It Takes a Village: The 200 Envelopes Project

Hey Everyone!

We have our first home study interview scheduled for May 3rd!!!  With your support from the puzzle fundraiser, we have been able to raise enough funding for our first 2 adoption fees!!!  Thank you so much!  (Thank you notes along with pics of your puzzle piece(s) are heading your way soon!)

The time has come for us to take on our second (and most ambitious) fundraiser yet!  We are 3 fees, 4 interviews and a waiting period away from bringing our baby home!!!!  However, these next two fees are the largest…so I would be lying if I said anxiety hasn’t crept in a bit.

This fundraiser has the potential to fund 90% of our remaining financial goal!!!!  So this is a HUGE deal to us!

Personally, I have been hesitant to do this fundraiser because it is SO BIG.  But after experiencing the support you have given us already, and trusting that our God can exceed our wildest dreams—we felt led to DREAM BIG!

We are calling this next fundraiser the “200 Envelopes Project.”  It’s a pretty simple concept.  We will have 200 envelopes.  Each envelope will have a number.  That number represents the dollar amount.  Once that amount has been claimed and donated, the envelope gets crossed out.   The fundraiser continues until all 200 envelopes are claimed.  Once all the envelopes are claimed—we have then raised over $20,000 (only $1,900 short from being FULLY FUNDED!)

This is going to require our entire village!  

Here it goes…these are the 4 steps for you to follow if you feel led to contribute:

Step 1: Join our Facebook Page, HERE.  

By joining, you can follow our progress on where we are in the adoption journey as well as stay updated on which envelopes are still available.

Step 2: Choose the envelope that has the cash value you wish to give or even raise yourself by doing a fundraiser of your own for baby Hollis.

--Make sure the envelope you want isn’t crossed out

--If the envelope that represents your donation is crossed out, choose multiple envelopes that will equal the amount you feel led to give/raise.  For example: If you wish to donate $100, you could claim several envelopes that equal the sum of 100.

Step 3: Give/raise your donation fast!

The interview process is going to take 4-6 weeks depending on scheduling and we will need to raise a bulk of this money QUICKLY!  

--Email me (whitneyhollis14@gmail.com) or message me on Facebook to claim your envelope number and I will give instruction on how to pay your donation amount.

Step 4: Dance and jump around right where you are because YOU ARE AMAZING and I want you to celebrate yourself and the huge role you are playing in this amazing journey of finding baby Hollis!!!  

We can’t even express how much we love and appreciate you!

Let’s bring this baby home!!!!

A Redeeming Piece of our Story

As many of you know, Brandon and I have embarked on our journey of adoption! After a few weeks into the process, God has called us to a state of vulnerability.  We feel God leading us to share a small glimpse of our story of how we got to this point.  

3 years ago—we felt God calling us to pursue parenthood.  We expected to follow through with our plan and we didn’t really expect any complications or barriers. Boy, were we wrong! ;-)   Those three years consisted of a miscarriage, several failed attempts, tests, labs, medications, and a surgery that was supposed to help the process, but instead, it practically ended our chances of conceiving.  We were devastated.  We were confused. We were angry.  We felt hopeless.

We spent several months in prayer and we kept feeling that God was leading us on the path of adoption.  Brandon and I had discussed adoption before we were even married.  It was a passion of ours and we knew God had called us to adopt eventually…we just assumed it would be after we had a few biological children and THEN we would adopt a third and possibly fourth.

When we publicly announced our adoption, someone made the comment, “This adoption is going to heal all of your hurt and pain from your infertility.”  I sat on that comment for a few days and then I concluded…this adoption will not heal my infertility or the pain that stemmed from it.  Honestly, I don’t want it to heal it.  I do however, know that adoption will redeem our story and that gut wrenching pain associated with infertility.

I recently read a blog post on our adoption agency’s website from an adoptive parent.  The writer makes a distinction between healing and redemption in regards to infertility before adoption.  She writes, “HEALING restores a person to their previous, uninjured state. Healing “undoes” the damage.  However, REDEMPTION doesn’t “undo” the damage, it “turns” the damage and uses it in a way that brings life and light to the broken.”

At times, I wish that this wasn’t our story.  I wish that those three years would’ve never happened and we could’ve fast forward to this season of hope and waiting.   However, for the most part…I love our story.  Our story is a beautiful mess.  It’s a story of God’s redemption.  It’s an illustration of God’s perfect and good will.  It’s a story of finding God’s peace in the midst of our suffering.  It’s a story of bringing husband and wife closer than ever, due to heartache and life experience.  In summary, it’s a story of hope.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that God was calling us to be vulnerable.   He has called us to be vulnerable in a couple of ways illustrated in this blog post.  One of which, we have already done—sharing our story.  Secondly, He has called us to ask you to be a part of that story.

We all know adoption is costly.  While we are intentional stewards of the money God gives us to manage, with an extensive amount of time, we could potentially save that amount on our own.  But we don’t know how long this timeline is and we currently don’t have $25,000 in the bank account to cover these costs.  We have been praying about this for the past several weeks, and we feel a strong call to invite others to help us financially in bringing baby Hollis home. In our self-sufficient society, we hear God asking us specifically to make ourselves vulnerable in this way…and to be honest it does make us feel awkward.

If there is one theme that has been showing up in our prayer and worship time, it’s that God is writing an amazing story here and we are simply along for the ride and need to hold on tight and ultimately, we can’t do this alone.  These past three years have taught us that community is invaluable and it’s so important to live life alongside one another.  That’s why we want you to be a piece of Baby Hollis’ story…literally.

Brandon and I have created a puzzle on shutterfly.com.  This puzzle has 252 pieces. (I’m not sure why it’s not 250…but I won’t question the amazing Shutterfly.)  We will be putting this puzzle together, framing it in a float frame and displaying it in the nursery.  Before we frame it, we would love to fill the back of the puzzle with your names!

This brings us to our first adoption fundraiser…The Adoption Puzzle.  You will have the opportunity to purchase a piece of the puzzle with a minimum donation of $25 a piece.  After you’ve purchased your puzzle piece, we will then write your name on the back of the piece.  Once all the pieces are purchased, we will put together the puzzle and frame it.  Here’s the amazing part...not only will you play a vital role in bringing Baby Hollis home, but once this child is older, they will have a tangible keepsake that displays the names of the people God used to unite our family💜

We are excited to begin this portion of the journey!  We are in midst of our home study process with our agency and it’s allowing us to understand…this journey is not a journey of waiting.  It’s a journey of finding the child that God specifically created for us to disciple and fiercely love…hopefully SOONER than later

How you can Donate:

• Click our PayPal.Me link and pay securely through PayPal (PayPal.Me/hollisadoption)
• Write a check or donate cash and hand deliver to Brandon and/or Whitney Hollis
• Mail a check (email Whitney at whitneyhollis14@gmail.com for our mailing address)

We love ya’ll dearly!

Joyfully HIS,

Whit