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Aren’t they gorgeous!! Purple, pink and creamy white layers of raspberry vanilla goodness! These smell so good and are here in time for Valentine’s Day! I’ve got 17 of these beauties for sale and they’re $4/each. ALL proceeds until February 15, 2012 go to the Loraine family to support them in their adoption. You can buy them through my etsy shop or send me a private message on my facebook page. Thanks!
I’m so excited to tell you that the Loraine family received a $4000 matching grant through Lifesong! They have until March 13 to raise $4000. Below are the details straight from Erin Loraine’s facebook page:
“We need to raise $4000 by March 13! 100% of all donations go towards our grant unless paypal is used in which case 2-3 percent are taken out for fees. Donations are tax deductible and can be made by a check made out to Lifesong for Orphans with a memo that says "preference Loraine #2473 adoption" and sent to
Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40 / 202 N. Ford St
Gridley, IL 61744
or donations can be made online through paypal at http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/donation.html
with the same memo under "purpose" by the dollar amount. Contact us with any questions. We appreciate your help in any way. This is a much needed grant and a huge blessing to help us bring Anya home!”
I’m donating ALL money received from soap sales to the Loraines until Feb. 15. After that time, I’ll go back to donating half of my profits. However, rather than send the money to their Reece’s Rainbow account, I’ll write a check on their behalf to Lifesong. My goal is to raise $300 between now and Feb. 15 and we’re already up to $35 in just three days!! Let’s keep the momentum going! I’ll have two new soaps up for sale next week and all of last year’s soaps are reduced to $3.50! It’s a great way to help them raise $4000…they get the donation and you get to smell great! Win-win!
As you may know, for every soap I sell I donate $1 to the Lorraine family to help them bring Anya home (see the cute little girl in the side bar). They have their dossier complete and are looking to travel in the next few months to meet her! For the next month, I’m stepping up my fundraising efforts and am donating ALL money from soap sales to the Lorraine family.
I have 29 soaps left from 2011 and they’re on sale for $3.50. That’s $101.50 that we can donate! I also have some soaps that will be ready for sale later this month and early February. My goal is to donate $300, so I really need your help! If you love Catie Beth soap, then tell all your friends! Let’s help them bring Anya home!
Wow, such great feedback so soon! I’m excited about this project and about the number of people already who want to help by sharing their stories!! If you are interested, please email me at gr8cate@gmail.com and I will send you a couple of forms that you’ll need for getting started. One is a loose guideline about the types of stories I’m looking for, and the other is a story and photo release form to be turned in when you submit your story.
Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!
January 24th marks Abraham’s 2nd Gotcha Day. Here we are meeting Abraham for the first time! Now, I can’t imagine our lives without him. This second anniversary of having Abraham in our family has me thinking a lot about the awesome faith journey we walked in order to bring him home and how we saw God at work first-hand to make it happen.
It’s estimated that there are over 143 million orphans world-wide. We know that God’s heart is with the orphan and, just as he adopted us into His family, He wants each precious child to have an earthly family. But what stops us from following God’s heart and pursuing adoption? I think one of the biggest deterrents is the cost. Adoption costs average $25,000 on both the domestic and international fronts. For many, the desire to adopt can come to an abrupt halt when they learn the cost. So many of us are already in debt or trying to make ends meet in a one paycheck household. How can we possibly afford adoption?
One of the best opportunities to see God work is when we trust Him to do that which we can not. There are so many lessons that God teaches us when we follow him down the path to adopt. We go from READING that all things are possible with God, to SEEING AND BELIEVING that all things are possible with God. Adoption is a journey of faith because it requires absolute faith that God will provide for the finances of adoption while still providing for us. Just as God called Abram “to go to the land I will show you”, the path for us is not all set out before us (Genesis 12:1, NIV). God places each stone in front of us as needed. He teaches us to wait for the next step and to trust that He will provide the stone for it.
Stories of trust and obedience are written throughout the Bible. We discover that God’s purpose is two-fold: the fulfillment of the plan and the relationship with the person. When the person obeys and helps God fulfill His purpose, that person gains a deeper faith and trust in God.
I want to write a book that shares adoption stories from the financial trust perspective. When we first started our adoption process, I clung to stories from friends who had adopted about how God had provided the finances for them. Lord knows, we didn’t have the money! We still had two car payments, two student loans, credit card debt and a mortgage! (We are now down to half of what we owed on our credit card...and still have a mortgage!) We fully had to trust God to provide the finances. I was actually excited to see how God was going to work in our adoption journey.
I’m asking my friends who have adopted, who have experienced first-hand God’s financial provision to make their adoption possible, to please consider sharing your stories of how God provided. And I hope you’ll consider asking friends you know who have adopted if they’ll do the same. I’d also like to hear how you fundraised and/or received loans or grants. My desire is to find a publisher for the book, but I would at least like to make it into an e-book.
My goal is to encourage people who are considering adoption but who balk when they see the cost. Just as we take encouragement from the miracles God performed in Scripture, we can take hope from each others’ modern-day stories of God’s miraculous provision! To Him be ALL the glory!!
Friends who are interested in helping with this project may contact me through this blog or email me at gr8cate@gmail.com.
Thank you!
