Thanks again to Bill & Jody!

Thanks again to Bill & Jody from Wisconsin who purchased our Jeep.
They sent me these photos while wearing our shirt.
Thanks Guys!!

Our shirts are on Etsy!

Click here to view our shirts on Etsy

Jeep Wrangler Truck Sold!

Natalie's idea for me to build a Jeep truck and sell it to raise money for our adoption was successful. Not only did we accomplish this, but we also made another Jeep lover happy. He and his wife live in Wisconsin. They have 13 Jeeps, so this is their 14th. I am so pleased about this whole deal. So happy, in fact, that I am going to do it again.

I was a Stranger...and You took me in.

I was a Stranger from High Street on Vimeo.

Who'd a thought I'd be selling a Jeep for a baby?

So, if anyone knows me, I've sold a few Jeeps.
Natalie had an idea the other day, "Hey, why dont you buy a Jeep, fix it up, and sell it to make some money for our adoption?"

Genius!

and here we are:



2006 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited (also called the TJ or LJ).

This is the Long Wheel Base version of the original Jeep Wrangler. They made this length from 2004-06. This is the last year of this body style.

Similar to the old Jeep Scrambler CJ8 or AEV Brute.

• Black with Charcoal interior
• 4.0 Inline 6
• 6 speed
• 4x4
• 85K miles
• Dana 44 Rear axle with 3.73 gears
• Factory Painted Black fender flares (versus the matte or flat black ones that you see on the Sport & Rubicon models)
• Factory Chrome Grille
• Lighted rearview mirror with Compass & Temp
• Cruise Control
• AC
• Factory AM/FM/CD
• 15" Factory Aluminum Wheels
• Fog Lights
• Factory Tow Hooks (2 front & 1 rear)

This Jeep has had several modifications:

• Gr8Tops Half Hardtop (custom painted black to match the Jeep, with tinted rear slider window, & rear LED brake light)
• 32X11.50/15 Falken Rocky Mountain ATS Tires (like brand new with matching spare)
• 2" suspension lift in front. 2" Rear coil relocators in rear by AEV. Shocks from a 2010 Jeep Wrangler (which are 2" longer).
• Spray-in bedliner in rear
• Upgraded Chrome Jeep Emblems
• Custom antenna delete with new Jeep "Trail Rated" badge in place. New Antenna is relocated & hidden in rollbar padding.
• Tuffy Locking Security Center Console with subwoofer
• Custom Jeep Overland Steering Wheel
• Rear Rollbar speakers & dome lights relocated inside cab

This Jeep Wrangler Truck gets a lot of attention.

Half Hardtop is removable, and there is still a rollbar underneath.

It is in great condition & has a clean title.

Let me know if you have any questions

Feel free to call me at 417-224-4531 (cell)

Show Hope Grant Approved!

On Tuesday, May 10th, we received some great news.
Natalie got the mail & found a nice surprise.
Our Show Hope Grant (which is the organization that Steven Curtis Chapman started) approved our grant for our adoption. She immediately texted me & I ran home to celebrate with her. We were so surprised!

God continues to bless.

Some have asked where we are in our process.
Right now we are waiting for a referral for a child.
We have to kind of guess at the time frame on this, so we are approx. at around 4-5 months before we receive a referral.
Once we get that referral, and accept it, the next step is to wait for a court date.
The court date is actually in Ethiopia. We will both travel over there, spend a few days, go to court, then head back home. After that, it will be another 2 months or so before traveling the second time to actually pick up our child.

We are very anxious, but know that we need to remain patient.
Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

More Shirt Sales. Thanks to Chris Kuykendall

A Big Thank you to Chris Kuykendall (High Streets' Youth Pastor)!!

1. He bought one of our Ethiopia shirts.
2. He wore the shirt on stage this last Sunday while he preached at High Street.
3. He spoke about our shirt, what it represents, & the purpose it serves.
4. He directed people our way.

