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