The year 2019 has come and gone with speed. Thank you to all of the friends of A Home for Jolee Foundation for making it a year full of blessings! Robin Burroughs kicked off the year by leading our team in finishing out the Gaines’ grant as they prepared to pick up little Gracie from China. Around the same time, our first foster-to-adopt grant family (Scott and Melissa Clark) flew to pick up their new placement, Eli. They shared the exciting news with us recently that their adoption has been finalized and Eli is legally part of his forever family! The third grant of the year went to Tim and Julie Collins who are in the process of a private domestic adoption. We are praying for their journey as they wait to see what God has in store for them. The beginning of summer brought big changes to the foundation as Robin passed the torch to me. I am nowhere near as qualified as Robin, but I am thrilled to be part of this great work. I’m proud of our Board of Directors and team of volunteers who worked overtime to make the transition as smooth as possible. Despite the overwhelming number of tasks they were assigned, these dedicated people stayed enthusiastic about our mission and have been a constant source of encouragement to me and the families we work with. With the change of president and treasurer, we needed to change the state in which we were based. James Pasley, our new treasurer, put in many hours getting all the documents and accounts changed from Texas to Georgia. It was certainly a difficult process with many hurdles and road blocks. James proved up to the task, though, and we have officially gotten everything moved over. In September we held our first “How to Change a Life” seminar at the Spotsylvania Church of Christ in Fredericksburg, VA. I am grateful to the elders there for allowing me to come speak (longwinded though I am!). It was a joy to have Scott and Melissa Clark present to help answer questions and show a great example of what adoption looks like. It was a pleasure to meet sweet Eli and get to know their family better. We are honored to now have Scott and Melissa on our Coaching Team as mentors for adoptive families. If you are considering adoption and would like to speak with one of our mentors, please contact us! They are happy to answer questions and help you navigate the (sometimes murky) waters of adoption. The following weekend we were welcomed by the Blue Ridge Church of Christ for our second “How to Change a Life” seminar. It was a pleasure to meet that congregation. They have proved to be a great encouragement to us with their support! Our treasurer preaches at this congregation and we are grateful that they allow him the leeway to volunteer to AHFJ while ministering there. In October we were notified of a family with an emergency need of funding. Nathan and Melissa Bridges got the unexpected blessing of a baby girl through the adoption of their children’s biological sister. The outpouring of love from the Church across the nation was inspiring. We saw their $5,000 grant come together in just 7 days; a true testimony to the love of Christian family! If that was not enough to prove the faithfulness of the brotherhood, just weeks after filling that emergency grant we saw their love in action again. We got news that Tom and Maggie Frazier were matched with newborn baby Eli right around the time we were scheduled to hold our second annual “Bids From The Heart” online auction. Through that auction our supporters raised over $1050, which enabled us to quickly finish out the Fraziers’ grant. We can’t thank you all enough for your generosity in helping both the Bridges family and the Frazier family in such a short time period! God has truly changed lives through you! Five grants were awarded in 2019, for a total of $15,734. This far exceeded our expectations for the year! Thank you SO much for making it possible for us to help these families! We thank our Lord and Savior for the great works that He does through His people. We pray you have a good year and look forward to seeing how God will use AHFJ in 2020! All for His Glory, Joshua Richardson P.S. Stay tuned for some exciting announcements regarding our grants!
0 Comments
|
Author Archives
March 2022
Categories |