Wow! God is awesome!

Wow! That's all we can say is wow! We had our garage sale today, and we made $1,600 in donations and sales for our adoption! God is good--all the time, all the time--God is good! This is such an affirmation to us! This is such a step of faith, but by this, God is telling us that He is behind us too, and that this is what He is calling us to do. We had a gorgeous day, a great neighborhood (thanks Walburgs :) and just an over-all good turn out today. We want to say a special thank you to all the people who donated, either monetarily or with items to sell :) We love you all! Your support means the world to us! We still ask for your prayers as we embrak on this journey!

An up-date on the adoption so far. Megan has had her physical, blood work and drug test (which she passed--suprise suprise j/k :). Daniel has his scheduled for this coming week. We both got finger-printed. Our referal letters have been sent out, and some returned. Once Laurie (our case-worker) gets those, she will call us for our "house-visit." This is making me a bit nervous. I know my house is clean, but is it good enough to pass an inspection??? We shall see. I think we will be ok though. Then, we will create a profile for birth-moms to look at, to decide if they want us to parent their child. This is where the waiting begins. It could go very fast, or it could take a year or so. Pray for patcience for us too, as we wait and also pray for the birthmom, that she may feel confident with her choice. Well, that's enough for now.

Thanks Thanks Thanks!
The Hellenthals

Sunday sermon

Well, I forgot to blog about this, but at church on Sunday, we heard an AWESOME sermon! George talked about the trial of Jesus, particularly the flogging of our Savior. He talked about how, in those days, there were usually two Roman soilders standing on either side of the victim taking turns flogging them. As the prophet Isaiah says, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53) This means that the two "soilders" who were flogging Jesus was really ME and God! To listen to more of the sermon, go to our church website...http://www.hhcrc.org. I hope that you take the time to listen to it, and that it impacts you as much as it did Hefty and I! We love our church family, and our so blessed to be a part of HHCRC.

What's been going on....

Well, I figured that it was about time to blog again :) We recently re-painted our kitchen! It had an awful border, and so we thought it time to up-date it a bit. It's now a redish color and I really like it! We have been really busy getting stuff ready for our garage sale for our adoption! It's been such a blessing to see people donate things to us for us to sell for our adoption :) We really appreciate all the support and prayers for us about the adoption. This is something that we feel so passionate about! We are starting an Orphan Ministry at our church. It's sad to think that there are 6,000 orphans in MI alone! Well, let's see we offically turned in our application this Wednesday. It was kindda crazy to think that we are on our way to becoming parents. We are both so excited about it! We are both going to get finger-printed tomorrow. I have to get my blood-work done yet and Hefty has to have his physical yet, which is at the end of the month. We have a break from Youth Group this and next week since it's Spring Break. We are both busy working and doing stuff with church. We are getting a new website at church that I will be keeping up-dated. It's a little scary for me because I have never done anything w/ websites. I think once I get the hang of it, I'll be fine. I think that's about it for now.
Have a blessed week!

GARAGE SALE!

We are having a garage sale! All the proceeds go towards our adoption :) It's at 639 Sand Hollow Drive. There will be many more garage sales as this is the annual neighborhood sale. Please come out and help us get our baby!! If you have anything that you are willing to donate to the sale, please give us a call or send us an email...thanks!! Also, thanks for all your prayers of support for this!! We continue to ask for them as we endeavour on this journey together :) Thanks!

