Both Hands Project

WOW!!! I love serving others. There really is no greater feeling in this whole world than loving others the way Jesus loves them. Yesterday was one of the greatest days and I want to share it with all of you.

Both Hands is an organization desiring to help families raise money for their adoptions and bless a widow at the same time. We were approved for one of these projects back in January and have been planning ever since. I have to admit with all the paperwork for the adoption, planning to send over 500 letters out, and getting this work day organized I was tired! Earlier this week I thought I'll just be glad when it's over. I had to repent about thinking that way last night because God totally amazed me yesterday. Despite being tired Heath and I prayed all week about Saturday, for Ms. Brenda and her family. When we woke up on Saturday morning we still weren't sure if we had it all together but God used us in our weakness and showed off His glory!

We spent an entire day working on Ms. Brenda's house and showing her the love of Jesus but at the end of the day I think I was changed more. I was humbled, thankful, grateful, and overwhelmed by the love of Jesus. We have all probably heard the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words," so I am going to let the pictures tell the story.

Front of House (Before)

Room (Before)

Another View of Room (Before)

Our Crew working hard on the yard!

Getting the walls ready for paint.

Building the wheelchair ramp.

While everyone was working hard on the house I took Ms. Brenda to get a manicure.

All the girls had a fun time and her nails look beautiful!

Then we took her on a girls day out lunch!

When we got back it was finally time to show Ms. Brenda her new room and other improvements! I loved watching her face light up when she saw her room.

Room (After)

Another view of room (After)

Another view of room (after)

Wheelchair ramp (After) Our crew did a great job building it.

Front of House (After)

Heath and I praying over Ms. Brenda, her house, and family. It was such a sweet moment.

Ms. Brenda showing off her new nails!

Our crew who worked so hard all day long! We are so grateful for each one of them and we love them all so much. Words cannot express how much you mean to us!

At the end of the day I kept thinking I can't wait for my son to come home so we can show him all that he inspired us to do and all the people who helped bring him home!

That was our incredible day! We have been starting to recieve money from the letters we sent out to help bring Isaiah home. We are grateful for all of you who have contributed financially to this project. For those of you who maybe recieved a letter and weren't sure about the project I hope reading this changed your mind and encourages you to give. If anyone reading this feels the Lord leading you to give to our project and help us bring our son home just follow this link http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/bhProj.html. (scroll down till you see Michael and Paige Wilson and click the donate button. We have until May 6 to reach our goal of $10,000.) Lifesong for Orphans is the organization working with Both Hands to offer tax-deductible donates to all the people who give to our adoption. So you can help bring home an orphan, bless a widow, and get a tax break all in one step. What a great opportunity.

I will end with this sweet and funny picture of our little Gracie! She was with us the whole day while working on Ms. Brenda's house because all of our friends and family (our normal babysitters) were helping work on the house. So we took turns watching our kiddos and finding little things for them to carry and what not. I was so grateful for my friends Jennifer and Rachel who watched Gracie for most of the day. At the end of the day as Gracie was getting more and more irritable Jennifer decided to put her in an old wheelchair and push her around the yard. Well when I came out this is what I found....

It was too cute but we all wanted to be doing the same thing. It was a great day and finally time to rest! Bless you all!

A Lesson in Patience

So much as happened since my last post, which is part of the reason I haven't had time to blog in almost two months!!! yikes! Here is what's been going on in our journey to Isaiah.


On February 18th we had our first fundraiser. I hosted a Green Gold Party, where people came with their old, broken, or mismtached jewelry and recieved cash for their gold. We recieved a percentage of the total amount of gold bought that night. We had a really great turn out and raised about $2700 that night. It was a great start towards all the adoption expenses.


We spent most of February working on our dossier paperwork and getting the proper authentications from county, state, etc. We finally got everything done at the end of February and sent them to our agency to be reviewed.


March 7 we finally sent off our dossier!!! It was such an awesome feeling to be done with all that paperwork! We used Assistant Stork to take our paper work to the correct department in Washington D.C. and I'm so glad we did. They were great and I would recommend them to anyone.


March 10 we recieved our I 171H in the mail. This was exciting news since we had been waiting for 3 months for this document to arrive. We were starting to wonder if we were ever going to get it so the night before Heath and I had prayed that we would recieve it in the mail very soon. God is so faithful, He put it in our mailbox the very next day!

