Our Merry Christmas December Wait List Numbers!

Baby Boy Siblings (3 months-3 yrs old)
Yay! We have officially entered the 20's!

 

  Baby Boy (3 months-12 months)
We jumped so many spots on the boy list last month and only 1 spot this month! The wait list is very unpredictable at times but we take hope knowing that our God is in control of this list and we will bring home our baby(s) at the exact time He has chosen!

Our November Waitlist Numbers!

           Baby Boy Siblings (3 months-3 yrs old)

 

Baby Boy (3-12months old)

Firetruck quilts for our babies!!!

Grandma Bennett made two beautiful firetruck quilts for her soon-to-be great grandbaby boy(s)! She presented them to Andrew and I during our Thanksgiving celebration today!

THANK YOU GRANDMA! 

We love them!

Thank you for helping "change" a child's life!

We wanted to give a BIG thanks to all of you who donated your spare change to our baby bottle fundraiser! We finally took all the change to the bank today to get deposited. After counting thousands of coins (with over 3,000 in pennies), the grand total came to:

$725.43!!!

With this money we were able to pay for the U.S immigration fees for our child  to come home!

Waiting...

Our journey continues and the lessons in patience seem to grow. We are excited to be done with our dossier and waiting for a referral! Our waiting list numbers can't get small enough fast enough! We knew this process would take time but it seem so much longer and slower as we get closer to bringing our baby(ies) home. We are thankful for all the prayers and support we have received through the process. Megan is getting ready to finish her RN and I am continuing my studies while we wait. I am thankful for the distractions to help us pass the time. I know that we will be on a plane headed to Ethiopia before we know it!

As a soon to be Father I can’t help but be a little anxious but mostly excited! I know that there will be challenges and many more lessons for me as this is all new to me. I am thankful for an amazing wife who is more than ready for a baby! I know we will be able to handle the challenges and I can’t wait to share the joys that will come with being a parent! 

We will continue to keep everyone updated as we hear more. We are grateful for your continued prayers for the right baby(ies) in the right time!

Andrew

NOTE: Megan has decorated the baby room and it looks great and the only thing missing is the baby(ies)! Click here for pictures!

Seattle AIDS Walk/5k Run Sept. 25th 2010!

Everybody needs their very own Adoption T-shirt! ;-)

We have several adoption T-shirts left over from the 1/2 marathon "run for a child" fundraiser! We payed $6.50 each for them so we are just wanting to sell them for that amount or for your donation! All proceeds will of course go towards our adoption fund! We have all sizes left! Just email us at: Megandrew7@gmail.com and we will get one to you!

This is the fun part!

I have had so much fun the past few weeks going to garage sales every Friday morning and cruising Craigslist for baby stuff! It has been amazing to see the kinds of deals I have been finding! The whole nursery is full of used baby items that were either given to us by friends, family and sometimes random people, or found at garage sales and Craigslist! We have bought nothing new! God is so good and has really been blessing us through others.

It's funny how the mention of our adoption at a garage sale influences the seller to lower the price. It usually goes like this: I am looking around at the cute baby boy clothes and ask "how much for this baby sleeper?" "All the clothes are $2 a piece" says the seller in a very matter of fact tone. She then asks "how old is your baby?" I respond with a smile, "Well, I'm not quite sure." Of course my response usually is followed by a disturbed look on that mother's face as she is probably thinking of what a horrible mother I must be not to know my child's age. I then go on to explain that we are adopting a baby and do not know the age as of yet. "oh...(sigh of relief on mother's face) that is wonderful!" I say the usual thank you and yes we are excited. As I continue to look through the baby clothes the mother says "how about 3 for a $1 in instead of $2 a piece?"
I don't mind paying full price for items, especially garage sale full prices but it is so nice to see how God blesses us in even the little things!

Help "Change" a child's life!

Help “change” a child’s life by donating your spare change!

All funds will go towards helping us bring home our adopted baby from Ethiopia!

Please let us know by email if you would be willing to fill up a baby bottle with your spare coins or dollar bills!

Our goal is to collect all the bottles by August 31st! 

This is our last adoption fundraiser before we bring our baby home!

Thank you so much for your support!

Andrew & Megan Charvet

megandrew7@gmail.com

 

Hurry up and wait!

Well, I have not posted in awhile so thought it is time for an update. Things have been really busy lately. I started a new nursing job working full time nights and I also work part time at the hospital too! All the funds from the nursing job are going straight into our adoption fund! Andrew is working full time plus part time school as well!

