A Great Nacho Event!

Wow! First, a HUGE thank you to everyone who came out to, made contributions toward, or sent thoughts and prayers our way for our first fundraising event yesterday afternoon! Our "Nacho Average" Nacho Bar was a big success, and we're so grateful for all the help and encouragement we got along the way!

Our house church planned and put together practically the whole thing. That's them on the serving line, dishing up plates for the dozens and dozens of folks who came out to support us! We really couldn't have done this without their help: They took care of all the food, worked with the church to make sure we got the space and knew the rules, helped set up, pitched in every crock pot they had, and invited all kinds of people.

Word got around pretty well, too, because there was a pretty healthy gathering of people we had just met for the first time. It was truly amazing to hear the stories of people whose lives had been touched in some way by adoption - their parents were adopted or their friends or themselves had been through the process - and who wanted to come out and support our adventure.

Before we started diving into this process, we had no idea how big the adoption community really is, and how supportive they can be. Some stopped by just to give us a quick bit of support and invited us to reach out to them if we needed anything as we went along.

Many of our friends from across Indianapolis came out to support us, and we got to reconnect with a few people we hadn't seen in a really long time. Nachos really do help bring everyone together!

We made a little board about us, our decision to adopt, and what all our fundraising was going toward. Jenny dug up a photo of us from 2004 (you can sort of see it in the picture below, on the left - I think that got more comments than anything else) and, with a friend from house church, made the breakdown chart and fundraising thermometer you see on the board.

And now for the big reveal!

We've been SO fortunate to have the support of so many family members and friends, and we saw the thermometer go up quite a bit after yesterday's nacho bar!

Thank you again to everyone who attended, helped out, and contributed to our first fundraiser! We'll have more on our next fundraiser soon!