Isabelle's Birth Certificate Arrived!!!

On Thursday (July 1, 2010) Isabelle's Birth Certificate Arrived!!! It was so exciting to see our names as her Adoptive Parents on the Birth Certificate. Things are really moving a long. Airline ticket are purchased, Birth Certificate has arrived, just a few more pieces of paperwork and we leave to bring her home.

Meet Our Daughter

We wanted to introduce everyone to our new daughter, Isabelle. Our adoption case cleared the courts on June 11th, officially making her our daughter!!! We plan to travel to Ethiopia on July 29th to bring her home. We cannot wait!!! Thanks to all of you who walked through this with us.

Motivated by the loss of Kennedy, Katie and I started a non-profit organization called Because of Kennedy to fight for the lives of orphans by providing them with life's basic needs and enabling them to become the future difference makers of the world. Check out our website at www.becauseofkennedy.org to read Kennedy's story and our mission.

We want to invite you to help us raise supplies for our partner orphanages that we will donate during our trip. We have identified a supplier in Ethiopia that will sell us powder baby formula at wholesale rates. Please consider donating funds for us to purchase this formula, along with other needed food and supplies. We have set a goal of raising $5,000. This is enough money to purchase 300 cans of formula plus staple foods and supplies during our visit beginning on July 29th.

All donations are tax deductible and donations can be made on-line on our website at

www.becauseofkennedy.org

directly to our PayPal account at

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=E4GF5E7NLXXJS

or mailed to us at

Because of Kennedy, Inc.
c/o Rudy and Katie Gleason
2755 Saddle Ridge Lake Dr.
Marietta, GA 30062

For additional information, or if you would like to start your own fund raiser, check out our website (www.becauseofkennedy.org) or contact us at rudy@becauseofkennedy.org or katie@becauseofkennedy.org

Thank you for joining us in the fight to save lives of orphans in Africa!!!

Hey guys -- You can follow what we are up to at www.becauseofkennedy.org.

Rudy and Katie

A Crazy Bunch of Emotions

These past few weeks have been overwhelming. They have been filled with emotions that at times I don't even know what to do with. Kennedy died on my birthday and two days later I was a mom to Isabelle. The emotional roller coaster is not over. Mother's day is this weekend, Kennedy's court date was schedule for May 15, Izzy is released for adoption on May 30, seven other families are traveling in June when we were planning to travel for our gotcha day for Kennedy, and the courts close August 6.....will we get a court date before then. Will we travel September or November. Will Izzy stay healthy...I hate that she has to be in the orphanage for so long.....I understand the reasoning but is doesn't mean I like it. These are just a couple of the things going through my head these days.

At church we are in the middle of a series called Sacred Space. The series is on Psalm 23. I can't even express how much this series has guided me through this time. I know I will be in another valley down the road, but I do feel like we are coming out of this one. Here is the link if you are interested

http://northmetro.sitewrench.com/dlgMediaPlayer.aspx?id=573

At the same time G-d placed it on our hearts to fight for the lives of the orphans in Ethiopia...we are not 100% sure what that is going to look like, but we know it going to be amazing. We will have a lot to tell you about this later.

We have pictures!!!

We have pictures!!! We have pictures!!! We have pictures of Izzy!!! We cannot share them on-line, but suffice it to say that she is beautiful. She looks healthy, well nourished, and loved by her caregiver. She just turned 3 weeks old. We are so thankful for the traveling family that took these photo's for us. We cannot stop looking at them.

We have pictures of Izzy!!!

The Crazy Ones

We met with some friends last night and came up with a crazy dream...

To serve Christ by improving the lives of orphans in Ethiopia by meeting their physical and spiritual needs...



Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

[Jesus said]..."I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:19-21

We are CRAZY! I cannot wait to see what God is going to do (and let us tag along for the ride).

We are soooo thankful

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! That is all we can say. We are so thankful to our friends and to our church for making incredibly generous donations to Ethio-American Family Services (see 'Cool Links' to the right) in Kennedy's name. These donation will directly impact the lives of Ethiopian orphans and directly impact Izzy.

We are blown away by you and blown away by 'His incomparably great power...and the working of His mighty strength' (Eph 1:19).