My husband and I agree that this past holiday season was one of the most relaxed and enjoyable holidays we’ve had in quite a while. We did some things differently this year that I think helped our family come together more and focus on the spirit of the season.
We kicked off the Christmas season with a trip to Branson the weekend after Thanksgiving. We enjoyed all of the lights and the tree display at Silver Dollar City and had a wonderful meal as we watched the Christmas show at Dixie Stampede.
I picked up $1 Christmas crafts at Michaels during October and November so the kids had fun making their own Christmas ornaments and decorations.
We celebrated the Advent season by reading Scripture about God’s plan for salvation; from the beginning of creation until Jesus was born. Each day during Advent, one of the big kids placed an ornament on the branch of Jesse.
The kids also had fun opening their Lego Advent Calendar everyday. By Christmas, they had quite the Lego display built.
This was the first year we celebrated Hanukkah and we’ll continue this tradition. Hanukkah is a time for remembering the miracles God has given us. It was during the Festival of Lights that Jesus proclaimed himself to be both the “light of the world” and the Messiah. The true miracle is that Jesus brought the light of salvation into our dark world. Oh, what a meaningful celebration Hanukkah was for me.
For the kids, it was mostly about getting gifts for eight nights in a row…though they did enjoy lighting the candles and participating in the blessings.
I really enjoyed having my mom and step-dad, Gil, with us to celebrate my birthday and Christmas together. This year, I made Christmas dinner on Christmas eve so that I could have all day on Christmas to play with the family. That’s another tradition I’ll be keeping!
And of course Christmas morning was spent opening presents, laughing and playing. We started a tradition several years ago where the kids each get three presents: something they really want, something educational and something they need. We put the “something they really want” in their Santa Sack (that’s what Jacob is opening in the picture above). They’re always excited to find out what they got!
Shana Tova! It means, “Good Year!” in Hebrew and is the traditional greeting during Rosh Hashanah. This will be my family’s second time celebrating the Jewish New Year. And as I often do, I feel the need to share with others why we celebrate this Jewish holiday because, after all, we’re Christians, not Jews.
“”And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. For you it is a day of blowing the trumpets’” (Numbers 29:1).
Rosh Hashanah means “Head of the Year” or “New Year”. However, you will not find the words Rosh Hashanah in the Bible. In Scripture, the holiday is called Yom Teruah which means “Memorial of Blowing (of trumpets)” and it was a God-given appointed time for His people to meet with Him. It wasn’t called Rosh Hashanah until after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, more than 1500 years after its inception during the time of Moses.
In the Bible, the trumpet or shofar (ram’s horn), was blown for two primary reasons: to call a solemn assembly in God’s presence or when Israel was going to war. During the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the shofar is blown for both reasons. Old Testament prophets often spoke about a future day when God would directly intervene in the affairs of men; calling this day “The Day of the Lord”. This day begins with the blowing of the trumpet. It heralds the day when God will redeem Israel and bring judgment on all nations.
“Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand -” Joel 2:1
The Feast of Trumpets is to occur on the first day of the Hebrew month of Tishri when the New Moon is only a slight crescent. It required two witnesses to verify it was indeed a new moon. A second day was added to this feast to ensure the priests did not miss the new moon. Watchfulness was key.
So, why should we, as Christians, celebrate an Old Testament, Jewish holiday?
First, it is one of seven GOD-GIVEN feasts that is just as relevant to Christians as it is to Jews. The first four feasts are spring feasts (Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast of First Fruits and Shavuot/Pentecost) and were fulfilled in Christ’s death, burial, resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit. The next three feasts occur in the fall (Feast of Trumpets/Rosh Hashanah, Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur and Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot) and will be fulfilled when Christ returns to rapture the Church, judge the wicked and create a new heaven and new earth. Pentecost, the last of the spring feasts, ushered in the Church Age which is what we’re living in now. As the Church, we are “watching” for Christ’s return and the fulfillment of the last three feasts.
Second, Jesus and his disciples spoke of “The Day of the Lord” and told believers to keep watch and be prepared for when Christ returns.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come” (Matthew 24:42).
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) Emphasis mine.
When Jesus returns, it will be heralded with the blasting of trumpets! The Feast of Trumpets is a time for Christians to remember how God kept His promise of salvation through Christ and how He is faithful to keep His promise of His return. How sweet that will be! Let’s not forget to keep our eyes and ears turned toward heaven!
Third, every blessing which the Church enjoys come from covenants made with Israel. The provision of salvation to the Church came from covenants made with Israel. It should not seem odd, then, that the Feast of Trumpets, which was given to Israel, would depict not only Israel’s redemption, but also the rapture of the Church and God’s judgment on the world.
For me, Rosh Hashanah is a time of remembering all the things God has done for me and my family. It’s a time to remember that God is the sovereign creator and ruler of this world and that everything happens in accordance with His plans. It’s a time to remember His grace and mercy and to seek His forgiveness. The sounding of the shofar was often used to awaken God’s people to a spiritual revival. Isn’t it wonderful that God has ordained a time for us to reflect on our walk with Him and get into better step with Him if we need to!?
Our family uses this book to guide us through celebrating the Biblical feasts and understanding the importance of these feasts as Christians.
Enjoy some apples dipped in honey as you remember God’s goodness and look forward to a sweet, new year!
