time returning. She had a powerful experience and I'd like to share with you some of her own words as she recalls being in the orphanage:

I vividly remember when I was 3 years old in my orphanage, and most everything that had happened from then on. One of my early memories from those days in Ukraine was not knowing what love was, or how it felt to be loved. Being so little and knowing that the only person I had in my life to depend on was myself is something a child should never have to think about. Coming to America and meeting my new family was a dramatic change for me. It took me awhile to understand that I had this wonderful family that was there to love me and support me. As I got older, I began to more deeply appreciate what my adopted parents have given me, how much they have changed my life, and the opportunities they have given me that I would never have been given had I remained in Ukraine. I used to ask myself when I was little, “why is it that all these bad things are happening to me, and I feel like no one’s there to help me?” When in reality God has always been there. 

You can read her full story here.

So this Thanksgiving, when you think about your family, please consider donating to help give Riley a family. He most certainly understands that he doesn't have a family, no mommy or daddy. And as much as the nurses there can love him, as one told me this summer, "Nothing compares to a mother's love". What better birthday gift for a child than the gift of a family!

We are so thankful for all that have already donated to help bring Riley home. Thank you, friends.