I Need a Reason to Sing

This morning at breakfast I prayed with the boys. I kind of prayed about our year and the year to come. I prayed for our hope, that #3 comes home in 2013. I got very choked up.

This group, All Sons and Daughters, has rocked my world this year....our house really. On a normal day I wake up to get the boys to school and listen to one of their albums as I'm making breakfast and packing lunches. I find their music to be the songs of my heart.

 This song has been one of many that really strike a chord with me (no pun intended). The bridge particularly.

Will there be a victory
Will You sing it over me now
Oh
Your peace is the melody
You sing it over me now
Oh Lord
Will there be a victory
Will You sing it over me now
Oh Lord
Your peace is the melody
You sing it over me now    For me this has been a prayer. "God I know there's going to be victory here. I know you've called us to this. I know the money is going to happen, that miracle are going to be revealed in front of us. Can you remind me of that? God can you sing your peace over me when I get worried. When I start to doubt. When people say mean things, because they just don't understand what you've called us to. Can you sing your peace to me and remind me who's in charge please?"

Then they end with the reprise (at least on the original EP it was a reprise, now they just jam it all into one song)....

I will sing sing sing
to my God my King
for all else fades away
and I will love love love
with this heart You've made
for You've been good always
God how many times have you shown up in my life? How many times have you rocked my world? Your goodness is evidenced all around me. This is the song that I want to sing. This is the prayer I want to pray.

Will you sing this song with us in the coming year?

Merry Christmas

Better Late than Never.

We didn't send out Christmas cards this year.  Things just got too busy and we didn't think far enough in advance to take a good picture so we could have it printed.  So this is what you get this year.  5 minutes (at most) in an online photoshop editor.

Extra Thoughts from yesterday....

If you haven't already read our One Hurdle Down post from yesterday, you should do that before continuing in this post.  This is kind of an addendum onto that post.

So what I didn't mention yesterday was that one of the big reasons that we were able to get our Homestudy done is because of some of you.  Seriously.

One of the hang-ups we had was that our agency was unclear about our finances.  They wanted to see that we had the money to not only adopt, but live normal lives...even if an emergency happens.  What we were able to show them was that a lot of people have already contributed...and several people have promised money but are waiting until a certain bill comes in.  We were able to say, "look, this is what has happened so far and where we believe we're going". 

We wanted to point that out to say THANK YOU!  Thank you so much for donating to our adoption.  We feel God has called us to this.   It is also clear that God has been calling you as well, to walk along side us in this task.  Thanks for listening to His prompts.  If you had not done so, we would be stuck.  We still have a long way to go, but you definitely helped us get over that hurdle!

Secondly, I just wanted to share an awesome God story.  Even after we got good news yesterday, blessing continued to come.

I went to worship team practice at church last night as always.  Our church has a giant table where people can put Christmas cards to each other, to save on some postage.  So I noticed there was this big jar (of what looked like nuts) on the table.  My thought was "that's awesome that someone gave someone some nuts".  The curious George in me decided to check it out just to see who got lucky.

When I got there, I found two things.  First, it wasn't a can of nuts, it was a pickle jar full of coins and some dollars.  Secondly "REINARD" was written on the top.

When I opened the jar I found two more things.  First, the money smelled like pickles, which was kind of funny and made me sort of hungry.  Secondly I found a small note that said, "Use this toward your adoption.  Merry Christmas.  Pay it Forward when you can."

So today I went to the bank to deposit some adoption money.  I used the awesome free coin machine to cash out the change.  $51+ dollars plus the bills that were in there!!!!!!!

We've been saying this since day one.....small things equal big things.  It was just a small jar full of pocket change....but that pocket changed added up big time.  Would it be awesome if someone showed up and said, we'll cover the rest of your adoption bills?  Sure.  BUT we're convinced that that's not the plan.  We're convinced that we're suppose to get lots of people on board.  We're convinced that individuals, doing little things like our pickle jar full of coins, will get us to our big goal.

THANK YOU pickle jar person.  God is GOOD!

One Hurdle Down!

To say things have been going slower than we would've liked or anticipated is an understatement.  We thought we would be much further down the past than we are by Christmas.

Things that in the past took no time at all, have taken a long time.  There have been some miscommunications.  As is usually the case, our time is clearly not God's time.

Today we can share with you that a major hurdle has been taken care of.  After a few re-writes, our homestudy has been accepted by our agency.  This is an AWESOME Christmas present. 

What now?  We've been working on our dossier at the same time as our homestudy, so we're hoping to have that completed very soon and get that approved and done with as well. 

ACTION FOR YOU: 
1. Please continue to pray that barriers that are in our way will be knocked down before we get there.  We will always accept prayers for patience and peace as well.

2.  Feel free to continue to be creative in helping us fund-raise.  READ HERE

3.  Tell others what we're doing. 

Beard Update 12/16

My mother bugged me about not updating the graph.  I have in fact updated the graph several times, but only in the tool bar.....we've been slacking about blogging.  So I thought I would do what my mother says and update both at the same time.

The graph is as up to date as we know.  We've heard rumor of other money but this is what is in our hands presently (as of 12/16).

There have been a lot of people telling me how my beard is going to get cut off.  Asking me "what are you going to do" or joking and mocking me "it's going!"

Let's be clear about something.  As of right now, I'm keeping my beard.  It's NOT, nor has it ever been which category has the most at the end of December.  The goal was high.  As of now, the goal is not going to be reached unless some people step their game up.

So January 1 is coming.....and my beard will live on!!!!  (insert evil laugh here)

Beard Update and NEW clarification of Rules

I'm sure a lot of you are excited to see where we're at right now.  So first up is the latest graph.  This is the graph as of 11/21.  If you're reading this after 11/21...the most recent graph is posted in the toolbar to the right.

