The Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.

Of all the books I read in English literature in high school, this one stuck with me the most. In life we try to lay out the best plan to reach our goals, but sometimes things just get in the way of that happening. Those obstacles are difficult; at times embarrassing; and sometimes seemingly impossible to cross. Unfortunately, we find ourselves facing some huge obstacles right now on many levels, but one in particular has us especially concerned.

Despite our attempts to create a sound financial plan for Naomi's adoption, things have gone astray. We did not have to ask for help with Lili's adoption and while we knew Naomi's adoption was going to take some financial creativity on our part, we truly felt that we would have all the funds necessary to bring her adoption to completion. A few weeks ago we realized that our plan was crumbling and we needed to find an alternate way of putting the necessary funds in place. After discussing and researching several other options, we decided that fundraising was probably the best option for us. It is also a very common option for many adoptive families. Unlike having children biologically with the financial assistance of health insurance or even state assistance in some instances, adoptive families don't have an insurance policy in which they can file a claim for financial help. Instead, we rely on our own resources to grow our families and provide children with the love and home they so desperately need and deserve.

Although we are still discussing some ideas for fundraising, there is one that we have found particularly intriguing. It was started by a couple who are adoptive parents of two girls from Ethiopia. This couple returned from Ethiopia with a desire to help Ethiopia, her children and other families who want to adopt but need financial assistance to do so. From their desires to help, Just Love Coffee Roasters was born. They have been working tirelessly to put everything in place and will be launching this new program very soon. I'm happy to say that we will be one of the families participating in the fundraising portion of this program.

How it will work is pretty simple. Just Love Coffee Roasters will create a website just for us. They will give us a link to our own personal store front and we will share that link with everyone we know. Every time someone makes a purchase from our store, $5 will go into our adoption account. We can continue running our store for 1 year, until we have raised the necessary funds, or until Naomi comes home, whichever is first. At that time, our store will be closed and another family is then eligible to participate in this fundraising program. They only have a limited number of spaces available for fundraisers, so the sooner we can raise the funds necessary to complete our adoption, the sooner we can close our store and allow another family to begin their adoption fundraising efforts.

All the coffees from Just Love Coffee Roasters are 100% Fair Trade coffees supporting farmers in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Rwanda and other countries in Africa and Central America. So your purchase through our store will not only assist us in meeting our fundraising goals to complete our adoption, but will also be assisting farmers in these countries and of course allowing you to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee every morning!!!!

Please keep watching for the 'Grand Opening' of our store, which we hope will take place this Monday, October 26th.