We are in the process of another fundraiser right now called Both Hands. This project allows us to bless a widow while we raise money for our adoption. We have been connected with a widow in our community who needs help on her house, so we gathered a group of our friends and family to send out letters of support to raise money to bless this widow and bring our son home to his forever family. I love the concept of this fundraiser. Please check out their website to learn more and watch some of the videos. This video is my favorite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98PD-O97N3I&feature=player_embedded
This project required our group of friends and family to commit to two days of work. The first was on March 13th for our envelope stuffing party. We asked each couple to bring 20 to 50 names from their Christmas card list to our party and we provided supper, envelopes, stamps, and the letters. We had 17 adults and 8 kids at our house that night and stuffed 544 envelopes in about 2 hours. We prayed over the letters and mailed them out the following Monday. We can't wait to see how the Lord will use those letters to speak into the lives of others about adoption. The other day of committment is actually working on the widow's house. This woman has been diagnosed with MS and has a difficult time getting around. On March 27th our same group of friends and family will work for a full day on Brenda's house. We will be building a wheelchair ramp, painting, cleaning, landscaping, and even giving Brenda a manicure! Please watch for pictures and videos to come after we complete this project.


On March 15th we recieved noticed that our dossier had been sent to Ethiopia for translation and we are officially on the wait list for a referral. So, this is where patience comes in. We know God has handpicked our son and He is guiding our path to him and will let us meet him at just the right time. But that doesn't make the waiting easier. So I just put my hope in my Creator and trust that He is faithful to fulfill His promises. Please pray for us as we wait to see our son for the very first time and pray for Isaiah that the Lord will protect him and surround him with His loving arms.

Last thing for tonight, I have to share some of our lastest family pictures. Did I mention in the middle of all that's been going on in the last few months the pregnancy care center I work for put on our Second Annual Father/Daughter Purity Ball, which me and another girl are in charge of. All the plannig and preparation for that took some time in my already crazy life. But it was two great nights with over 400 Fathers and Daughters laughing, dancing, and making a pledge of purity. So it was well worth all the time and effort. I want to end with some pictures of my husband and my little girl. Heath brought her to our First Annual Father/Daughter Ball last year when she was only 3 months old and he brought her again this year. She was so cute and they were so sweet together.... Enjoy

Our Family

Heath walking Gracie into the ball.

Gracie looking at her pretty dress.

So precious! She is smiling at him while he's telling her she's beautiful.

Goodnight all!
Paige

God is so Good!

I keep telling myself that I am going to blog every week but before I know it the month is over already. I can't believe January is over! Well alot has happened in the Wilson family this month, so let me fill you in.

At the first of January we recieved our official copy of our homestudy! It was such a great feeling to have that in hand. As soon as we had our homestudy we started applying for grants to help us finance our adoption. We also sent off our applicaion to Celebrate Children International which is the adoption agency we are working with. We also got our finger prints taken for our I600A, which I'm still not 100% I could explain what exactly that is! I hope by the end of this whole process I will.

Here are the pics from our day getting finger printed. It was quite an experience. We were just glad it was for good reasons.

Just this past week we recieved great news! Lifesong for Orphan is helping us with a fundraising project called BothHands and they gave us a matching grant!!!! Praise God! Both Hands is an awesome fundraising project where you work on a widows house and raise money to bring home an orphan. We are hoping to start this project very soon! We can't wait to see what God has in store.

Today was another milestone! We offically completed our dossier, which is the big 48 page stack of papers to send off to our government and the Ethiopian government, so that we can get our referral. I can not wait to see our little guy's face. I know God has hand picked Isaiah for our family and I am so excited to see him! Continue to pray that this whole process goes smoothly and we can bring our son home soon.

Oh one last thing about adoption! I am having a Gold Party on February 18th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. This party is great because everybody wins. You bring your old gold jewelry and get cash when you leave. Plus you help us raise money to bring our son home. So please come to my sister-in-law's house, Wendy, at 421 Colonial Terrace next Thrusday, February 18th and help us reach our goal. Thanks!!

Now to update you on the other adventure in our life, Challenge House! Today is a great day because the framers are at the house, building stairs, framing the upstairs and getting ready to fix the roof! It is starting to look like a house again! We have had so many awesome people donate time, labor, and materials for this house. We are continually amazed at how God always provides at just the right time. If you would like to get involved please email me at paigenicole32@yahoo.com .

Well I think that's all the news I have for today! Here is a picture of my Gracie girl, and our first attempt at pigtails! Hopefully it will make you smile.

Christmas and Challenge House

I hope you all have had a blessed Christmas and New Year. The Wilson Family was definitely blessed again this year. We even got our wish of a white Christmas, even though we had to drive to Iowa to get it! We also got one of the best presents ever. We recieved an email on Christmas day telling us our homestudy was done and we could proofread it. So we should be recieving the final copy soon!!! What a great Christmas present. I have put some pictures of our holiday season at the bottom of this post.

