We are Elizabeth and Allan Pack and were married on September 15, 2007. At that time we knew we wanted a family and have been trying to have a family for over 5 years. However, God has completely different plans for our family, and how wonderful His plans are, compared to ours!! In November 2011, after prayerful consideration we took that leap of faith and applied to adopt a child from Ethiopia. This is a great opportunity for us to build our family through God’s plan of adoption. Our paperwork is in Ethiopia and we have about a two and a half year wait time until we can bring home our child. We are waiting on a 0-2 year old and have no preference on whether boy or girl. We still need about $19,000 to complete this process. We have had a few obstacles along the way, but it has just allowed us to rely solely on God and become closer to Him. We continue to do a variety of fundraisers and trust that God will provide the way for us.
We have a 1000 piece puzzle and are selling each piece for $2 and putting their name on the back. When it is complete it will be hung up in our child’s room. We have a picture of the puzzle and a way to donate on our blog, www.thepacksareadopting.blogspot.com. We keep everyone up to date on our journey and fundraising opportunities on our blog as well. We also have a facebook page, Crafting for Adopting, where we have links to our online fundraisers, such as a restaurant offer, http://coupaide.com/deal/pack-adoption-fundraiser/ and a coffee fundraiser, https://justlovecoffee.com/about/thepacksareadopting/.
God has blessed us with great friends who have helped us a lot and given us great fundraising ideas. I started making earrings as a way to help raise money and thanks to a friend who works at a local tire shop, I now have them on display. The earrings have sold very well at $5 a pair and I enjoy doing it. We have had several big yard sales, where family and friends donated items for us to sell. We have friends who donated their time and skills for Zumba nights, along with Boot camp for men. Other friends have hosted parties for Mary Kay, Scentsy, Tupperware and Pampered Chef and donated a percentage of their sales to us. We also teamed up with another couple who is also in the process of adopting for a Texas Roadhouse fundraiser night. It was a lot of fun teaming up with another couple who has the same passion to bring our children home!
Our most rewarding fundraiser by far has been our Both Hands Project. God calls us to help the widows and the orphans and this was a great way to do both! We were blessed with the amazing opportunity to work on a widow’s home for the day. We had a group of volunteers come help us and all the supplies were donated to repair Ms. Mary’s home. We had people sponsor our volunteers for the day as we worked and all the money raised went towards our adoption. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RR8XbPURBM.
We have a few more fundraisers coming up, October 26th, we are having a BBQ & Bingo fundraiser. Then on November 2nd, we will be joining with that same adoptive couple mentioned above, for a putt-putt tournament at Fun Depot. Then, November 18-22nd we will be having our second Online Auction on face book. Our first one went so well we thought we’d try it again.
We have had plenty of fundraisers, all with good intentions of raising money to help bring home our child. Some turned out great financially and others not so great. But, when we looked back at each of those “not so great” fundraisers, we realized those were the best ones because God had done great things! We were reminded in Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Regardless of if we had been successful financially, we had the amazing opportunity to share our testimony of God’s amazing grace and what He has done for us. We love to brag on God and what He has done for us. We know He will provide the way and the resources for us to bring our child home!
Each Friday I’ll feature a different fundraising adoptive family. My hope is that we can support each other and also learn from each other. For submission guidelines, go here.