Since the possibility of adopting two babies, we needed to add several thousand dollars to the funds we need to raise. With working overtime shifts, applying for a grant, doing the baby bottle fund raiser and PRAYER, we are confident that God will provide the necessary funds we need to bring are babies home!!!

So many people have been asking where we are in our adoption process. Well, we had a couple setbacks that were quite frustrating but we know that God has a perfect plan and timing. Our adoption case worker had to leave the state in an emergency before she finished our home study. We waited for a while and then AGCI said that they would go ahead and move the process along despite the undone home study. We sent in our dossier last week and we have a couple changes that we need to make in the next couple days then we are officially on the wait list! Our wait list will be very short due to our adoption of a special needs child so once the agency begins looking for a child for us, it shouldn't take too long before we travel to Ethiopia!

During this wait time we are working a lot, spending time together and getting our babies' room ready! We have decided to do a fire truck theme so we are adding decor as we find it at garage sales and Craigslist!

Please keep us in your prayers as we wait! It is much more difficult than I anticipated. Unlike a pregnancy, we do not have a "due date" and things are very uncertain. Are we getting one child or two? What will their ages be? What will their backgrounds be? Will they be very sick? Will we get to meet the birth mother or will she have passed from AIDS? So many questions and uncertainties. Please pray that God will give us peace and patience.
Thank you!

                                                   Our baby room under construction!

Run for a child May 30th 2010!

Well, we did it! We all ran/walked the 1/2 marathon & 10k to raise money for our adoption! The trail was a lot harder than we all anticipated with steep muddy hills, rocky terrain and small creeks to cross! We are so proud of everyone, it was not an easy feat! Thanks to all the participants and all who prayed for us, cheered for us. For our camera crew, and for all our sponsors! THANK YOU!!!

  

This is the group of runners minus a few who were not there yet!

                                    Getting all warmed up and ready!

                                                                    Yay Molly!!!

 

And Todd making it look easy with an incredible running time!

                                                Bryan & Karin! You guys are amazing!

                                               Jo and his battle wound from the trail!

                                 Jing-Ping with a "I'm so glad this is over" smile on her face!

                                                       My Amazing Mother!!!

                                             Andrew, Megan & Sara!

                                                            Peter Andrews and family!

Praying for two...and yes the rumors are true!

Andrew and I have been thinking and praying a lot in double lately! We feel like God has recently lead us to possibly adopt a sibling group instead of just one child. We spoke to our social worker about it during our last home study visit and she thought it was a great idea!

By now you may be wondering why two? Why would they want the extra hassle of buying two of everything, having two crying and screaming children riding back with them on a 36 hour travel from Ethiopia, or paying the extra fees in order to bring home a second child? We say, why not? With double cribs, highchairs and medical bills also comes double joys! Are reasons for requesting two children (besides the fact that we feel God's leading) are as follows:
     First, we know that the transition from leaving the orphanage in Ethiopia, perhaps the only home our child has ever known will certainly be easier if he or she has a sibling to share the experience with. Everything they know will be unfamiliar to them, including us, so having one familiar person in their life will aid in the transition to a life with their forever family!
      Secondly, we know that we want to adopt more than one child at a time because from a financial standpoint, it is much more cost effective to spend a few thousand for a second child now than another $30,000 a couple years down the road. Also, if we adopt a second time, we have to complete ALL the paperwork over again and that is not something I want to do again anytime soon (although it is totally worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat :-)
      Thirdly, there is a greater need for families to adopt sibling groups. They usually fall into the 'waiting children' category along with kids with special medical needs, and older children.

We don't know if God will for sure bless us with siblings but we are excited for the possibilities! whether one or two, we know God has a perfect plan for our little family and I can't wait to see it all unfold! Please pray that we can get the last several thousand dollars we still need and that the rest of the process will continue to go smoothly!

Hannah's Hope in Addis Ababa!

                          This is where our baby/babies will be staying when we go to pick them up!

Adoption Garage Sale Success!!!

WOW! Our garage sale went amazingly well last weekend! Despite the occasional rainy weather, we had a huge turn out with many customers. People were so great and would tell us to keep the change after buying something. My favorite customers were the ones that would bargain us down on an item they wanted and would then give a donation that was more than the money they saved from bargaining! I guess it made them feel better to get a good deal and donate to our cause! People are funny.

A BIG thanks to the Partsch family, specifically Susan, John, Ashlyn & Grandma, the Charvet family, Genie, Kelvin, Mary & Paul, Shelly Stern, Emily Savage, the Jewett family, and to all the many people that donated so many items so that the fundraiser could be such a HUGE success! THANK YOU!

