Our Friends at Ulmer Studios

This week we got an exciting word from our friends Josh and Amber Ulmer, who run Ulmer Studios. They have decided to help us raise money to “Bring TIFI Home” by donating a portion of each session booked while we are trying to get Tia here.

Josh and Amber have been friends of our for a few years. We met at church and immediately hit it off (even though we are more seasoned in our own lives). We have come to know Josh and Amber and are blown away by their friendship. They are new parents of a beautiful little girl, Josie and we treasure them as friends.

Josh and Amber take some amazing photos. If you or someone you know is in the market for family pix, , engagement pix, wedding pix, baby pix, children’s portraits, or anything else that needs a top-notch photographer, we hope you’ll check them out. Ulmer Studios is amazing. You can look at their pictures and just imagine you, your friends, and your family in the middle of one of the best portrait sessions you could have ever imagined.

wedding photos

baby baby

Please pass this information and link on to your family and friends. If you’re in the market for some great pictures, we hope you’ll check them out!!

all pix used with permission of ulmer studios.

family

family and baby

smile

Jewlery Fundraiser

I have a great friend in Knoxville who has started working as a consultant for Cookie Lee Jewlery (http://www.cookielee.com)
She has sent me some of their new Fall/Winter Catalogs & has so generously agreed to help us do some fundraising to help bring Tia home! The way it works is to have some people have a Cookie Lee catalog party or take orders from the catalog with from your friends/family/co-workers etc. Once all the orders are in my friend will then give a % of her comission to the “Bring Tia Home” fund! Would you be willing to have a party, take orders from people or just order some jewleryfrom yourself? If you would like to help please send me a message & let me know! We can use all the help you are willing to give & each order will get us that much closer to bringing Tia home!
I will begin booking parties & taking orders Aug. 17th & we will take booking & orders through Sept 17th so PLEASE pry about how you maybe able to help!! Hope to hear from u soon & LET THE PARTIES BEGIN!!!!

The Wilson Roller Coaster

If you’re reading this, first, let me say THANKS!  Words can’t describe the emotions in our family right now.  We have been so blessed to be able to meet Tia, to have 3 amazing boys, Katie–our unofficially official daughter, and then to top it off, Missy and I celebrated 15 years of marriage last night with dinner at the Melting Pot in Nashville.  5 years ago we had huge plans for our 15th anniversary.  That was when we were supposed to go to Hawaii or some other exotic location, but dinner at the Melting Pot was our celebration.  Our love for each other continues to grow, but our listening to God has challenged us to do some crazy things…like give up the money put back for the special 15th anniversary and get our daughter home.  I know first hand literally what a parent means when they say they would give up everything to get their kids home safely…

It’s kind of funny.  If you would have asked me 15 years ago (or 15 months for that matter) if I ever thought we would adopt a child, especially a black child from Haiti, I would have quickly responded with a definitive “NO!!”.  Glad I never spoke up on that one.  I didn’t have to eat THOSE words!  I’ve eaten plenty in my days and I actually celebrate knowing these don’t have to be re-ingested.

We would love to ask you to pray for a new friend of ours.  Dr. Bernhard is the director of the orphanage where Tia is.  He is an amazing man with an amazing story.  He and his wife have adopted 10 children themselves–from Haiti.  He’s not only talking the talk, but he’s walking the walk!  He spent a few years in the USA getting quite a few degrees and has a couple of doctorate degrees to his name!  He’s an incredibly smart man with a passion for his country and his people.  When I asked him if he ever thought about going back to America (he is a naturalized US citizen), he answered,

“No, I’ve had my time.  I want my children to have a chance now.  It’s tough knowing they are going to grow up in Haiti without any opportunities to succeed.”

Mike and Missy with Dr. Bernhard at the Orphanage in Port au Prince

Can you imagine knowing your kids were growing up in a place where they would never have a chance to truly succeed?  In a country where the unemployment rate is over 75% and where those that DO have a job average less than a $1 a day, the opportunity to help that one special little girl, “Tia,” was just too great.  We had to do it.

If you are still interested in helping us out on this journey, please join us in one of these ways:

1. Pray for Tia as often as you think of her…by name!
2. Pray for our family here in the states.  Missy and I, the boys, Katie, and our extended families.  We have seen all kinds of “stuff” happen over the past few months.  Pray we will be faithful and protected.
3. Pray for our household, for Missy and I to be good parents to this little girl and for us to break the language barrier ASAP.
4. Pray for Dr. Bernhard, his family, and the Haitian side of our adoption.  We trust God in this, but sometimes the days are still long and more than a little frightening.
5. Pray for the country of Haiti.  It’s getting close to the “storm” season where hurricanes and tropical storms will come close to the island in the Caribbean.
6. Pray for the orphanage, the safety of the children, the ladies who “mother” the children, and the building.  They are so blessed to have a great building in a poor country.  Also, they have a boy’s house and a girl’s house in Port au Prince which are both in dire need of repair.
7. Make a donation to “Help Bring TIFI Home.”  Every dollar you give helps us get one step closer to getting her home.
8. Buy a T-shirt and proudly wear it.  Get one for your friends, family, and help us spread the word.

Thanks so much!  Blessings…as we continue

we KNOW HER…

Last week was one of the greatest weeks of our lives.  Missy and I got a chance to go to the creche (Creole word which describes an orphanage for babies through age 6) and meet our daughter.