However, the main focus of this post is about Challenge House. About a year and a half ago Heath and I took a group of high school students on an inner-city mission trip right here in Hopkinsville. We spent three days and two nights in Challenge House I, where we painted, picked up trash, torn down an old building, loved on kids, and even had a block party for kids and adults in the neighborhood. That weekend trip sparked a passion in our hearts for the poor and the broken hearted. Heath and I met on the mission field and we always knew God was going to use us on a mission field as a married couple. So we began to pray about our involvement in the Challenge House organization. We prayed and asked the Lord what we were supposed to do for about a year before we heard clearly that we were supposed to move into another Challenge House. There were two Challenge Houses at the time and they were both being occupied, so after meeting with several people, we began looking for Challenge House III. After many months the organization finally bought this house, which was one of the very first houses we spotted the first time we looked through the neighborhood.

I know some of you might be wondering why we would want to move into a house like this, so allow me to explain what the Challenge House organization does. The purpose of Challenge House is to take old, abandoned houses, fix them up, and let Christians move in. These houses are designed to have a community part of the house and a private living space for the people living in the houses. Then the house becomes open to the community for GED classes, Jobs for Life classes, bible studies, after school tutoring, cooking class, mission trips, and anything else to help the people living in the community. The ultimate goal is to bring restoration into the lives of people in the community by introducing them to Jesus Christ. The programs are all about building personal relationships and bring them true hope. Fixing up the house is a physical representation of the internal restoration God wants to do in their lives and ours. So this is the before picture of the house.

We were excited this past week to actually begin working on the house. We gathered some local youth groups from Restoration House and Second Baptist and some family & friends to begin the demolition. Here are some pictures of all their hard work.

They knocked down walls.

Tore down two chimneys.

Shoveled and bagged insulation.

They were a hard working crew. Thank you to everyone who helped get the project started, we appreciate you all so much!!! There will be many more pictures and stories to come of this awesome ministry! If you want to know how to donate to this ministry or help with the remodeling of Challenge House III please email me at paigenicole32@yahoo.com


Here are some of our Christmas pictures.

We usually go to Iowa a week before Christmas so we always open our stockings at home the night before we travel. So this is our little family Christmas picture.

I was so exciting to finish making Gracie's stocking this year. Now our family stockings are complete until we welcome our next little one to the family :)

This is my family in Iowa on Christmas Day.

This is the girls on Christmas Eve. Aunt Stacey, Grandma Hoksbergen, Gracie, and me.

This is Gracie's Christmas dress my mom bought her. She was too cute!

We even had time to do a little Stampin' Up! We were making birthday and thank you cards. Gracie decided she wanted to help me too.

Then we travel back to Kentucky for Christmas with Heath's family. This is the whole crew, not all the kids are looking but at least none of them are screaming!

Gracie loved opening all her presents this year. She loved her baby doll!

Wilson and Gracie were enjoying the picnic table Grammie and Gramps Wilson bought for all the grandkids. They were loving it!

Well that's it for today. I hope you all have an awesome day and a great first week of 2010. It's going to be great!

Big Time Catch Up

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've updated our blog. The holiday season has begun and therefore the Wilson family is on the road again. We have just returned from our Thanksgiving Trip to Meridian, MS. Most of Heath's family still live in Mississippi so we spend Thanksgiving visiting all of them. Here are some fun pictures from our trip.

Me and my girl enjoying the pretty weather.

Family Picture on Thanksgiving Day!

All the Cousins (Wilson-6 months, Gracie-almost 1, Reese-15 months, Luci-2)

Playing outside

One of the things we did over the holiday was celebrate Gracie's 1st Birthday! I can't believe my baby is turning 1 tomorrow. It's hard to believe that a year ago today I was in labor, which ended up being a 22 hour process! Gracie Lynn Wilson arrived at 6:41 a.m. on December 2nd weighing 9 lbs. 6 oz. and 21 inches long. Yes, she was a big girl! Here are a few shots to show just how big she's getting. Happy Birthday Baby Girl!!!

Yummy Cake!!

Helping mommy fold clothes.

Walking outside.

Our adoption process is still going well. We are hoping our homestudy will be finished by the end of next week!! Yeah!! Then we will be doing all our paperwork with the adoption agency and waiting for a referral. I can't wait to see a picture of our son. We wanted him to know that he is loved this Christmas and that his forever family is waiting for him so we took some cute pictures for our Christmas cards. Here is a sneak peak at one of Gracie loving on her brother. So keep praying that God will lead us to our son. Thanks!



We also had another first the other day. Gracie helped us pick out our Christmas tree this year. She was amazed at the process and decorating it was even more fun. Heath would hand her the ornaments and she would hand them to me. Except for the glittery ones, she wanted to hang on to those. No broken ones yet, but we'll see if that's still true by the time we take the tree down.

Our next trip will be to Iowa to spend time with my family for Christmas. It should be a fun Christmas with Gracie walking around now and being able to open some of her presents on her own. The great thing about being in Iowa for Christmas is that our chances for a white Christmas are pretty good!

Hope you all are having a great day!!