Christmas Tree Angel Donation Story

I had planned to post about this next week, but when I woke up this morning - I really felt led to tell you the story today so here I am...

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about Duncan - a little boy on Reese's Rainbow who needed a forever family.  RR has a great Christmas Angel project to raise adoption grant funds to help bring Duncan and other beautiful children home to their forever families.  Many families would love to bring these angels home, but find the cost and required travel times of international adoption insurmountable. By helping with adoption grants, RR makes it easier for families to adopt children with Down's Syndrome or other special needs.

I had hoped to be a Christmas Warrior for one of the children on RR, but realized that it just wasn't feasible this year.  Instead, Mark and I decided that we would donate to Duncan's adoption fund through my friend Sarah who is his Christmas Warrior. If you click on the above link, you can find out more about Duncan.  She is doing some fun giveaways as part of this, too!!  I am happy to report that Duncan now has a family committed to bringing him home - YAY! 

Another blog I follow is raising money to bring Olga home for a forever family and I wanted to help Michelle out in her efforts as well.

Finances are a little bit tighter this year so I was wondering how I would come up with money to donate to these 2 children.  I asked Mark if he was ok with me cashing in our "change jar" and donating whatever amount was in there.  He readily agreed, but cautioned me that he thought there was only about $35-40.  Ok... I was a little disappointed but decided that was still something we could contribute. Michelle and her family were going to match funds if you donated $10 on certain days.  Plus, if you donate $35 to a specific child on RR - you get a porcelain Christmas tree ornament with a picture of the child whose fund you have donated to - and I was excited about having Duncan's ornament to hang on our tree! So, I figured that we could come up with $45 to give to both of these efforts.

Off I went to the credit union to get the change counted.  I stood there watching the "counter" as the numbers went up... past $45 - whew... past $55 - nice... past $65 - yay... past $75 - wow... past $85 - REALLY?  And still the machine kept going...  It finally stopped at $104.98!!  I was ecstatic - the lady at the counter probably wondering what the heck I was grinning about.  I also had some dollar bills from the change jar as well so all totalled, I had $114.98!!

My first thought was to donate $10 to Olga's fund and the rest to Duncan's fund.  However, the more I thought about it - the more I was convinced that we needed to make a difference for more children. We could donate $35 each to 3 children (Duncan and 2 others) plus still give the $10 to Olga's fund - total $115 - of which we already had $114.98!!  YIPPEE!!!  It was so fun to look at all the Christmas Angel Tree Children and decide who to select - I wanted to help them ALL.  Still had to choose, though so here are the angels whose adoption grant funds we are donating to.

Duncan

Jeffrey

Anastasiya

Such cuties!!  If you would like to see more about them or any of the other Christmas Angels, click here.  Would you consider "giving the gift of a family" by donating to their grant fund or becoming a prayer warrior for one of the RR children?  Every child deserves a family to call their own - parents to tuck them in at night, kiss their "boo-boos," and love them to pieces!!  And I believe that when we reach out to help others, God honors those efforts - how else would $35 turn into $114.98??