Last call for Puzzle Pieces!

Hi everyone!
Mandy here again!

We need your help... we have somewhere between 3 weeks to 2 months to raise the last of our travel fees.
We are praying that we will be bringing our son home within the next month or 2. We began this fundraiser to pay for our travel fees, including flights and lodging and final adoption fees while in Ethiopia.

We have had some very generous donations, putting us well over half way there.

In fact, we only have 161 puzzle pieces left ... out of 500.

We are so blessed!

Please prayerfully consider a donation at help complete our family by completing this puzzle.

If you wish to donate to the Brandt Puzzle Fundraiser, 

Please send checks and and names/info you want on the puzzle piece to:

Joel and Amanda Brandt

312 N 14th St.

Wausau, WI 54403

Thank you!
Joel and Mandy

Please follow our adoption story

Puzzle Update!

So ...
I know it has been awhile since we began this puzzle fundraiser. It has been a busy few months (we will get to that in a little bit).

But first I want to tell you all thank you for your prayers and donations throughout our journey to bring home our son.

On 10/20/12 I made a plea for donations to get us to 20% of our goal before we left for court on 10/27... we made it to 19% (95 pieces - $950). This helped tremendously on our 1st trip.

Now, on 11/13/12, we are at 44% of our goal (218 pieces - $2180)

WOW!

It is so much fun to see everyone's names filling up the puzzle ... your have all blessed us greatly by your support and love.

God is Good!

We will be traveling in the next 3-5 months to bring Silas home.
That means we have 3 months to get the rest of our pieces sponsored
... that is 282 more pieces.

So, if you didn't get a chance to help already, please see the Puzzle Piece post for details.

-------------------------------------

Last week we got to meet our son. He is an awesome little boy with a great smile and catching laugh. He is such a boy ... he walks about 10 steps, falls down, and gets right back up to walk again. It doesn't matter if he bumps his head or if it takes him five tries to get across the room (complete opposite of Kiera, who would not try to walk alone until she could do it perfectly. I don't remember her even falling at all once she started walking).

We were able to spend 2 days with Silas and then went on a tour to his birthplace, Harar Ethiopia. You can read more about our trip here.

Thank you again and God Bless!
Joel and Mandy

{ Piece of the Puzzle }

For those of you that have not followed along on our personal blog, I wanted to share our happy news. The Brandt's have been given a court date for our son, Silas, for October 30th.

Yay!

This means in 15 days we will be getting onto a plane and going to meet our son. Then we go before the Ethiopian judge to declare that we do want to adopt him and promise to care for him as he is our own.

Of course :)
Praise God!!!

Then we come back home without him while all the immigration paperwork and passports, etc are collected. We will wait for a call to say we can come back (estimated 4-5 months from now).

That being said, we need to have another push to raise funds for these 2 trips so we can bring Silas home without any delay on our part. For this "travel fundraiser" we heard of a very creative way to both raise money and make something for Silas that he can look at in the future and remind him of all the people to helped bring him home.

Please see our { Piece of the Puzzle } tab to find out how you can help.

Thank you!
Joel and Mandy

The Concert Rocked

A big thank you to Walk by Faith for rockin' it for the Lord. 

This was truly an amazing night of praise, fun and prayer. 

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and for those who came to support us.

 This concert was a new experience, but ended up being a good one. I hope we can do it again sometime (what do you think "Walk by Faith"ers?)

We had just around 100 people...

...and we made $539 in free will donations...

...plus there were many people who showed interest in the shirts. 

(both styles worn by the band are for sale, along with many others ... so keep shopping)

I hope to have some video soon, but for now here are some pictures. 

Fun times...

...great music... 

(Tonya on piano, Blaine on drums, Joel and Bailey on guitar, Mandy on bass,
and vocals by Sam, Chris, Sarah and Sandie, along with Joel, Bailey and Tonya)

...lots of Dancing...

...even some crying...

...and glow sticks.

Thank you Walk by Faith!

Concert Tomorrow

Please pray for us tomorrow...

Our benefit concert is tomorrow night.
I am nervous.
I am excited.
I get to play bass in the band ... sing a song that was our theme for our first adoption (that until a few weeks ago I could not even hear without crying) ... and I have get to speak in front of people.

Yes it is exciting and nerve racking, but it is something I am passionate about and I want others to be passionate too.

Please pray that ...
1. People come :)
2. The band rocks it (like we know we can)
3. God gives us the words to speak
4. Lives are impacted (those in the crowd and the children they will touch through adoption or support of those who are adopting or prayers for the orphans)

Now I better go get some sleep!

Blessings,
Mandy

http://perfectloveunafraid.blogspot.com/p/benefit-concert.html

Concert in T - 10 days

Please mark your calendars for the FREE adoption awareness concert on next Sunday night the 16th of Sepetmeber. 

