A Christmas Miracle – Christmas thru the eyes of a child Chapter 3

Well friends, can I just tell you; I have always loved Christmas and believed in Christmas “magic”, “miracles” or whatever you’d like to call it.  As a child it was almost always a miracle that we had presents under the tree, food on the table and heat in the house.  Things were always a bit on the tight side growing up, but we always had family and I never missed a meal.

Now, as an adult, here I was trying to figure out how to raise $3,000 in just a few short weeks.  Part of me felt like a kid again; wishing on stars and praying for a miracle.

With the help of a few friends, my hubby and I set up a gofundme page.  We told our story and hoped our friends and family would help us give this young girl a great Christmas miracle of her own.  I can honestly say I have never felt so humble in all of my life.  Asking for money has to be one of the hardest things we have ever had to do, but this girl is so worth it.  So we put it out there and held our breath.

In just 22 short days we raised the money we needed to bring her to stay with us for 4 weeks during Christmas!  How awesome is that!?!?!?  I was truly touched by the kindness of our family and friends.  What a huge blessing and they didn’t even know the difference they were about to make in so many lives. (Neither did we.)

Ok! Got that hurdle jumped! Now we just had to jump the other hurdles and yes they were almost as hard.  We had to send in our application along with the money, but we also had to have background checks run on both of us. Then we had to have a home visit with a social worker to make sure our home was a safe environment and that she actually had a bed to sleep in while she was here. (Where else would I put her?)  Let’s just say I’m most grateful that my parent-in-laws love us. Lol Because they helped us clean house and pretty up the guest bedroom, which until now had been an office/craft/junk storage room.  I’m just being real folks.  I’m still a work in progress with this whole house keeping thing.

Anyway, the social worker came and was very pleasant.  She interviewed my hubby and me, then looked around the house a bit.  She said everything looked good but made a couple little suggestions and said she would be in touch.  Now we wait…

 

Ok, I’ll tell you what happened! She emailed me the next day with a letter of approval and recommended we be host parents for this young girl!!!  Yahoo!!! We’re half way there, baby!  Yes, I said half way because we still had to go thru training and get the final acceptance from the hosting agency.

All these may seem like little things but when you are going thru it they are huge!  We were accepted and we attended the training.  Now to wait for the day of arrival…

Christmas thru the eyes of a child – Chapter 2

It was the week before Halloween and we had to pick a kid.  We were down to the wire here in the terms of money, because the other host families had been making payments since August or September.  So I ask the hubby “So are we gonna do this or what?”. His answer was ” yeah, let’s do it. Pick a kid.”.  So I did.
The first young girl I picked ended up not being available so I had to pick again.  This time I choose a beautiful young girl, whose picture kept coming up every time I looked at the program webpage.  I called the hosting agency and spoke to my area director.  She gave me some information about this particular girl and said “I’m not sure she’s a good fit for your family.  But I’ll tell you her Christmas wish was to come to your area in NC”. What?!?!?! You have got to be kidding me.  She then told me why.  One of her good friends had just been adopted in the summer by a family in the small town next to our city.  I then laughed because the friend lives in the town my husband grew up in and has family in still.  It was becoming clear to me that we were suppose to bring this girl to our house for Christmas and grant her wish to see her friend again.  So I said yes, she’s the one.

I then proceeded to tell my husband, when he came home from work.  We have selected a teenage girl.  He was a little … umm shocked lol.  A girl? Not a boy? A teenage girl? I was a bit amused by his reaction and his next statement.  ” I didn’t know what to do around teenage girls when I was a teenage boy and I still don’t”. I just smiled and said “well I guess you’ll be figuring that one out over Christmas”.

Now the challenge; it was the last week of October and we had until November 15th to find $3,000.00.  I can assure we didn’t just have that lying around with no other uses for it. As many of you know, we are a construction family and a heritage craft family; which means one is completely dependent upon the weather and the other is sells driven.  We were a little tight on funds while waiting for our next big show, in December. So, where were we going to get that much money, in just a three weeks?