ORIGINAL Referrals

Today we received the ORIGINAL referrals of our two children in the mail! We had signed our names across a colored copy of each referral back in July, but this is more official! We get to sign our names across the photos of their faces and on each page of the referrals to indicate that we accept the children and want them to be members of our family! These two children have waited eight years for a family to accept them! Lord willing, their time has come!

House Of Heroes--Celebration Of Heroes Concert

PLEASE JOIN US FOR AN EVENING OF INCREDIBLE MUSIC! House of Heroes presents A Celebration of Heroes With Tim Maggart and Friends...

Concert is Friday, September 28, 2012 at 8:00 PM. Phenix City Activity Center located at 1500 14th Street, Phenix City, AL. Tim Maggart will be performing along with new country artist Kristy Lynn from NYC, fiddle player Demetri Moon from Nashville, The Neal Lucas Trio and Justin Belew.

Tickets are only $10. IF YOU PURCHASE YOUR TICKETS FROM US (Jeff and Amanda Carroll), THE PROCEEDS OF THOSE TICKETS WILL GO TOWARD OUR ADOPTION, helping us bring our two children home from India! Contact us at: jaaacarroll@hotmail.com. *This is a family event, so bring everyone!

CONCERT PHOTOS:

BOTH HANDS SPONSORSHIP LETTER

For a LARGER readable version, click HERE

Carroll Both Hands Project on Facebook

Join us on Facebook: CARROLL BOTH HANDS PROJECT

88 5 The Truth Radio Interview

Thank you to Brian from 88.5, The Truth, for giving us an opportunity to share what God is doing in our lives through our adoption journey!  Currently, we are partnering with Both Hands Foundation and House of Heroes to raise funds to bring our two orphans home from lnd!a by working on a local widow's home.  Click on the DONATE button on the right hand side to sponsor us on our project.  100% of the money donated goes to bringing the orphans home!

The Chandelier

My friend and fellow adoptive mom, Gwen, who happens to be allergic to cats, dusted this chandelier! You should have seen Mrs. C's face light up when she saw her chandelier all cleaned up and sparkly! (Both Hands/House Of Heroes)

The Truth Radio 88.5

Now is the time for media and press releases! House of Heroes arranged for us to do a brief radio interview with 88.5, The Truth, to discuss our adoption, the partnership of Both Hands and House Of Heroes on our project, and ways in which people can volunteer/donate! The interview was originally scheduled for Tuesday morning, but when we arrived, the entire block and surrounding area had no electricity. The station was shut down. This was not completely surprising...It seems like every time we try to share our story, there is a roadblock. Fortunately, we were rescheduled for today--Wednesday. Susan from House of Heroes was supposed to join us, but came down with a sickness, so Kelly from HOH filled in. She did an awesome job! The interview was prerecorded and will be aired tomorrow morning between 7:30-8:00. We were able to share more than I had anticipated.

I got the best text from a friend who has been working by my side day by day on this project: "I'm praying for you and your interview right now, good luck. May the Holy Spirit speak through you, guiding your words, so that others might become involved in worldwide adoptions. Bringing Glory to God." Awesome! It made my day to know that someone out there is covering us in prayer! We are so grateful to The Truth for giving us a platform to share what God is doing in our lives! Thank you to those who prayed for us this morning. Please continue to pray that lots of people will be listening tomorrow morning and that God will use what we said for His Glory. Tune into 88.5 or listen to the live stream here.

Both Hands Project Letter Stuffing Party

Our official Both Hands Project Letter Stuffing Party was held after church last Sunday, September 9th. Papa John's Pizza graciously provided lunch for us and a sweet friend, Mary Ann, made some awesome cupcakes for dessert! The purpose of Both Hand's letter stuffing parties is for all volunteers who will be working on the widow's home to send out letters to raise sponsorship like one would do in a 5K race or golf-for-charity event. However, instead of running or golfing, the volunteers will be working on a widow's home. The goal is for the adoptive family to mail out at least 300 letters and for each volunteer worker to mail out 25-50 letters. Because we are adopting two children and need to raise at least $40,000 more in order to complete our adoption, we have to be even more ambitious than the average project to reach our goal. Since all of the materials will be donated by local merchants, 100% of the funds raised will go toward the adoption of two children... One hand for the widow; one hand for the orphans. We were expecting a HUGE turnout to our Letter Stuffing Party, but only our care group leaders and two others showed up. We had printed 1000 letters for the event. It was a bit heartbreaking to go home with eight uneaten pizzas and most of our letters unsent. We are praying that volunteers come forward with willing hearts to send these letters out to their contacts. We are seeing God use this project in amazing ways already at the widow's home...God tells us that His heart is burdened for both the widows and orphans. We KNOW that He called us to take on this project, so we are trusting that He will honor and reward our efforts. We KNOW that His heart is burdened for our orphans, A and S, and that He will provide for their homecoming. It is all for His honor and glory. He will have to make it happen...and that's the beauty of it all!

Jeeah's Hope/Lifesong Matching Grant Update

Praise the Lord!!! Our $3000 matching grant from Jeeah's Hope and Lifesong For Orphans has been fully maxed out! Precious friends, both old and new, contributed generously to the matching grant. Each donation was matched dollar for dollar turning $3000 into $6000! We were able to release those funds immediately to cover adoption expenses! WHAT A BLESSING!

It is both humbling and inspiring to see people give sacrificially toward our adoption in order to bring two orphans home to their forever family. Thank you to all who gave. We pray that God will abundantly bless each and every one of you. We intend to create a book similar to a baby book for each child listing the names of all the people who helped to bring them home. What an impact that will have on their precious lives!

Notice Of Action

It's been four days since our biometric fingerprints, and we received our I-797, Notice of Action, in the mail from USCIS today! Our I-800A application was approved meaning the U.S. has approved us suitable to adopt 2 children from a convention country! Our agent gave us a weekend homework assignment: Fill out Form I-800 for both children to determine their eligibility as adoptees. So many forms and steps to keep track of! Another little step closer! For more information on the I-800, click here.

September 10, 2012--USCIS I-800A Biometric Fingerprints

We made the two-hour drive to Atlanta today for our scheduled appointment with USCIS to get biometric fingerprints taken. Huge milestone! Now that we have been fingerprinted by USCIS, an officer will be assigned to our case. He or she will review our homestudy and our fingerprints, and if all are acceptable we will be issued an approval to adopt from a Hague Convention country. We will wait anywhere from 30-90 days for this approval...

July 19, 2012...Accepting the Referrals

To accept the referrals of the children, we both had to sign our names across every page of a colored copy of the referral packets. In the near future, we will sign our names across the originals.

REGISTERED!

Received word today that we were finally registered in lnd!a on September 1st! Huge milestone! We officially owe a foreign country $32,000.