Adoption Update :)

Well, we met with Bethany Christian Services last week. In my opinion, they were awesome! I was so impressed with them! The lady that we met with (who would be our case-worker) has been working at Bethany for 9 years! She obviously knows what she is doing and has alot of experience doing what she does. She was nice, helpful and answered our questions as best as she could. She told us that given our ages, our openess to different ethnic groups and openess as far as the birth mother goes, it would be 9-12 months until we have a referal. After a birth-mom chooses us, the baby still isn't ours until 3 weeks after the baby is born and we go to court to sign the papers. We have all the beginning paperwork to fill out and we will have to get our medical exams done and our finger-prints complete. So, bathed in prayer, stepping out in faith, we are going to actually start this process. It is very scary, but exciting at the same time. I have no doubt that we will be good parents, but it will be very different with a baby. I am extremely excited to begin this adventure together. I have no doubt that it will bring us closer together as a couple and become more reliant on the Lord. We simply ask that everyone would keep us in your prayers. We want to be doing God's will. We are going to be doing a domestic infant adoption. We feel that there are so many babies in the states who need good moms and dads too! We will keep you posted as the journey continues and progressess!

Meanwhile, we have both been really busy. We have a big fund-raiser coming up for our Youth Group this weekend so that has been keeping us busy. It should be fun! We went to some friends from church for the Super Bowl. It was really fun! I got to babysit my "niece" (friends daughter) yesterday. It was so so fun! Lyvi was so good and it gave me even more baby fever :) Hefty has been doing a lot of subbing lately--which is good--the extra money is nice. I think that's about it.....
Hope you all have a good week :)
Megan

Life goes on....

Hello faithful readers (if there are any out there)-

Life around the Hellenthal household has been busy, yet relaxing at the some time. Megan has been working at both church and Family Fare, but has had a couple much needed days off of Family Fare as of late. I have been working full-time (praise the Lord!) and subbing a few days a week as well. It’s weird but every time I walk into a new class, on any given day, I am a little nervous. However, by 2nd hour (most of the time!) I usually have them whipped into shape and I am feeling better about the material the sub has left for me to teach. Subbing isn’t like what it use to be when I was in school. Subs use to just pop in a video and let the students watch it. That is not the case anymore. They have me teaching ratios, fractions, grammar, and all different stuff. Its fun though. I love it!

Youth Group has been busy for both Megan and I. Even though I haven’t been able to make it on Sunday night the last couple of weeks, I have been still doing stuff behind the scenes. Here is what has been going on: We are currently planning a 5 course meal and entertainment for an annual fundraiser we have each year. Its always a blast and we have amazing food, but we got a little bit of a late start this year. The theme is ‘Road Trip’ and Megan and another wonderful female leader, Amy, has totally taken over the planning of decorations, skits, singing, table decorations, ect. They both have been hard at work and keeping the kids on track. It should be an awesome time! At least we hope so! I have been in the starting phases of planning the auction fundraiser we are doing in late April. We are planning a much more simple dinner for the auction and I am starting to pull information together for the “roll out” of the auction announcements and advertising at church. On top of all the fundraising, we are also planning the mission trip we are going to this summer. We are heading out to the northwest corner of the United States to Seattle, Washington!!. We will be working with missionaries from Holland Heights, who also happen to be the two people that married Megan and I two summers ago. Everyone is super excited and pumped about the trip.

Megan and I are also in the beginning phases of the adoption process. We are planning on meeting with a couple different organizations this week and hope and pray that this will help us clear up some things and give us a better picture of how we can receive and nurture one of God’s amazing gifts. Please keep us in your prayers about this.

Other then that, we have been spending time together when neither one of us is working, spending time with our families and our friends. This past weekend was my brother Freddie’s birthday and we went to Crazy Horse with a bunch of his friends and had dinner. The food was awesome, as always, and the server was pretty awesome herself. Megan and I also went and saw Marley and Me at the movie theater that same day. It was a really good movie and we both really liked it. A lot of people were crying at the end, but I held my own and didn’t. Other then that, life rolls on…

I hope all the readers (the one or two of you out there) are having a great day and a great week. Stay warm!!

Hefty

New baby!

Welcome to the world Lucy! My step-brother and sister-in-law had their baby last night! She was only 5 lbs 14 oz. She was 3 weeks early! We went to see her today, what a cutie :-) She is doing well! Just thought I would share that information!