His idea & unselfishness allowed us to sell over 50 shirts & raise more money for our adoption.
by the way, we originally ordered 150 shirts, but now because of this surge of interest in our shirts, we just ordered 100 more.

Thanks Chris!! Can't say enough.

Adoption Garage Sale was a Success!

On Saturday Feb. 26th, we had our Garage Sale at our church to raise money for the Britton's adoption and ours. It was a huge success. It went from 7:00am to about 4:00pm, and was pretty steady throughout the day.

Thank you to High Street for allowing us to have this garage sale in the gym. It was much appreciated.
Thank you to everyone that helped setting up the sale, working the sale, and cleaning up.
Thank you to all that donated your things to the sale.
Thank you to all that came to the sale and bought things.
and finally, Thank you to those that bought some of our shirts.

We appreciate everyone that has been a part of helping us. It means very much to us.

"Five Million Minus Two" T-shirts Now Available

"Ethiopia: Five Million Minus Two"
This phrase means that the Britton family & our family are each adopting a child from Ethiopia.

The shirts brand are called Next Level. They are very similar to Alternative Apparel.

They are thin, a little longer, a little stretchy, & very soft. In other words, they are a quality shirt.

Thanks to Barrett Hillenburg for the cool design work.

We are selling them for $19 each. We also have kids sizes.
The profit from these will go toward the adoption for both families (The Brittons & ours).

Let me know if you would like one.
417-224-4531 (cell)
sblaine@atlassecurity.net

We are also going to have them for sale at our Indoor Garage Sale @ High Street Baptist Church on Feb 26th from 7am-3pm.

Dossier is Officially Sent! ........Sweet!

We have spent the last few months doing paperwork, jumping through hoops, paying fees, getting things notarized & state certified. All of this was to complete our Dossier, which was a checklist of about 20 items that had to be perfectly organized.


I met up with Shannon Britton at FedEx & we both sent off our individual dossiers together. We are in hopes (by doing this) that we will be able to have our paperwork go right along side each other through the process.

Hopefully, this will allow us to get a referral for a child close to the same time. Which means that we could potentially travel together.

We are so excited. Now we wait. I think that this will be one of the hardest parts of the process. It is out of our hands. We have put our faith in God that he will bless these adoptions & make this a smooth process for all of us.

USCIS Fingerprinting in STL

We went up to St. Louis with Jeff & Shannon on Jan 24th to get our fingerprints for the Department of Homeland Security. We drove 3.5 hours up, did the fingerprinting deal (which took all of 5 minutes), hung out in the Lou for a few hours, then drove back. This was a vital & important part of our process.

We had a great time with Jeff & Shannon. This trip gave us some time to talk about our adoptions together. We are so blessed to have them in our lives & on this same journey. Now, we just had to wait to get our approval back for this, so we could send the rest of our dossier off to Holt. Our approval came back in a record 3 days. Jeff & Shannon weren't quite as lucky, as theirs took close to 4 weeks to get back.

Another Surprise!

This last Sunday we were surprised again with another anonymous donation.
We are so happy! This truly was a blessing to us.
Thank you whoever you are! We know that God is working through you.

We are getting closer everyday. We go to St Louis on January 24th to do our fingerprinting for USCIS (fancy initials for Immigration). We will keep updating here as we take each step.

Keep praying for the Blaine Addition! Thanks.

Got Stuff???

We are going to have an indoor garage sale to help raise money for our and the Britton's adoption. It's going to be on Saturday, February 26th in the High Street Church gym. We would love for people to donate anything and everything for us to sell. So if you have been cleaning out rooms like I have to make room for all those Christmas presents then donate it to us. We will start collecting the week before the garage sale. You can drop off your stuff with us or the Britton's. So start going through your closets,garages.basements,whatever you have and help us. If anybody wants to help we greatly appreciate it too! If you don't have anything to donate then I would ask you to pray for both of our families as we continue on this journey. Any questions you can contact any one of us. Thanks!!