Answered Prayers!!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in our Adoption yard sale last weekend! Whether you donated items to sell, came to shop, or helped at the sale, we are so grateful for your contribution to help make the yard sale a success! After about a month of collecting and pricing items, the weekend of the sale finally came.

We started setting up on Friday around noon, and decided to put a yard sale sign outside the neighborhood just to see if we could sell anything while we were setting up. We ended up selling about $500 just on Friday! We set up until dark and prayed for no rain on Saturday.

If you were in town last weekend, you know that on Saturday, there was a torrential downpour! I cried :(  I felt angry, sad, hopeless, and overwhelmed. I just thought what's the point after all this hard work and now for it to be ruined by a monsoon! Our first customer came around 5:50 am...(sale didn't start until 7)...Despite the weather there was a steady flow of people with their umbrellas, rain jackets, and flashlights. People were actually shopping and buying stuff in the rain. We did our best to keep things covered, but that didn't stop people at all. I was in disbelief. I was thinking "these are crazy yard sale people!"


My spirit was lifted as God comforted me by the fact that He promises to remain faithful and provide. I was so encouraged by so many familiar and unfamiliar faces coming to support us. I was comforted by seeing how God was still raising the money despite my plans, the thunderstorm, and my doubts.

Since it was so wet on Saturday, we were not able to put out a lot of our items, so we made a last minute decision to have another sale on Sunday. So we made new signs and had a last minute advertisement on Facebook and Craigslist and tried to sell as much as we could Sunday.  Praise God we made a total of $4000 from our Adoption Yardsale Fundraiser!! 

Busy Fall Happenings!

Wow! I cannot believe it is already October! I love that the leaves are changing colors, the air is a little cooler, and pumpkin everything abounds!

A lot has happened in the last 2 1/2 weeks! We have completed our interviews and our caseworker has written our Home study. She will send off our paperwork to her supervisor who will give the final stamp of approval. It could take up to a month to process and then we should hear something back.

Next Saturday, October 10, we will be having a Mega Yard Sale to help raise funds for the adoption. We are so grateful for the OVER 50 family & friends who have sacrificially donated items (you can see how full Michael's parents' garage is) and time to make this fundraiser possible. See more details about the sale here. Hope to see many of you there!

Below are a few other ways we are raising funds. We still have our Adopt Together Fundraising page. It is much like a Go Fund Me page, except this one is a non-profit and you can get a tax deduction for any donation. Secondly, we set up an Amazon Affiliates store. So if any of you love shopping on Amazon, click the icon below and bookmark that page. When you buy from our page, a few cents from every transaction will go toward our adoption. Lastly, our friend, Mo Parks, is a talented photographer and is going to donate a percentage of her proceeds to our adoption fund from those who book any type of photography session and mention that you were referred by the Inghams! Check out her work and book your photo session with her here: 

  Adopt Together: Ingham Family           Amazon Adoption Page               Mo Parks Photography

        

         

We have been learning so much about adoption as we have been on our own journey to adopt.  Here is another statistic about adoption. Pray for the over 150 million orphans in the world to find homes to call their own.

Home Study Underway! :)

We have been so overwhelmed by all of the love and support by friends and family. This encouragement has been so helpful as we have progressed through the adoption process.

The more we learn about adoption, the more convinced we become that this is a real need in the world. Hopefully, we can share some of the statistics and findings we learn about. Also, we want to be an open book so that if others are considering adoption, they will have their questions answered or know that they can come talk with us about it.

The first step in the adoption process is to complete a series of 5 interviews called a HOME STUDY.  So far we have completed 2 of the 5 interviews. The first one was an orientation interview where our case worker, Libby, made sure there were no red flags that would disqualify us from continuing the process. We passed :)  There are no red flags and we have the privilege of continuing through the interview process!

 Prior to our second interview we had to gather a ton of paperwork, such as marriage licenses, birth certificates, tax returns, pay stubs, employment verification letters, licenses, proof of rabies vaccination for our dog, Lucas, back ground checks, medical examinations, and so much more! Thankfully we have a file cabinet that organized most of this paperwork so we knew exactly where to find most of those things!