The band has been practicing and it is looking to be a fun time

...with a few "surprises" up their sleeves. 

So come on over to Trinity Lutheran Church on Stewart Avenue at 6:30pm 

See you There!

New T-Shirts Available

As we are gearing up for our next event ... Walk be Faith Concert on September 16th ... we want to remind you that there awesome T-shirts available through Wild Olive Tees (Code: BERINGER524) and now Adoption Bug (with some options for men).

Take a look and share your support for our adoption with some great tees.

Thanks!
Mandy & Chris

Answered Prayer!

God answers prayers!!!

I am totally convinced of this.

As I posted a few weeks ago, we accepted a referral of a baby boy in Ethiopia. The referral fee is $10,000. This payment was required to be sent along with our referral acceptance form.

But...Joel and I don't have $10,000 to pay all at once.

So, what did we do?

We prayed!..

Then called our agency and asked if we could pay it in installments.
There response...
We could pay $5000 now, then the rest would be due by the end of August.

A little more time, but not much considering we still needed $5000 and would need another $5000 in less than 1 month.

But anything is possible with God!

Yesterday we received an email from JSC Foundation stateing we had received a grant for $10,000 and the check was already on the way to our agency.

What? Really?

Thank you God for answered prayers!

Now we wait to be assigned a court date (probably in late fall) so we can go meet our precious little guy.

Thanks for all who are praying for us and supporting us through our fundraising efforts. We are so humbled and blessed by all of you!

Joel and Mandy

10% of Goal

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to shout out that after I made a deposit today, i noticed ...we reached 10% OF OUR GOAL amount of $40,000.

Thank you everyone for your support and prayers.

Keep watching for new events...
*There is still time to sign up for the photography sessions
* and watch for information on the free concert coming up in September.

Blessings,
Mandy & Chris

P.S. Joel and I accepted a referral of a beautiful baby boy in Ethiopia. We are so overjoyed. Stop by our family blog to follow along on our journey as we wait and prepare to bring our son/baby brother home to our now family of 4 ---Mandy

Next ... Photography Fundraiser

Thanks to our friend and amazing photographer, Lisa at Bluesixteen Photography and Design, we have scheduled our next fundraiser.

Check out the { Photography Fundraiser } tab at the top for details...

And don't forget to book your spot!
(there isn't much time, and limited availability)

Did you notice we get 50% profit?... and you get the digital rights to all the pictures?

I think this is such a great deal for you (and blessing to us).

Thanks!
Mandy & Chris

Happy Summer!

I hope you all are having a summer full of God's blessings!

We have been having some family time and rejuvination time these last few weeks, but hope to get going on some more fundraising/planning as we move into this month.

Keep checking back for new events and updates.

Meanwhile, ponder this ...

Acts 1:8 says:

⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

We are called to be witness (missionaries) at home, in our city, state, country and world. Enjoy being where God has called you and doing His work.

I am enjoying seeing His work and plan through this adoption ministry that He has set on our hearts. I cannot wait to see where He leads us next in this. Thank you for joining us in this exciting time.

Blessings,
Mandy

And the total is ...

$ 3,205 

 Yes that is correct...

 We made over $ 3,000 at our garage sale fundraiser this last weekend.

Everything has been deposited into our adoption accounts. It is awesome to see such a good result of our first fundraiser.

 Thank you for all of our support! 

And keep watching... We are beginning planning for our next few events.

You can follow along on our fundraising progress by watching the thermometer to the left.
I know the goal number looks large, but we know that God's plan for our families is to adopt and therefore we trust that he will provide. It is exciting to see Him at work.

God Bless all of you!
Mandy & Chris


P.S. We plan to have breakdown of where all the money needs to go in terms of our adoptions for those of you who are interested. (once we have time to get it set up)

Last Day of the Garage Sale Fundraiser

It is Saturday ...
That means it is the last day for our first fundraiser.

 We have been truly blessed with supportive friends, generous customers, and great weather (except for the hail that caused us to close up an hour early yesterday) ... I think God knew we needed rest.

 We will have most items discounted today and there are still new items that were donated last night ....

 So stop by again or for the first time and see what you can find.

 Thank you all for your prayers and other support.

 Blessings!

It All Begins Tomorrow ...

In less than 8 hours we will be pulling things out of the garage, putting up signs and tents, and making sure all of our wonderful items are placed, looking their best, and ready to sell.

I guess I should be going to bed, but not sure if I will be able to sleep with all the excited of tomorrow and our first fundraiser.

Thank you for all the prayers and please stop by if you are in the area.

Mandy

Only One More Day.....

Until we kick off our first fundraiser!