Are you ready to hear the total?.......Drum roll please............

$2900 (approx) !!! WOW! This is unheard of for a garage sale! That is enough for two round trip tickets to Ethiopia! Praise the Lord!

Need Bake Sale goodies:)

Hey Everyone! My little sister Ashlyn is in charge of the bake sale at our adoption garage sale this Friday & Saturday! Is anyone willing to bake their favorite pan of brownies or cookies to donate for a good cause? Please let us know if you are and thank you!!!

H.R. 213: Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009 (GovTrack.us)

H.R. 213: Adoption Tax Relief Guarantee Act of 2009 (GovTrack.us)

Adoption Garage Sale & Bake Sale!!1 May 21st-22nd

Come visit us at our Adoption Garage Sale and Bake Sale on May 21st-22nd! It will be held at our friend's house in Renton. We have so many great items donated by multiple families! We would love it if you would stop by for a visit, come help out, or perhaps go shopping! :-) There will be an amazing bake sale as well as Italian sodas for everyone to enjoy while they shop! The sale is at the Jewett's house: 18113 141st AVE SE, Renton WA 98058!

The home study home stretch?

After mountains of paperwork and multiple trips to the notary, court house and post office, we are finally on our home study home stretch! We only have a couple more documents to gather before we send in our dossier and only one more meeting with our social worker! Yay! God has been so good and we have definitely seen His hand throughout the process. For the most part, things have been going really smooth. Documents that we have to wait for from the government and other agencies have been getting sent back to us in record time!

We spoke with one of AGCI coordinators about what our estimated time of traveling to Ethiopia would be because Andrew needs to let the fire station know an approximate time frame. We were told that the date would most likely be sometime in August!!! Could be as early as July or perhaps not until September. It is just so hopeful to have an estimated time. It actually became much more real for me at that point. We could be bringing home our baby this fall! So exciting!

Adoption 1/2 marathon/10k info!

Hey faithful friends & family runners!

Here is all the info you need to know about the Adoption ½ marathon/10k on May 30^th!

First, we need you all to register for either the ½ marathon or 10k by following these instructions provided by the manager of the event:

1. Each runner needs to print the mail in form on the website http://www.nwtrailruns.com/
2. It is available as both a PDF and a Word document. Every runner must use a paper entry form.
   
3. In the coupon code box on the paper entry form write CHARVET15 and subtract 15% (not 10%) from the entry fee for the distanced selected (either ½ marathon or 10K). This coupon code will not work with on-line registration that is one reason it is important to use the paper entry form.
4. Mail the paper entry form and payment to:
   NWTR
   c/o MerGeo
   6310 NE 74th St. Ste. 204E
   Seattle, WA 98115
5. The envelopes must be postmarked by midnight Saturday, May 22nd. This provides our small staff plenty of time to process your group.

*****Also, please email us your T-shirt size and the name(s) of your sponsors so we can include them on the back of your T-shirts!

Here are some tips for getting sponsors:

• Use the sponsor letter we attached to the original email.
• Try asking local, family owned businesses oppose to big corporate companies.
• Ask co-workers, friends and family to support your run. One idea is to ask an individual to support you per mile. (for example, 50 cents, $1, or $3 per miles)
• You can keep your sponsor's funds until the day of the run or send them to us at : 7027 S. 125th St, Seattle, WA 98178.

Once again, we both want to thank you so much for your participation in this fundraiser to help us bring home our baby! Thank you for every mile you train for and for the sponsors you receive! May God bless your hard work and perseverance. We truly cannot express our gratefulness to you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

~Andrew & Megan Charvet

Supporting our adoption through shopping while saving you money and being green!

We have been blessed with another family setting up another online store with some great cleaning products and they are going to donate 100% of the proceeds to our adoption! Anyone that purchases the Shaklee product lines: Always SAFE, Always Works and Always Green products 100% proceeds are going to our adoption! Make sure to mention the Charvet Adoption Cause so that we they know where to send the proceeds!

The products speak for themselves as they are the only tried and clinically tested supplement company in the world. A family can save in just ordering the Get Clean kit (used in the White House!). Cost $180 but would cost a family $3200 if they bought the same cleaning power at K-Mart and its safe and non toxic to the environment! The savings is HUGE as Shaklee works in concentrated amounts and re-useable containers.