Another thing we had to do to prepare for this interview was to individually take a marriage/ relationship survey called "Prepare and Enrich" online in which the results revealed strengths and weaknesses and relationship dynamics. Our caseworker reviewed these results with us during the interview. Lifeline adoption agency values healthy Christian marriages because they believe that that environment will be best for a child to flourish in. If there are any areas in a marriage that are lacking or need growth, they provide resources and support to build up and strengthen those areas.

Also, during this home study interview, Libby toured our home and made sure there was adequate living space and made sure we have working smoke alarms and a fire extinguisher.

It seems like we have accomplished ALOT in such a short amount of time. 2 interviews down, 3 to go! Our ultimate financial Goal for the adoption is $25,000, but thankfully it is not due all at once.
This is where we can use YOUR HELP! By the 5th Homestudy interview we will have had to pay $2000. We are asking you to prayerfully consider donating on our Adopt Together fundraiser to help us meet this need by October 1st! Looking forward to how God will provide!

New Fundraising Ideas!

Just wanted to share about some fundraising ideas we have set up...

(1) One way is thru a yard sale we are having on Saturday October 10th. If you have any items
      to donate, please let us know :) or if you wanna come shopping, you can!  See the details below -

• What: Adoption Fundraising Yard Sale
• Where: 581 Fox Hunt Lane, Evans, GA 30809 (house of Nick & Donna Ingham)
• When: October 10th, 2015 from 7am - until…

Ways to contribute:

• Come shop and donate to a good cause!
• Donate items to our sale that we could sell for this cause!
• Tell your friends or share this flyer on social media to get the word out!

** If you have any items you would like to donate to the yard sale, please call or contact us for pick up or drop off details.**

Corrie Ingham - 706.836.1345, cingham10@gmail.com
Michael Ingham - 706.631.7711, mfingham@gmail.com
Donna Ingham - 706.288.5970, donnaingham@gmail.com
___________

(2) We have set up an online account to raise funds through AdoptTogether.org.... this site it
    much like GoFundMe with a few differences. See below for some of the perks of giving this way :)

**Some more of our story is on this site at 

• As you go on there to give, also share / repost on your social media account. We could use all the networking help you are willing to give :)

_____________

(3) Lastly, my mom is pretty crafty and has been making decorative wreaths for folks for the last few 

     years. If you are interested and would want one (for your football team, for upcoming holidays - 

     Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc), then please message me or her and she could 

     make one for you.

Here are some pics of her recent work... And here is a link to her FB page where you can message her!

Thanks again to you all who are blessing us with your friendship and support! 

Love, 

                          Mike & Corrie

Exciting News

So it has been a long time since we have updated you so it's time to catch up!
In July, We celebrated our 5th Anniversary! We had the opportunity to go to Vancouver,  British Columbia and Seattle, WA. It was our first time to the Northwest, and we had a blast! Here are a few highlights from our trip:

Enjoying the sights of Mt. Rainer 

Bike ride in Stanley Park, Vancouver

 Exploring Pike Place Market, Seattle

This month, we have some VERY EXCITING news!!

As I mentioned earlier, we just celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. I cannot believe it has already been 5 years! Early on in our marriage, we talked about our desire for children, biologically and through adoption. In our 3rd year of marriage we were ready to start trying to have children. So after 2 years of trying to start a family and having some tests only confirm that nothing is medically wrong, we have prayerfully decided to start the process of adoption. 

We have decided to pursue a domestic infant adoption through Lifeline adoption agency, which is based out of Birmingham, AL. To learn more about this adoption agency here is a link to their website: Lifeline Adoption

So far we have applied and completed our orientation interview with our social worker Libby. Now, we are collecting a lot of paperwork to get ready for our next meeting which will be our 1st Home study Interview.

