Final stages! It's gonna happen! Posted about almost 9 years ago

Hi Faithful Backers...can you believe this fundraiser ran over three years ago?  You joined our team and have stuck with us through a VERY long process.  We are nearing the final stages and are hoping to have our girls home soon!  There have been a few major developments in the last month or two that we thought you'd love to check out if you haven't already.  www.willyougivemeyourlunch.wordpres...

November/December updates Posted about over 9 years ago

Happy Holidays everyone!Please click here to see our latest updates and find out what we are most wanting for Christmas!Also there is a post about Jen's trip to visit the girls in early November. :)Blessings!Team Berge

Another hurdle cleared! Posted about over 9 years ago

Hi Lovely Team Berge Backers!For those of you that may have missed it, we have some great news!  We have cleared IBESR (known as Haitian Social Services) and received an exit letter.  We are now allowed to go visit the girls, and Jen will be heading down there the first week of November to do just that!  We have also re-released our t-shirts until November 1st.    Click the link below for more ...

Hurricane Matthew Posted about over 9 years ago

Hi Backers--we are happy to support that our girls are safe and sound in their orphanage in Port Au Prince.  PAP was largely spared the devastation that the rest of Haiti suffered.  We are asking, no BEGGING, people who want to help to not donate to the Red Cross, UNICEF, or USAID.  They completely mismanaged funds after the earthquake and have HUGE overhead to deal with.  Please read our most ...

Great news! Posted about almost 10 years ago

 Hi Backers!I can't believe we forgot to let you in on our news.  It was a whirlwind to be sure.  We made the deadline with US Immigration!  We got "The Call" with our match/referral on March 18th and were off to Haiti one week later to meet our little girls!  In order to not make this update too long we will point you to our blog yet again for details about our trip and our little girls.https:...

Adoption Update from Berges Posted about about 10 years ago

Dearest Backers,Once again we covet your prayers as a deadline looms for our family...https://willyougivemeyourlunch.wordpress.com/Grateful to have you with us on this journey,Team Berge

A couple update for our Team of Backers... Posted about about 10 years ago

Thank you. Thank you for sticking with us and praying for us.  Please check in with our blog and see that your prayers are deeply needed at this time.  If you'd like to get email updates from our blog every time we update it (which is not that often, unfortunately) please click on the right sidebar and enter your email address in the "follow" box.  It's that simple.  Bottom line, the people tha...

A little bit of news! Posted about over 10 years ago

Hello to our Team of Backers-- are you still with us?  This is a long journey and even our own attention span wanes at times!  We recently found out that there are childrens' files "assigned" to us that have passed the Children's Judge.  We believe these files have been stuck in the Children's Judge office for almost a year or more.  Now we are waiting for "the call" to go down and meet our kid...

14 months and counting Posted about over 10 years ago

Dearest Backers...we did not forget you.  You invested in something far bigger than all of us and it has yet to come to fruition.  We have not given up.  We have not quit relentlessly pursuing what we feel called to do.  It's just taking a long time.  We knew it would take a long time, but this is even longer than we thought.  We are now two years into the process and 14 months into waiting for...

Latest Blog Post 5/20/15 Posted about almost 11 years ago

Hi Backers-- it has been a long time and for that we apologize.  Wish we had some astounding, exciting news to share, but we don't.  We are still waiting.  Waiting for the phone call that will give us the identities of our children... we are 9 months into that wait.  Our dossier is sitting in IBESR (Haitian Social Services) waiting to be joined with our childrens' dossiers when they will become...

Home Study Update-- already Posted about about 11 years ago

Hi Team--Hard to believe we have been in this long enough to be needing to update our Home Study, but it's true.  We had a social worker out to the house last week to check out the new address and talk about John's job change.  She is great and everything went smoothly.  She will now write an addendum to go on our current Home Study.  We then have to send this in to USCIS (United States Center ...

Corrected link for Blog Posted about about 11 years ago

So sorry-- it looks like the link we have been giving everyone for our blog is wrong.  You should NOT need a password to access or follow our blog.  You can get to our blog one of two ways.  The best way is to just Google it " Will you give me your lunch" and it should come up.  Then on the right hand sidebar you can enter your email and become a "follower".  This gets you our blog entries dire...

John and Luke headed to Haiti! Posted about about 11 years ago

Hi! We think of our Backers way more than you would think, based on the number of updates we write.  We still have nothing new to report about our adoption.  We have heard rumors that our paperwork is moving through the system, but know better than to bank on anything that is hearsay.  Right now we are just waiting for Haitian Social Services to "match" our family with two siblings whose gender...

Beautiful things. Beautiful gifts... Posted about over 11 years ago

Hi everyone--if you need some last minute things for Christmas as a tangible symbol of your support for both our adoption and keeping children with their birth families in Haiti here are some great ideas.Happy Holidays!