Here is the site: Charvet Shaklee Cause
(Don't forget to mention Charvet Adoption Cause!)

 Here is some more information about Shaklee and their products!

10 Reasons Why Shaklee Get Clean Is an Exceptional Value

10 Reasons to love Basic H

Get Clean

If you have questions feel free to contact us and we will answer or get the answers to any questions you may have!

Thank you for you support and thank you to Dan and Kim Gerarden for making this opportunity possible!

Andrew & Megan

Traveling to Ethiopia twice!: An unexpected change!

Andrew and I knew going into international adoption that there would most likely be some unexpected events, time extensions and heartache, we just didn't realize there would be such a huge change this soon into the process.

Yesterday through a conference call with our adoption agency, we learned that the government in Ethiopia is now requiring all adoptive parents to travel twice to Ethiopia instead of once. Apparently, one of AGCI agency workers went to the court and found a notice posted on the door that stated the change in travel requirements and that it was effective immediately. The government has also implemented more strict investigations on children to make certain they are truly an orphan. (this is a good thing).

We believe that part of the Ethiopian government's reasoning for these changes may have to do in part with some negative media in the U.S about unethical adoptions. A few weeks ago, CBS did a special report on Ethiopian adoptions. The reporters picked one situation from one specific agency out of thousands of adoptions and chose to focus on it. In doing so, they portrayed Ethiopian adoptions in a very negative light.

The other reason for the additional trip is because there have been cases where families have traveled to Ethiopia after receiving their child's referral, and then changed their minds about wanting the child once arriving to the country. This is a very sad truth but unfortunately it does happen.

This news about the additional travel was hard for us to swallow at first because of course our minds instantly thought "more travel= more money". However, we believe that God does have a perfect plan! He has been so faithful in the finances thus far and we are confident that He will continue to provide!

So what will this additional trip entail and what is the new time frame? Most likely, we will travel to Ethiopia 2-3 weeks after we receive our child's referral. We will spend 5-7 days getting to know our child and will go to the Ethiopian government to open our adoption case and present ourselves to the court. We will than have to leave Ethiopia while the court makes their decision and finalizes the adoption. AGCI is thinking that this process could take anywhere from 4-8 weeks, at which time we would travel back to Ethiopia and bring home our Child!!!

Overall, we feel that this change can be very positive for children and their adoptive parents. Yes, it will be hard to spend time with our child for a week and then have to leave him for 1-2 months. However, these children are getting great care in Hannah's Home and it will give Andrew and I time to adjust to the very real fact that we will soon be becoming instant parents :-)

Please continue pray for the children of Ethiopia, that these new changes will keep the children safer and that the government, as well as all the individuals involved, will refrain from unethical practices. Thank you!

Meg<><

Run for a child!

We are inviting everyone to run with us on May 30th 2010 in a ½ marathon to help raise funds for our child! The ½ marathon is approximately 13 miles on the St. Edward state park in Kenmore, WA. This a a beautiful trail run!

We are asking everyone who participates in the run to try to get at least one sponsor. Your sponsor can be anyone such as a business, a friend or even your grandma!

We have included a link to a 10 week ½ marathon training schedule for you to follow if you wish. We have personally used this training plan and it has worked for us in the past! Remember, you don't have to be a “runner” to do this. Anyone can work up to this 13 miles even if you never workout or train!

We have also included a link to a sponsor letter template that you can give to your potential sponsor!

Feel free to alter this letter if you would like to.

Here is a flyer that can be posted around your workplace if you like to let others know also!

We will be providing adoption t-shirts for the run with a list of sponsors on the back!

Please let us know by APRIL 15th if you plan to participate by e-mailing us at megandrew7@gmail.com!

Thank you so much everyone for helping us bring home our child by your commitment to run with us! We look forward to training and running with you!

Megan & Andrew :-)

God's amazing provision!

Just 2 months ago was when we really started in our fund raising endeavor for our adoption fund. When we first began, the thought of $25,000 seemed so far out of our reach. It was truly a huge step of faith for us to rely on God to provide this much money is such a short amount of time.

Last night Andrew sat down to calculate our funds thus far. In order to send our first chunk of money into AGCI and get our home study started we needed to have $8,790 to send in with the paperwork. After doing to calculations, Andrew announced that we had 8,790.04! We have 4 cents over what we needed! Not 4 cents less but 4 cents over! How amazing is our God!

Praise the Lord for His provision!

~ Megan

Buy some coffee, help a child!

