Major miracle

God is so amazing! We know God is capable of anything, yet we are still amazed every time something wonderful happens! We really had NO clue of how we would come up with the next step of fees (to the sum of $13,500)! We do know God wants us to continue to move forward in this process.
God supplied a large donation this evening to Fellowship of Hope ministry's adoption fund. This Holy Spirit lead donor chose to remain anonymous. One of the primary visions of Fellowship of Hope ministries is to promote adoption. This large gift is confirmation from God that He has ordained this ministry.
Please continue to pray for all the orphans and adoptive families.
May God richly bless your 2009!

Christmas blessings

We were blessed in so many ways as we thought of Losha & Alexei this Christmas. God provided more than $2,600 through various family members, friends and saved change! We can now send in the Oklahoma agency fee.
Garrett asked us not to buy him anything for Christmas and to put what we would have spent on him in the adoption fund. Although we had decided to cut back drastically this year on gift giving (to save for the adoption fund), our children were beyond blessed! God provided more gifts for our children than we normally would have given them, via some awesome friends and family truly showing Christ's love to our family! We were overwhelmed and extremely thankful!

Are you a world "changer"?

Have you ever been told "you can't change the world"? Well, I'm here to tell you all things are possible with God! Jacky and Garrett (our oldest) decided to save their change instead of using it for pop or candy. Wow! We gathered the saved change this week and there was over $151 (still counting). We couldn't believe it! We've decided we are going to change the world with our "change". We ask that you spread the word: ask friends, your Church, clubs or groups you're involved with to save their change and donate to Fellowship of Hope. Lives will be changed. It is tax deductible.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

Fellowship of Hope is a ministry our family has started. An adoption fund will be under one of the umbrellas of this ministry. We are launching a "change" campaign in order to change the lives of orphans. This ministry will help those choosing to adopt and help change a life forever.

Whew...

The fundraiser was yesterday! I'm thankful we raised around $1,000! Did we learn a lot?! Although, we had fun organizing an event like that, I think we'll only do 1 thing at a time from now on. Sometime (January or February) we'll have a chili dinner, in the spring- we might have another garage sale, the crafts will all go to the booth located in Broken Arrow at "Southern Hospitality", but I believe we will not do it all at one time again. It was exhausting!

Were we surprised?

Hello friends,
We wanted to share an article from "The BigHeart Times" with you, it is about our adventure. We were shocked at how this reporter perceived our family. She created a picture far more beautiful than we really are. It is extremely humbling that anyone could think of us in such a wonderful manner. Here is the link:

http://www.bighearttimes.com/news/2008/12/november-9-was-a-sunday-that-went-down-in-tears-for-the-paytons-of-pawhuska--it-was-the-the-day-they-took-losha-sokolov-t.html#more

Fundraiser

We're on the countdown to the big fundraiser! One week from today at Osage county fairgrounds in Pawhuska, OK we will have an inside garage sale/ bake sale/craft sale and at lunch time a chili &/or chicken noodle dinner. There will be plenty for children to do too! Join us in raising funds to bring Losha home. 9-3 Saturday the 13th, lunch from 11:30-1:30

Amazing friends

Have you ever had friends that continue to amaze you? Well, I do! I came home from Tulsa a couple of weeks ago, ready to put the finishing touches on the house before the lady came to do our homestudy and two of my super friends (like super women) were there and had finished cleaning! We're talking, even the windows. I don't usually do windows. It looked wonderful! Unfortunately, reality has come back to smack us in the face, with 5 kids I guess it can't be spotless all the time. I truly appreciate the love these families poured into our house that day. That goes way beyond friendship!!! I hope this inspires some of you to do something nice for someone else, I know it did me! You just never know what way God might use you to make someone's day!

Miracle to pay for the homestudy

We have to admit, we had decided we wouldn't adopt due to the extreme expense of Russian adoption - then we met Losha, Alexei and the other Russian children on the trip! God used these beautiful children to show us His heart. God is much bigger than any man made costs and fees. Our first big hurdle was the homestudy fee. We didn't have the finances to pay for this! We made the appointment and knew that God would take care of it. However, we were not prepared for the way God chose to provide! One of our awesome, God-fearing friends called and asked if we were interested in selling the mini van we had recently purchased. We didn't know what to think! Our friends said "pray about it and let us know." We decided this might be the step God wanted us to take. The miracle of this is not just that they purchased our van, but they gave us theirs also! It is hearts like these that make Christ"s love shine in this world!

Garrett started it all

Garrett is the one that first asked if we could host Losha for the 10 day trip. Garrett has such a sweet heart, that he's willing to sell his horse, his car, or whatever it takes to raise the funds to get Losha here "forever". Amazing -the journey God takes us on to get us to where He wants us to be! Garrett asked if he could go stay with Losha until we raised the funds to adopt him. We said, we're not losing 2 sons in 1 day!

Sad Saturday

The evening before the Russian children were to fly back to Russia, Losha kept saying over and over "NO plane, NO Russia!, sleep babooska (which translates to Grandma)". He wanted to stay at Nana & Papa's! Our oldest had to physically carry him to put him in the van. Our entire family is so sad that he can't just stay with us now!

Smiles

This was the sad Sunday morning at the airport!

We are really missing Losha and Alexie's smile and so wish they could be with us at Christmas!