John talks about pregnancy... Posted about over 11 years ago

Hi everyone!  Another blog post in case you don't have anything better to do. :)http://willyougivemeyourlunch.wordpress.com/Blessings in this Christmas season to all of you!

Thanful even in Limbo Posted about over 11 years ago

Hi Backers-- we have updated our blog if you want to check it out for more info about our adoption.  As expected this is a LONG process.  This does not come as a surprise to us and hopefully it does not come as one to you.  The waiting is necessary and we are trying to make it productive.http://willyougivemeyourlunch.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/thankful-even-in-limbo/Thanks for walking through thi...

One Step Closer! Posted about over 11 years ago

Hi Backers!  We absolutely did NOT forget about you.  We thank God for you daily.  Your prayers for our family here in the US and your prayers for our children still in Haiti,  your support, and your encouragement.  Thank you.We recently learned that our dossier has been submitted (against several obstacles) to IBESR or Haitian Social Services on Friday August 29th.  This is amazing!  We still ...

And the winner is...!! Posted about almost 12 years ago

First off, a HUGE thank you to all of you who donated to our garage sale.  We had about 63 families that participated in making it a success.  Everyone who donated a bag or box of stuff was entered in a drawing to win a session with a Professional Organizer.  We finally did our drawing and have a winner!  Congratulations to Erika Ramsey and the Ramsey Family who will be receiving a free sessio...

(Dis)Organized Chaos Posted about almost 12 years ago

Hi BACKERS!  We just wanted to keep our team in the loop about what is going on in our house.  We have moved into our new house and are now preparing it to welcome a couple more family members sometime in the next year.  Our paperwork is floating around Haiti--more specifically is in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and we are patiently waiting for it to exit there and enter IBESR, which is the ...

Doing any spring cleaning? Think of us! Posted about almost 12 years ago

Hi Backers!  If you're cleaning out any closets or garages in the near future, think of us!  We'd gladly help you unload your stuff at our HUGE Garage Sale from May 29-31st.  Or perhaps you'd rather help out by counting money, baking yummy stuff, or have a table or two we could borrow?Click this link to see ways you can help out:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hc_ndqaoCTue0Da4Kv9MZt2GrzW2GZ...

Our dossier is in Haiti! Posted about almost 12 years ago

Got an email this week from our agency that our dossier and home study is now in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Now we wait.  We wait for the IBESR (Haitian Social Services) to give us a referral for a sibling set.  Sounds so simple.  Yet takes so long.  We will most likely wait for at least 6-8 months before we know the identities of our children.  But God knows who they are.  He's always k...

Blog Update... Posted about almost 12 years ago

Hi everyone!Just updated our blog.  You can read it here:www.willyougivemeyourlunch.com/Also, we made a couple t-shirts (pictures are on the blog).  If you and/or your family are interested in ordering any let us know.  Deadline is April 18th.  Cost is $20 each.  All proceeds go towards our adoption fund.Hope you are enjoying spring now that it's finally here! (At least for those of us in Minne...

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you again! Posted about about 12 years ago

We have surpasses our goal of $10,000 and raised $11,236!  You cannot know how helpful this is for us in the long run with this adoption and all the changes going on in our lives.  Our house is SOLD.  It sold in three short days.  We have since purchased a house about 2 miles directly west of us.  It is more than we could have asked or imagined when we set out on this journey.  Gold shag carpet...

Things are happening... Posted about about 12 years ago

but we can't tell you what they all are--quite yet.  Our house officially went on the market on March 3rd.  Will leave it at that, for right now.  :)We apologize--had written a LONG update to you all, our Team of Backers, and apparently forgot to hit "post".  Oops.  We've had a few things on our minds.Last week, on March 5th, we were both fingerprinted at the United States Immigration Services ...

Hanging with the Sec of State's office successful! Posted about about 12 years ago

Thirty minutes, 17 documents, and $85 later we have certified our dossier with the Secretary of State for Minnesota!  Still waiting on Immigration Approval, but we can send our dossier to our agency anyway and have it get started on translation.  With sending our dossier we also have to send a hefty check--much of which can be covered by our Pure Charity Account!  God is good.  Please pray with...

Dossier almost DONE! Posted about about 12 years ago

Hi everyone--humbling to see the backing we are getting from you all.  We are almost halfway to our goal of $10K!  John and I are excited to be progressing as best we can in this journey.  I'm headed to the Secretary of State's office tomorrow in person to get all of the notarized documents from our dossier "authenticated" and get certificates of "authentication" for them.  Apparently a notary ...

Paperwork almost completed! Posted about about 12 years ago

We are finishing up the "paper chase" as they call it and hoping that, on our end, the paperwork is nearing completion.  After 3 months of gathering various pieces of paper that supposedly say we are qualified to adopt (don't we have to be a little bit crazy to do this?) and getting most of them notarized, the end is in sight!  Then we submit all paperwork to our social worker here in Minnesota...