Weekly Meal Plan Free Download

Hey y'all!

So since baby girl is on the way...down the line, of course, there are some areas that I've shared that we've tightened up. Don't get me wrong....sometimes I slip-up and need a little reminder. Today at church was a great reminder.  Our Pastor, Keith, shared Part 6 of the series, Journey to Your Dreams. He focused on how to cut debt since debt is one of the big things that prevents us from obtaining our dreams. For many of us reading this blog, an adoption may be or is one of your 'dreams'. So I thought I'd share again our family's weekly meal plan and offer a free template download.

Here's what one of our completed weekly meal plans might look like...(the activities aren't necessarily real since I didn't want everybody online knowing our family's schedule):

Completed Weekly Meal Plan to Share Online

I often decide what goes on the meal plan based on what's in the freezer, on sale at the store, or activities that we have that day. Late night activities either call for dinner that is easy to put in a crockpot or prep in advance. I try to plan out everything including snacks. Once this list is done, I use the app Grocery IQ to simply create a grocery shopping list. This keeps me focused during shopping so I'm not hitting extra aisles. Extra aisles and no list = more $$$.

Hope this helps. Here's a blank template for you to use and download. Feel free to share.
Blank Meal Plan

What are your grocery tips to cut costs?

Meeting Steven Curtis Chapman!!!

Okay...so when we first started the adoption process, there were two really great adoption agencies that I wanted to go with....America World or Gladney.  Although both are awesome adoption agencies, I really felt my heart tugging towards America World for our family.  The problem: doubt and thoughts of rejection started creeping into my mind.  I mean America World had sent us this amazing package of information and inside the package was a dvd sharing the story of a few families who had used America World, their thoughts, fears, and the joy of adopting internationally.  Along with their story was another chapter featuring the Chapman family and their heart for adoption.  I'm sitting in my office watching this dvd....crying and thinking...OH.MY.GOODNESS!!! Steven Curtis Chapman!!!!!!!! THE CHAPMAN FAMILY supports this agency enough to allow them to put their story on a dvd?!!!

Of course, the enemy started working overtime with this fear of the unknown....popping ideas in my head about how we wouldn't qualify for this agency.  The fear of rejection really is a beast.  I mean we didn't have any irregular things in our history but boy did I conjure up some thoughts about why they wouldn't accept us.  And then to be as transparent as I possibly can, throughout the dvd, I didn't see any African-Americans who were adopting internationally nor did I know any at the time.  At the time of my fear battle, I knew of plenty who had perhaps adopted domestically or were foster parents, which are fantastic options, but I knew no African-Americans, who had gone through the process of international adoption.  I kept looking at the awesome packet of info, on the website for the agency and thought....me and Tony, seriously???  How are we going to explain this to our family?  I was blessed to have scoured the internet and found a few African-American couples, including one in my area. I was still fearful but I felt God nudging me in the direction of applying for America World.  Okay, God.....high dive...here we go....in spite of my own fears of rejection.  So after going through the intensive application process, imagine my squeals when we found out that we were accepted into the Ethiopia program of our dream agency - America World!!!! ...and the rest is history.  We have LOVED America World, their amazing staff, and know that we made the best choice for our family.

So by now to bring this whole thing full circle....you know the regard (from above) that I have for Steven Curtis Chapman and his family, right? Well just imagine my excitement when last week as we are coming to a close in our fundraising, a really good friend of mine, Kimberly, invited me to attend a Steven Curtis Chapman concert with her and friend, Claire.  But get this.....we'd have backstage passes too!!!!  Shut up!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heaven.

I've been soooooo super busy since 2009 with saving, fundraising, and filling out adoption paperwork.  Between working full-time, being a mom, wife, staying up late, and getting up at the crack of dawn, boy......I felt well overdue and longing for a refreshing.  This night of worship this past Saturday was exactly that.  We first went backstage and met their 'friend from a previous road tour', Michael W Smith and then to his right sat Steven Curtis Chapman.  You know what I did, right?  NO.....I didn't pass out! LOL.  I pulled out that America World dvd, my Sharpie, and quickly shared that we had just finished fundraising, and asked if he would sign my DVD.  He looked at the America World dvd and said, "I love these guys".  This was a full circle moment for me.  Back in the Fall of 2009 when I first saw this dvd, I would have never guessed that Chapman would be actually personalizing mine. This very moment in time continues to prove to me that GOD IS SO INTO THE DETAILS!  If I could only put into words, how paralyzed with fear I was back then when I got this dvd, perhaps you'd understand the magnitude of him autographing this very thing...ya know, that moment in time that gripped me with fear.


