Hope
a charity project
$10 FOR 10 For Treasures Through His Grace
About Treasures Through His Grace
We are the Stutzman Family - and here is our story ~
We are the Stutzman family. Adam, Amber, Jacob (13 1/2), Cassidy & Zachary-the twins (10), Noah (8 1/2), Logan (7), and Seble (21 months). Last year, our family was blessed to bring our adopted daughter home from Ethiopia. During the process, we had to make two trips there and they were nothing short of life changing! We quickly fell in love with not only the country, but with the precious people of its land. We visited government orphanages while we were there and watched the children just laying and crying in their cribs with no one to comfort them. Then there were the ones not even in any orphanage who were fending for themselves as they lived on the street. We saw many women who performed hard labor lifting boulders on construction sites for only $2 a day. The sights and stories we saw and heard are hard to explain to others who have not experienced it firsthand. Our lives and the beliefs that we previously had regarding orphans and widows were quickly transformed as we saw with our own eyes, what the Bible means by the “fatherless, poor and oppressed”. The verse that we now strive to live by is:
Psalms 82:3 “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed”.
We returned home with our daughter and our family was forever changed, our eyes had been opened and wouldn't shut. Through that first year, we saw our whole family slowly being transformed. We were less selfish, our motivation to do more for those that we left behind in Ethiopia was at the forefront of our thoughts and actions. We bonded beautifully with Seble, much more so than we could have ever imagined and our children fell in-love with their new little sister. Our family has changed in ways that only can be from the Lord himself. Through adoption, He is teaching all of us things that we would have never learned had we not ventured out and listened to His call in our lives. The entire gospel and what it means to be adopted into God’s family, is now very much more real to us, and the things that we saw will forever be engrained on our minds and hearts.
Through the past year, we have strived to find the new normal to live here after what we experienced. As blessed as we are, we had not forgotten what we saw. We contemplated trying to adopt again but the thought of the cost and time involved was daunting. In our first adoption, we had two years to plan, fundraise and save for it. However, we knew that if we were to adopt again, after seeing the kids in Ethiopia, we would choose to adopt an older child, or sibling group. When adopting older kids off of a waiting children’s list, the timeline jumps to about a 9 month wait. This would not give us the time to save what we needed in that short of a time frame. As the months went on, God continued to work in our lives and opened our eyes and hearts further to trust Him. We started feeling the pull on our hearts to bring another child or two into our family and give them a dad, mom and siblings that would be forever theirs. We knew we had the room, the love and the stability for more children, so if we didn’t act, we knew that they would most likely not have any of this, let alone a future where they may never find Jesus.
So, we started asking tons of questions to other adoptive families that had brought home older children. We started reading lots of material on the subject, listening to pod-casts about it, and looking at different agencies that had waiting children available. We prayed fervently that if this wasn’t God’s will, that he would shut the doors for us and show us another way to make a difference. In January of this year, we saw the picture that would ultimately change our lives in ways that we didn't know at the time. It was the photo of a brother and sister, ages 12 1/2 and 5 1/2, who had lost their parents through death and needed a mom and dad! No matter how many other children we saw, we kept going back to them and finally asked to receive information on them. After praying, seeking Godly counsel and many conversations, we decided to move forward with their referral. We got our home study done and all of the needed paperwork in record time. We are so excited to be bringing these two kids into our home and are so glad that we will be able to keep a pair of siblings together forever. We saw the Lord open this door for us and he has continued to open them each step of the way. We truly believe that the cost of bringing these precious children home, and giving them a family that will love them forever, is possible through His provisions.
We are asking you to walk with us on this journey, pray for our family and for our children and that He will bring us all together in His time. We are also asking you to also help us financially if you can by giving just $10. Adoption is very expensive, but there is no price we can put on two lives that will be given the gift of a family and future. If we all pull together, we can make this happen! Remember the boy that only gave a few fish and some loaves of bread-it was multiplied abundantly (Matthew 14:16-21).Thank you for listening to our story.
Here is why we are doing what we are doing…….the change in our daughter is amazing!
ADAM & AMBER STUTZMAN
JACOB, CASSIDY, ZACHARY, NOAH, LOGAN, SEBLE AND OUR TWO KIDS STILL WAITING FOR US!
“Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.” For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve”. Proverbs 24:12
$10 FOR 10 Details
In order to bring these children home, we are going to need around $40,000. Now, this number sounds big, and ginormous, but just consider for a moment that each day, people go out and buy a new car, a boat, a vacation home for more than this. What is better, to give a child a home or get a new car?! We are choosing to do the “Give a child, (two children for that matter), a home” route. Although this is a VERY large sum, our God is bigger! Please help us help these kids!
Here is our plan-for our first fundraiser:
We have about 900 friends on Facebook. If EACH of those friends gave JUST TEN DOLLARS, we would have $10,000 to put toward our adoption and to get these kids home to our family! Look how simple that is and look how little we are asking you to do. If we all pull together, things are SO possible! Think of how little $10 is - what you spend $10 on each day - wouldn't it be awesome to know that you helped give two kids a family?! Will you please consider joining us on this journey?
CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR CHARITY PAGE AND DONATE!! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
"You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry"~ Psalms: 10:17
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