So as you can see, the Cut it Off fund is A LOT bigger than the save it fund.  So depending on how you want this to finish out, you want to get into the action.  If you want to see me clean shaven, you're not far away, get to it.  If you think "I won't be Aaron without my beard", you all have some work to do.

CLARIFICATION:
We had a little hiccup last week and it showed a flaw in our rule system.  The hiccup was taken care of and I now want to change the rules slightly and close a loophole.  This isn't an attempt to save my beard.  It's a plan to make sure the original intent of me cutting my beard off is met. 

Here are rules that we will be using from here forward:

-Instead of the auction ending immediately, we are going to keep the auction going until the end of Dec. 31.  Auction will end 12:00am EST January 1, 2013.

-I will cut off my beard if at that time the Cut it Off fund is 4000 dollars above the Save It fund. NO minimum balance in the Cut It Off fund is needed as long as the total of both funds is equal to or greater than 5000 dollars total.  (ex:  if the Cut if Off fund is a 4500 and the Save it fund is at 500, the beard goes)

-I'm making a concession to the Cut It Off fund supporters.  If money is not clearly marked one way or the other, we will make every attempt to contact individuals for clarification rather than just lump it into the Save It fund.

-Money can be donated one of several ways:
-You can directly hand us cash or checks made out to Aaron Reinard;
-You can send us checks made out to Aaron Reinard (please use the memo line to signify which category your money is to be placed in.);
-You can donate using the "Donate Now" button in the right sidebar via Paypal. (make a note of which category money goes to); OR
-You can use the Tax Deductible Giving option in the sidebar as well.  If you use this option, please send us a message telling us what and when you're donating and to which category.  Money will not count until we can verify it with our adoption agency.  However this is a financially responsible option.

Note:  Someone just did this and it's a great idea.....they sent us their check made out to YWAM so they can get the tax deductible giving, but sent it to us, to send on to YWAM.  They included a note to us making sure their funds were added to the Cut It Off fund.  We then were able to record it properly and get the money where it needed to go for them.  Easy.  Just and idea.


So there it is.  SPREAD THE WORD.  There are a lot of people who know me well and haven't heard about this yet.  Why not?  Because you haven't told them.  Make this happen!  Blog this.  Facebook this.  Tweet this.  E-mail link this to people across the country (or based on the statistics we see...around the world.)  I'm putting my beard on the line here!!!!

Aaron Will Cut Off His Beard

19 years.  That's the last time I saw what my chin looks like.

I've always thought that at some point I'd cut it off.  I have no desire to do so at the present time.  I kind of like it.  HOWEVER.....if it's going to happen, there's going to be a really good reason for losing it.

How about bringing home our third child?

So here's the deal....I'm willing to sacrifice my beard for our adoption.  I don't WANT to cut it off, so it's not going to be easy.

Rules and Stipulations:

1.  There are two categories that people can donate toward.  As I've told people about the potential of cutting it off several people are excited and others are horrified.  So you can donate money to either
1"Save the Beard" or 2"Cut it Off" .  Because people usually feel pretty strongly one way or the other, and because I'm kind of attached to it, I'm putting the stakes high.

2.  Money that has already been donated or promised does not count toward these goals.  All donations must be new donations.  To be clear, no money previously promised or donated before 12:00am November 1, 2012 will be counted in this contest.

3.  This auction will end only the following ways:

-I will cut my beard if the "Cut it Off" fund instantly raises 5000 dollars to the "Save the Beard funds 0 dollars...Auction will end IMMEDIATELY;
-I will cut my beard if the difference between "Cut it Off" and "Save the Beard" is 4000 (as long as the StB is a minimum of 1000.....so 5000 total raised for our adoption)....Auction will end IMMEDIATELY;
-I will stop the auction and KEEP my beard if the "Save the Beard" fund is 4000 dollars more than the Cut It fund....auction will end IMMEDIATELY; OR
-The auction will end with no results at midnight New Years Day (12:00am EST January 1, 2013)

4.  Money can be donated one of several ways:
-You can directly hand us cash or checks made out to Aaron Reinard;
-You can send us checks made out to Aaron Reinard (please use the memo line to signify which category your money is to be placed in.);
-You can donate using the "Donate Now" button in the right sidebar via Paypal. (make a note of which category money goes to); OR
-You can use the Tax Deductible Giving option in the sidebar as well.  If you use this option, please send us a message telling us what and when you're donating and to which category.  Money will not count until we can verify it with our adoption agency.  However this is a financially responsible option.
NOTE:  While purchases of T-shirts are encouraged and we are supremely grateful, they do not count toward this specific fundraiser.  If you purchase a shirt and include monies above and beyond that of the shirt, you can specify where the extra goes.

5.  Any money that comes in that is not CLEARLY designated for the Cut if Off fund, will automatically go into the "Save the Beard" fund.

6.  I will be weekly updating the graph in the side bar to show all money donated.  Graph will be updated on Sunday afternoons...and probably daily, the final week of the auction if needed.

7.  Should the horrific happen, and I have to shave my beard off....a video and lots of pictures will be taken of the momentous event and posted here for all to see. There may or may not also be an "Event" created via Facebook to physically attend the cutting of said beard.

So for everyone who has desired me to be clean shaven.....it's time to put your money where your mouth is.

For those who think "you won't be Aaron without it".....you better put up or shut up too.

Again, I know I've made it hard to have it cut off.  I'm hoping that it doesn't happen.  I don't mind it.  Marjorie will personally thank all those who donate to Cut if Off though!  (she's not allowed to donate....but she's already plotting with people......so help a brother out.)

So spread the word.  Tell everyone who's ever remotely met me.  Chances are they feel strongly one way or the other about my chin hair.  Direct them here.  At the very least to follow along as we delve into this adventure together.