Letter to Friends and Family

Dear Family and Friends-
Many of you may have heard our latest and most exciting news-but if not, let us share it with you now! We are in the process of adopting an infant girl from Ethiopia. We have requested a baby girl between the ages of 0-12 months old at the time of referral. About 3-4 months after we accept a referral for a girl, we will travel to Ethiopia, summer of 2010, and stay between 5-7 days picking her up. We are very excited and it has been a life long dream of ours to be able to adopt. We have talked about it since high school and can hardly believe that we are already well into the process. We are using a Christian agency out of Portland called All God’s Children International (AGCI). Here is their website-check them out!

http://www.allgodschildren.org/adoption/ethiopia/
The paperwork and documents that we have had to provide are beyond description! It is a long process, which in total takes about 10-16 months, but one that will prove to be well worth it when we hold our little girl in our arms!

We have taken a loan out to be able to do this, but still need to raise around $6,000 in order to complete the adoption. In order to do this, we are planning on having a huge garage sale with all proceeds going toward the adoption. It will be the weekend of Silverton’s Homer Davenport Days-August 7–9. We are asking that if you have anything lying around that you don’t want or need anymore, that you would please consider donating it to us so that we could use it in our garage sale-that would be awesome! We would so appreciate it and would love to take it off your hands. Since we live right down by the city park, you can leave it on our front porch anytime, or call and we can come by and get it!

We have also started a blog page so that everyone can keep up to date on how our adoption is proceeding. Here is the link-stop by and check it out to get updates:

http://adamandamberstutzman.blogspot.com/ We are not super great at blogging-the computer part of it-so bear with us as we try and add things.

There are a few other things we are going to do to raise money for the adoption-

1. We are also going to try and get a carwash together to raise funds, sometime this next spring before we go, so we will keep you updated on a day and location for that.

2. We have started a savings account at MAPS Credit Union for just the adoption. If you feel it in your hearts to contribute to our adoption-we would be so appreciative. Anyone can donate by sending a check to: MAPS Credit Union P.O. Box 12398 Salem, OR 97309 ACCT # 471-S1

3. During the festivals each year held at the Silverton City Park, Jacob always parks cars in our yard for extra spending money, so the weekends of Aug.7-9 and Aug.15-16, he will be doing this and wants to give ½ of his proceeds toward getting his little sister home. His heart is so sweet to do this! So if you need a parking spot-swing by and visit “Jacob’s Front Yard Parking”. :)

4. We will be having an “orphanage shower” for AGCI-Hannah’s Hope Orphanage sometime before we go. This is where our daughter will be staying until we pick her up. We can take totes of items over with us to donate to the orphanage when we go. We know that they always have a need for any type of formula, diapers, wipes and croc rubber shoes-(or like those) shoes, but we will send out more specific needs as we find out more-so if you ever want to pick up any of these things to donate, you can drop them off any time too.

5. We ask that more than anything you keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this journey-we will let you know when we accept a referral for our child, and we know that the Lord will hand select her for our family-it is in His hands.

What blows us away is the fact that, chances are, a woman somewhere clear across the world is either pregnant or soon will be pregnant with our future daughter and that thought alone is more than our minds can grasp! It is a true miracle and we are in awe of the whole process.
Thanks to everyone for all your help and support during this time-we are very blessed and excited to be able to do this-we love you all tons!
Anything else we come up with, we will let you know by e-mail or on our blog. ------

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Adam, Amber, Jacob, Cassidy, Zachary, Noah, Logan and our future daughter-Baby A :)