Our Adoption Awareness/Garage Sales

Yikes!! Yay!

Scary! Excited!

We have been working on this garage sale forever since the end of May.  Wow.

We have had so much help and support from our sweet friends!

Thank you L, T, D, J, and S!!!  Y'all rock.

We have received so many donations....like a ton!!!

I have a three car garage y'all.....
And we still had to store items in my house!

We have had so much fun.

We have laughed.

We have talked.

We have priced.

We have hanged so many clothes.

We have folded so many clothes.

We have arranged and re-arranged.

Our kids have gone wild!!!!

For Real!


I feel God's hands all over this.
Our friends are learning so much about adoption.
They are telling other people about adoption.

Our neighbors are learning so much about adoption.
They are telling other people about adoption.

It  has been Mandy and my hope and intention to bring awareness about adoption and the world wide orphan crisis to our community.

Mandy and I want to inform and educate.
We want people to ask us questions.
We can not wait to share!!!

What a perfect platform God has given to us to do just that!

And so, in just one day.....

We kick off this first fundraiser.

This opportunity to tell others about adoption!

So cool!

So God!

So perfect!!!



"There is not fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear...."
1 John 4:18

Fundraising.....the Garage Sale.

This is a whole new way of thinking for me.

We did not have to fundraise for our first two adoptions.  We received unexpected money after my father died.  I believe my father would be pleased.

So now we begin this chapter.

The Fundraising chapter.

How does one begin?????

For us, we began with prayer.

Truly.

I believe God wants us to become even more dependent on Him.  He wants us to be so deeply connected to Him.  He wants us to trust Him completely.

I believe this journey to our child will glorify Him.

I believe with my whole heart that He will provide.

Then we went to our friends and asked them for support, advice, and help.
They are our team!


And let me tell you, our friends have been amazing.  This group of ladies have been incredible.  What a blessing they are to Mandy and me.

We decided for our first fundraiser that we would 'try a garage sale'.  We had a meeting.  We brainstormed.  We picked a date.  We prayed and asked for God's direction.....we prayed and hoped that we could honor God through this garage sale.  We decided that we also wanted to bring awareness about adoption to our community. We choose our theme:

Perfect Love.

We based it on 1 John 4:18.

"There is no fear in love.  But perfect love casts our fear..."

Pretty much perfect....for us.

So....

We made posters.

We ordered business cards from Vista print.

We put announcements is our church bulletin and other local churches.

We put up flyers around our city.

We asked for donations.  Boy, did we get donations.  Holy-Moly!

We have been working on this garage sale forever about three weeks.

I asked the general manager of our local Christian radio station if there was any way they could help us.

Guess what?

They are coming to our garage sale!
For real!
For one morning, they will be broadcasting, providing food, and doing some give-aways.

We are so blessed.

Our garage sale is next Thursday, June 21.

I can't wait to see God's blessings.  I can't wait to see how He provides.  I can't wait to talk about adoption.  I want to share about the world wide orphan crisis.  I want people to know they can make a difference.  I am hoping that we can inspire some one to consider growing their family through adoption.

This.Is.So.Exciting!!!!!!

Our kids. Lunch break and complete silliness.

And {our} happy baby.  Everyone needs a happy baby!!

Getting Ready

We are gearing up for our first fundraiser ... the garage sale.

Just wanted to give you a preview ...

(clothing, toys, household items)

 (furniture, furniture and more furniture)

(No, my daughter is not for sale, but obviously she thinks she is worth many stickers)

We are overwhelmed by the amount of support given to us already. We have had many people come to help us set up, as well as others from our extended community give donations to the sale. Thank you all for your support. We cannot wait to see what God has planned for this event. 

Blessings!

Mandy & Chris

Stuff Needed...

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for stopping by to check us out.

Hopefully you will be noticing signs going up around Wausau in the next few weeks for our upcoming Adoption Awareness Garage Sale. This Sale is coming fast (June 21-23) and we are asking for donations of items to sell. See the {Garage Sale Fundraiser} tab at the top of the blog for more information on the event and how to donate. We really want to make this event a great starter for our fundraising efforts.

Thank you all for your support. Please "follow" our blog, using the button in the column on the right to get the latest updates. And please share this sight with your friends.

Keep checking for updates.
God Bless!

Mandy and Chris

Welcome!

Welcome to Perfect Love! 

This is a blog designed for 3 main reasons: 

First, to talk about adoption and God's call for us to "to look after orphans and widows in their distress." 

Second, to raise funds for 2 families to bring home their children from China and Ethiopia.

Third, to share with you our stories as we go on this journey of faith and family, with God as our guide and every one of you that He has put in our lives as supporters and prayer warriors.

God Bless You All!