BTW: We were also blessed to participate in an AMAZING day of worship with Matthew West, Big Daddy Weave, Kutless, Jonny Diaz, and Sidewalk Prophets!  WOWZER!!!!!!!

COMPLETELY Funded & 7 Months DTE!!!

I am so thrilled to announce that our daughter's adoption is COMPLETELY FUNDED! Yep....every single penny! Unbelievable to me.....believable that God is faithful....unbelievable that we got to be a part of such a grand miracle.  The fact that we are funded before we're even close to seeing her face blows my mind!!!

But get this....I know from my life and scriptures that God is able to do EXCEEDINGLY, ABUNDANTLY BEYOND what we can ever ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20)  Yet, I was still so shocked when once we hit our goal, families and individuals continued to give because they wanted to start now on donations for us to take to Ethiopia for humanitarian aid! WOW.  What is so special about it all is that not only will their donations benefit our daughter Selah directly but now their donations will impact many more children in various parts of Ethiopia.  Thank you God!

When we first started this journey, I knew we could afford to take care of our daughter once she was home but taking care of the large expenses associated with the process of adoption....now that's another animal altogether.  The decision to save our money AND fundraise was a hard one because it was going to make me MAJORLY uncomfortable.  But I got over it and really moved into it when I realized it was not about me.  Christ paying the price/ransom for my life was downright uncomfortable, possibly even humiliating but He was obedient to what His Father asked Him to do.  He knew it was never about Him.  It was about 'them'...me...you.  To have such a perfect example in Him really helped me to move beyond my hangups and ultimately blessed SO MANY people who have now become so emotionally invested in our adoption and aware of the need of orphans.  In fact, yesterday, a friend at church, Gwen, talked about how Selah, our daughter, has really now become daughter to so many of them.  That just melts this mama's heart.  This video by Eric Ludy time and time again confirmed that we had made the right choice for our family to do whatever necessary to rescue and fight for our daughter. 


We couldn't afford to drag our feet. Like Ludy shares in the video, I was personally challenged to call up every one of my family and friends to get to my daughter (well....close to every one of them...I talked to many, even the ones that I terrified to call because I didn't know what they'd say). Some said no and it was heart-wrenching but for every no...it got me closer to the ones who would say yes they'd support our adoption in some capacity.  As we saved our share, we've had donors who have given 75 cents and we've had a couple of donors who gave $5,000.  EVERY SINGLE donation was instrumental and made a major impact.

To top all of this off, we suspected we were fully funded on the date of our 7 month DTE anniversary! We were still in the process of doing some counting with Lifesong for Orphans and incoming donations but I didn't want to publicly call it too early until we were sure.  Just to document it, I sent my cousin, Shelly this Facebook message late that night:

Thanks to so many of you for being on this journey with us.  It's been an amazing ride and there's still more to come as we figure out ways to best impact Ethiopia. Stay tuned!!!

Love y'all!

I Won!

Remember the bet my hubby and I made about who could sell the most Zumba tickets and receive the most Zumba registrations in a week......well yours truly won!  Nothing like a little healthy competition between me and my babe to bring our daughter home.  It was so much fun.  So maybe you're wondering how much did I win by....sorry honey.  I have to post this....the people have a right to now.  (smile)

He sold about $100 worth of tickets and I rallied any and everybody I could think of because I didn't want to end up mowing the grass.  I took in over $1,000 towards baby girl's donations! That was all in fun but seriously Praise God for the people who joined in the fun.  Smooches.  Smooches.  Smooches.

Now I have to get to planning that menu! You know he owes me breakfast, lunch, and dinner in bed......so what do you think should be on the menu?

We Hit Another Milestone This Week!

What another phenomenal week!  As we continue to chug along in saving and raising funds to totally complete our adoption costs, including travel, I am astounded at the love our daughter receives.  So on June 13th, I tweeted that I thought we could hit 88% completion of our adoption goal:

Well we did it!  This morning, I entered the offline amounts and we made it with a few bucks over.  Beautiful! 