1/26/13 Update

The Ingham Update - CO Mobilization January 26, 2013 View this email in your browser   Life - on - Life    With the Ingham Family Thanks for being a part of this journey with us. We really can't imagine doing life without the joy of your partnership. (Philippians 1:3-5) (*you can follow our updates in our FB group as well*) We just wanted you to know how this month is wrapping up and how to pray for us! We just visited Chattanooga, TN last weekend to do some preliminary work on setting up a partner church (New City Fellowship, below) to receive a team of our CO grads upon them finishing school. This team would launch to Chattanooga in the summer/fall of 2014. Lots of exciting things are going on up there. We are pumped to be able to potentially partner with other believers advancing God's kingdom! Also, be praying for us as we will be traveling for 6 days over the next week and a half. We will be in ATL for a mobilization summit with all the other mobilization directors for CO regions around the country. After 3 days of that, we will head to Clarkston, GA (which is a refugee processing center for the US). It is one of the most diverse square miles in America with over 1 million foreigners. To give you a picture of what life is like there: the local high school has students from 54 countries with 47 different languages. We are looking into Clarkston (top pic below: of temple next to Subway) being a mobilization site for us in the future as well. The end of our trip will be 2 days in Nashville, TN. Our friends (some former CO staff) are a part of a church plant (South City Church) that is just starting up there. The work is very new and they need lots of help. We are praying about sending a team of our trained graduates to be a part of that church plant. All of this is very exciting, but we need much more than excitement - we need prayer and God's favor in all of these plans we are making! Please join us in praying! Join our Team! Facebook CO Augusta VP Blog Twitter Like Tweet Forward to Friend Copyright @ 2013 Mike and Corrie Ingham, All rights reserved.

1/15 Update

The Ingham Update - CO Mobilization January 15, 2013 View this email in your browser   Life - on - Life    With the Ingham Family Thanks for being a part of this journey with us. We really can't imagine doing life without the joy of your partnership. (Philippians 1:3-5) 2013 is getting off to a fast & exciting start. Our mobilization track here (Vision Pathways Augusta) is entering into its 2nd half and we are very excited about what God can and will do in the lives of our grads. Some things we are doing with them: We are starting (this year) to place an emphasis on integrating their faith and work. We have so many mentors in the church who are helping us do that. Also, we are working through a book in our discipleship groups entitled, "Every Good Endeavor" by Tim Keller. It is a great resource - check it out. We are also assimilating them deeper into the life of the church by having them join community groups with other young adults and an older couple in the church. One of our grads, Dave Jackson, is going to get to share (Feb 17th) about God's work in his life and his experience in Vision Pathways with the whole church. This will be great for everyone to have a deeper glimpse into Vision Pathways. Our VP staff team came up with some prayer requests (specific to VP) that we want to trust God to answer over the course of this Spring (see below). We are asking the grads to pray these with us because we know that God listens and acts on behalf of his children when they pray. Lastly, we have started a blog to document and update all that is going on in the Vision Pathways world on a day to day basis. There are consistent updates on things that have happened as well as personal blog posts by the grads themselves. To see or follow that blog, click here. Dave Jackson is a recent graduate of Georgia Southern University. I (Mike) first met him at a roadside clean-up that we were doing and we struck up a friendship. He came to our weekly evangelistic meetings and eventually surrendered his life to Christ. Now as a graduate, he lives downtown as a part of the Vision Pathways community and works as an admin at Paine College. God is already using him in exciting ways there to be a witness for Christ! Answered Prayers A new friend of mine just told me that he and his wife want to be a part of our work through financially supporting us and praying for us. God has been so kind to affirm what Corrie and I are doing through the loving faithfulness of his people who believe in this vision of "mobilizing laborers to the lost world." Prayer Requests Join us in praying through our trust God list for the spring! Continue to pray as we travel during February and March for site visits to future mobilization tracks and for other Campus Outreach responsibilities. Traveling often has a way of throwing our routine off. We want to walk deeply with God as we are going about the business he's called us to. Corrie and I are still raising support to continue on in his calling for us to advance the kingdom in a very strategic way. We need at least $200 a month in personal support. If you know of anyone who would be interested in hearing about our work, let us know as we would like to give them the opportunity to be a part of this huge, God-sized mission! DONATE Facebook CO Augusta VP Blog Twitter Like Tweet Forward to Friend Copyright @ 2013 Mike and Corrie Ingham, All rights reserved.