From the moment we got there, we were a little nervous.  Our biggest fear was that when we went to meet with Dr. Bernard (an UNBELIEVABLE man) he would ask us to choose which child God was leading us towards…and guess what.  Our fear was spot on!  That’s exactly what he did.  He told us he had 7 young girls which were available for adoption, and normally they would never allow parents to be a part of this process…but since we were there…

He told us he refused separate siblings (which we whole-heartedly agree with) and then proceeded to bring all of the girls into the room for us to meet.  We thought it would be difficult, but it wasn’t at all.  This one little girl walked in, quiet, shy, and very relaxed, and proceeded to sit on my lap.  She pointed toward the books on the bookshelves and from that moment on, our love of “Tia” was born.

When this little “TIFI” came in the room, we knew immediately that she was created to be a part of our family.  She had the Wilson look.  Her name is “Sansia” or Cynthia in English…but we like Tia.

We were asked not to put any pictures of her on the website or internet and we are gladly obliging in this.  You can see her eyes in the header above, and once you get the chance, you will see more pictures than you could ever imagine…trust me, I’ve taken over 200 already!

Feel free to pray for her by name now, “Tia” and our family would LOVE to have your prayers.  Thanks so much and God Bless!  Now more than ever, we NEED YOU TO BUY A T-SHIRT! Thanks.

heading out

In case you didn’t know, or in case you DID know and had forgotten, we are heading out to Haiti Friday. We will be leading a trip for BGM and are so excited to be heading to our second home!

Missy will be meeting up with part of the group in Miami while Mike is heading to NYC to meet the rest of the team. We are also going to be getting in touch with the orphanage we will be adopting from. We will have the chance to meet with the director and very possibly get to see for the first time, our little girl.

We will NOT be bringing her back at this time, in fact, we might not even know who she is when we leave Haiti. We will however know where she is and see how she lives. All of our paperwork is in Haiti now and completely out of our hands. It’s a time for us to get our lives and hearts ready for TIFI to get here. Thanks so so many of you who have helped us on this journey and who are prayerfully supporting us. Thanks!

Don’t forget you can get your “Bring TIFI Home” shirt by clicking the image on the right. For every shirt you buy or for every dollar you donate, you are helping us get TIFI ONE STEP CLOSER to being HOME!!

The SHIRT is DESIGNED…order yours today

THAT’S RIGHT!! Order your “I Helped Bring TIFI Home” T-Shirt today. It’s an American Apparel Track Shirt that fits like the favorite shirt you’ve had forever: soft, comfortable and worn-in.
AND you’ll be able to show your friends your involvement in Helping us Bring TIFI home…

Order Your Shirt Today

t-shirt logo

working on a fundraiser shirt

YOU can Help Bring TIFI Home

Just wanted you to know you can help bring TIFI home by donating or buying one of our new shirts. We have been working on it and it should be ready to sell in the next few days…so if you’re interested in an awesome shirt…get ready!

homestudy is approved!!

a Haitian girl from the Dominican village of Redemption

yesterday, we got our homestudy back! that’s right, it’s back and APPROVED!!

Missy and I are so excited right now. We are going to a late lunch to get our notary to sign it with us and then to get it state certified, country certified, and then mailed off.

Can you believe it? We are one step closer to finding out who “tifi” is! she will be in our home one day and we will look back at all of this and laugh…laugh at the rushing around to get shots for the boys updated, getting our blood work done (which Missy and I both tested negative for HIV, syphilis, and TB…in case you were wondering), getting certified copies of documents and certificates, and more.

We will be able to laugh because somehow we will have raised, begged, or somehow gotten the money for the adoption. We will first hand be able to touch and see God’s provision for us…spooky and exciting all in the same little bundle of joy.

We will laugh because Missy and I will have absolutely NO CLUE about how to fix her hair!

One day when she is sleeping in her bed and I’m standing there like a big baby crying and laughing because she is in our house and we are seeing the very thing we had hoped so long for and the very person we were so sure of, even when we couldn’t see her and didn’t know who she was, we will smile at God’s sense of humor. (Hebrews 11:1 mwv–mike wilson version)

she will be in our house! she will be there for us to love on, laugh with, and learn from. God is going to blow our little white world UP with her. I have to smile…hope you will too.

one step closer!

We have been working very hard lately on getting all the last minute things taken care of, so we can turn our complete dossier in. Once the dossier is turned in, it is literally out of our hands.

We should be getting our home study back today and then we can get it notarized…then we will only have one more step…getting it state certified.

It’s getting closer and more and more excitement comes with it. Our little “tifi” is out there and God is holding her close… Now to really start working hard on fundraising…

homestudy almost complete

 

Missy and Katie with the Monteagle "Eagle" at the Smokehouse Lodge where we did our homestudy

Today, we went to Monteagle to meet our social worker for our homestudy completion.  The purpose of our meeting today was to make sure we had completed all of our paperwork.  The only thing we are still lacking is a medical clearance for Katie.  We thought we had everything taken care of, but this is just a small snag.  Our social worker is going to help us get the forms filled out and then we will be officially done with our portion of the homestudy.  We will wait to have all the approval and then our social worker will get it translated into Haitian Creole for us.

 

We also had some really GREAT news today.  We found out the orphanage we are working with is a Christian organization and the person in charge of the orphanage is a believer.  We are so very excited to see what is happening with this.  Our “tifi” is there and just doesn’t know we are coming to be a part of her life yet.  How exciting to know God is in all of this and to hear from so many of our friends who are praying for us and giving us advice.  We never knew how many of our friends and acquaintances have been through the adoption process.  

PLEASE keep praying for us and this journey.