Totally amazing that we may be totally funded through our savings and fundraising BEFORE we are even matched with our daughter! Who knew?!

We're Closing the Gap!!!

I am so excited because since my last blog post, we've reached another milestone!  We shared then that we had about $5500 left to complete our adoption.  Well, the word got out and we saw some amazing movement.  Everything from straight-out donations to t-shirt and necklace purchases.  Here is just a small sampling of how God moved people's hearts.  There was:

• the widow without much money who donated $5 via my aunt Johnette (simply amazing and beautiful);
• the adopting mom who keeps coming back to donate even though she's raising money herself;
• my pastor who keeps putting the word out on his personal twitter and facebook page;
•  friends who are repeat donors;
• the family member who shocked me with $200 in an envelope...i literally screamed!;
• the friend who keeps supporting and is now donating $20 every pay period;
• the beautiful people who donated who don't even know us but just heard our story;
• and truly...the stories go on and on.

So I say a big THANK YOU! We are now only $3,713 short of closing the gap on our adoption costs!!!  Thank you for being a part of our daughter's adoption story.  What a beautiful story we are weaving together.  Collectively, I believe we'll finish this by the end of the summer!  *eek* so excited!

Don't forget, when you donate through our partners via our First Giving page, it's a tax-deductible contribution!  Check it out here:  www.firstgiving.com/michellemckinney

We Couldn't Have Done This Without You!

If you've followed our adoption journey from day one, you know that this has been a remarkable journey for us.  We started out as a family stepping out on faith with a big dream....a God-sized dream.

From the very beginning, we were staring at a debt of around $25,000 that later grew to around $31,000 due to changes the Ethiopian government made to the adoption process.  Staring at that debt was well beyond anything we could ever do....but you know what?  The God we serves specializes in paying debt.  If you don't believe me, check out John 3:16 in the New Testament. (smile)

...and TODAY, in looking at our fundraiser thermometer, we see we only have about $5,500 left to finish out our adoption costs.  This is MONUMENTAL!!!!

Why?  We are the average middle-class family without boat loads of money sitting in a savings or retirement account.  We save as much as we can and find cool ways to raise funds.  Most of all, we have seen what your sacrificed donations of $5, $10, $20, and $50 have done at chipping away at this debt.  It may have seemed little to you at the time, but your donations have meant the world to us.  We've been blown away in the past year by two separate $5,000 donations....and then how one of those donors decided to also do a donor match back in February.  Your stories of sacrificial giving amaze me and are making a difference in the life of a child who has grown in this mama's heart for the past 2 years.  Like today, receiving an unexpected donation did this mama's heart so good.

We're at the home stretch family!  Will you partner with us to finish strong by donating today or this week?  Don't forget, your donations are tax-deductible when you donate through our partner at Lifesong for Orphans/First Giving.  As you've seen every little bit of sacrifice is changing the world....one orphan at a time.

Love y'all!

God is in the Details

Today, I had the privilege of witnessing God bring to fruition the beginnings of a homeless man's dream.  It really is an amazing story and I can't wait to share all of the details within the next month.  But for now, I'll share this about it.  The very thing that was just a wish of this wonderful man is becoming a reality even down to the details.  What's so wonderful is that the donor had no idea about the homeless man's wish.  The donor simply sent an e-mail to me and another colleague out of obedience for what was stirring in his heart.  When I got the e-mail from the donor about the specifics of what he wanted to do for someone, I was floored.  It was so specific and matched up exactly with the homeless man's wish that I thought for a moment this must be a scam.  After doing a tad bit of Google research and probing, I quickly realized that no...God had seen this homeless man and was into the details of his life.

You know what that made me realize?  If God is in the details of this man's life, then surely He will be into the details of my daughter's life.  Where will the remaining $6K come from for her adoption?  I have no idea but God does and He's into those details.  When will I lay eyes on her for the first time?  God knows and is into the details.  Why is this process taking so long?  I have no idea but God does and He's into the details about why it can't happen today.  How this brings me such peace.

I'm trusting that God is into the details of my daughter's life in the same way that He is in the details of this wonderful man whom He also call His child.  

For you Zion Church folks who were wandering....yes, my daughter who I am adopting from Ethiopia is my Lazarus on the back of my puzzle piece. (smile)