Penguins Adoption Ticket Raffle

We hope that 2009 is a year of Joy and hope for all of you. Spring is here, if even in name only - this is Pittsburgh after all - and we have finally decided to write a family update. 2008 was a year of tremendous growth and healing for all three of us, but still left us feeling that our family was not yet complete. The years of our journey have always lead us to adoption but the timing never seemed to be right. We began to research in early 2008, and by January of this year we found our match in an agency, Bethany Christian Services (BCS). Yet, there are so many options in adoption we weren’t sure what direction was the right choice for our family. The obvious choice for us was to pursue an adoption through the Philippines, as it is part of our family heritage. Our wonderful agency, BCS tried to kindly let us know that the wait would be long, as children in the Philippines tend to spend years in foster care or orphaneges before they can adopted. We then had to pray about it to decide what direction we needed to go, but we felt compelled to the philippines. The next day our agency called and said you would not believe this but there is a 3yr old boy named Alan. We knew immediately he was meant to be our son, but it will be a long road.

Now to update you on the process we have just completed our home study, and are going through the mountains of paperwork and other processes needed to work towards approval. The next step is Immigration Services, Passports, and travel Visas all leading to the final approval from the Philippine Government. We chose to adopt through the waiting child program and are hopeful to bring our son home within the next 9 to 12 months. This is a very time consuming process. It's also rather expensive. Because of that, we are trying to find way to help with that expense.

Rob has been a Pittsburgh Penguins season ticket holder for the past few years . So, along with a dear friend, they have graciously given up their seats, to raffle the FIRST HOME GAME for the OPENING ROUND of the Playoffs. This could be the FIRST game overall if the Pens had home ice and that would be around Tuesday 4/14. But, its looking more likely that they would not get home ice, so it would be the THIRD game overall, probably around the weekend of 4/18. The TWO seats are in F30, 2nd row (with a great view of the whole ice).

Here's how it will work. Buy a raffle ticket for a cost of $10, and that will get you ONE entry into the raffle. For each $10 you spend, you will get 1 raffle entry. We have created a PayPal account if you wish to enter using a credit card. Just go to Brandee's blog at http://mancavefamily.blogspot.com and click on the Donate button on the right side of the page. If you have a PayPal account, just login. If you do not, enter the amount to donate at the top and click the Continue link on the middle-left of the page. You can put in your CC# and create a quick PayPal account from one click. You can also just hand us cash, or send a check.

Every cent we get will go directly to helping bring our son Alan home, so rest assurred we are not flying to Mrytle Beach to golf with the proceeds!

Thank you in advance for thinking of us during this time in our lives. We are very excited to bring another child into our home/family, and would be very appreciative to all the help we receive. If you wish to donate, please just reply back with how many entries you want or use the Donate link above. If you cannot participate in the raffle please share in this journey with us through prayer for a safe journey for our son and families in the hard fought journey of adoption.

Please forward on to friends and family. Thank you for joining us in this Journey.