Generosity

In the last 5 days we've received generous gifts of all kinds of amounts, including gifts of multiple hundreds of dollars and $10; and, truly, each of those gifts have been incredibly generous! The heart behind that $10 donation and the heart behind the multi-hundred dollar gifts, we deeply believe and trust, are one in the same. Generosity looks different person to person but all *true* generosity is a heart issue. I've given bigger (emphasis on the 'er' not the big) sums of money that were not generous and I never heard of any stories of the person I'd given that money having any kind of break through. Conversely, I've given smaller amounts out a place of conviction and love (true generosity) and heard of that small amount being a huge blessing. Jesus talked about this much more eloquently than I ever could when He pointed out to His disciples that the rich folks made a spectacle of dropping large chunks of money in the collection plate and they received their reward by having others ooo and ahhh. In contrast, Jesus pointed out, the poor widow who dropped in two small copper coins gave eternally more than the show-y folks. It's a heart issue. To be clear: you can be wealthy and truly generous! And, in the same way, you can be in poverty and quite greedy.

I say all that to get to here: we are in need of generosity. We've had about $1800 come in in the last 5 days (such a blessing!!) by way of donations and you all buying our shirts and jewelry. That means we need to raise about $5200 in the next couple of days (by Friday afternoon) to cover our next batch of costs (legal fees and money we are providing our birth mother to help with rent and medical expenses). We have a faithful God who keeps on providing so we know He will continue to do so! And, perhaps, He's using you to His end of provision.

A question we've been asked is "OK, but what if you don't get the money?" - and we have only one answer: God is faithful and it WILL happen! If we need to take out loans or use credit, we will absolutely do that; this baby - our baby! - is coming home. We refuse to guilt anyone into giving us money and we also know that the sovereign God of the universe has called us to adopt this baby boy or girl so we're excited to see how He will provide (again)!

Care to join us? C'mon c'mon!

Wayne

$7,000

Hey friends, thanks for all who have so faithfully and graciously joined us on this journey to bring home Baby Patterson - we hope that our gratitude is clearly and consistently expressed! We have a big and expensive ask in this post and we feel like we ask more than we express gratitude so if we say thank you an annoying amount, well, it's to make sure we express our deep gratitude in light of our feelings of apprehension (and even guilt) in asking.

We have $4100 in our adoption account from ongoing fundraising the past year plus and we have had another couple of hundred come in from t-shirt sales and jewelry which is fantastic because we have our next major chunk of money due to the tune of about $11,500 (legal + money to help our birth mom + updating home study) meaning we need to come up with $7,000 in the next week or so.

We hope you will continue to consider us as we have goods for sale that can make great Christmas presents, AND, very boldly, we are asking if you would consider a monetary donation of any size. We will have to do a similar ask again in a few weeks (not as much but still bold) so know that this audacious ask is going to be compounded by further asks. This is our reality and keeps us humble (and honestly, in our flesh, we feel some measure of guilt and even embarrassment and yet we remember that God has called us to this and we're reminded that He's the faithful one who keeps providing through each of you and the guilt and embarrassment subside).

So, there you have it. We need to raise $7000 in the next 7 days. IF you're up for take a chipping in on that:
1) go to our You Caring site or
2) send a check to Bethany and Wayne Patterson 6034 SW 85th St Gainesville, FL 32608 or
3) use Venmo  (app or online) and search for Wayne Patterson or 7574127432

Thanks so much, we love you and are grateful for each of you,

Bethany and Wayne