Dear friends,

Just Love Coffee generously gives us $5 dollars from every bag of coffee purchased through ‘our store’ to help raise money for our adoption fund! Every month they then send us the money reflective of the amount of bags sold. Our goal for this fundraiser is to raise $3,000 which means we need to sell 600 bags of coffee! If 100 people commit to purchasing 1 bag of coffee per month instead of through your current coffee supplier (ie Starbucks or Cutters), in 6 month we could reach our goal!!!

In addition to helping us bring our child home from Ethiopia you will also be contributing to a local orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Thank you & God Bless,
Andrew & Megan Charvet

Please visit: http://www.justlovecoffee.com/charvetadoptionjourney

Support Andrew and Megan’s adoption fundraising through your grocery shopping!

We all know that spending money on certain things—like the mortgage on a home—rewards us with greater value long-term. We call these “investments.” But have you ever considered that other routine expenses can be investments as well? It’s true! When you do your shopping through us—routine purchases such as shampoo, laundry products, vitamins, and even toilet paper—we give back a percentage of every sale, giving you greater value for your money. Our website offers hundreds of top-quality, competitively-priced items for your health, personal care, and household use. Each item also carries a 100% money-back guarantee.

For the month of February we are very excited to donate 100% of the proceeds from each client sale to Andrew and Megan, helping them in their effort to raise money to bring home their child! You’re going to do your grocery shopping anyway; why not use your grocery budget to make a difference in someone’s life?

Questions? Contact Tim & Jenn Lindberg, 1-866-241-4386 or smyliefaced4@yahoo.com

 
Ready to shop? www.andrewandmeganadoption.info


Want to see a price comparison of some everyday items found at Wal-Mart vs the website? Price Comparison Sheet

God is good!

Wow! We wanted to thank all that attended our Ethiopian Dinner on Sunday! We both felt so incredibly blessed by everyone who supported us! It was a HUGE success! With you help, we raised more than twice our financial goal for this fundraiser! God is good! Thank you to all the great helpers that stayed all day helping us set-up, decorate, serve, and clean-up! Thank you to all of you that donated so many wonderful items for our auction! Thank you for our awesome kitchen crew- we couldn't have done it without you! And thank you for all who attended and for those who lifted the night up in prayer!
May God truely bless you all!!!


Love,
Andrew & Megan <><

Ethiopian Dinner and Silent Auction!

We are 3 weeks away from our first fundraising event! 
We would love everyone to come!

Please email us at megandrew7@gmail.com to RSVP 
so we know how many to plan on! 

~ Andrew & Megan

(Click on the image to make it larger)

Happy New Year!

2009 is officially gone and 2010 is here! 2009 was a busy year. Megan started nursing school in the spring and now is 1 quarter away from finishing her LPN while continuing to work part time. I have completed another year with the Fire Dept and started on-line school towards my 2nd degree. We both have been very busy.


Meanwhile God has led us to adoption. Megan and I both thought we would have our own children before we would adopt. God had a different plan. Sometimes I wonder how this will work with everything that is going on and because we are both working and in school. God certainly has His way in picking His timing. Probably because if it was up to us, life would always be ‘too busy’ and it wouldn’t happen on our own.

Our “official” application is on the way as we wait anxiously to start our home study and find out the next step in our journey. The one thing I am most “worried” about is the financial aspect of the adoption. Thankfully we both have been blessed with good stable jobs however, the demands of work and school, being ‘newly weds”, and buying and remodeling a house over the last 2 ½ years has not left us much money to save. To come up with $20,000+ seems like (and is) a lot. God has been faithful so far and I know he will continue to be. He blessed us with a large gift at Christmas time just after we found out from the agency that we should have about half ($10,000) up front and had no idea how we would come up with that amount. We are far from what we need but God is good providing $1 at a time. So many people have been blessing us with donations toward our adoption. Thank you to everyone who has and will give to help us bring our child from God home from Ethiopia.

I just want to give everyone a heads up that the Ethiopia Donation Dinner and Silent Auction will be at the end of this month at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday Jan 31st from 5:30 – 8:00 pm. We will be sharing a traditional Ethiopian meal and silent auction. We will also be sharing more about our adoption. We are asking for a $5 minimum donation to help cover the cost of food. All donations will go towards the expenses of our adoption. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend. We ask that you RSVP to megandrew7@gmail.com by Jan 29th to help us know how many to plan for. It will be a fun evening and we would be blessed to have your attendance ! Thank you for your support!

We are looking to forward to seeing God's provision and guidance this next year!

May God Bless you in 2010!

-Andrew