First Night In a Big Kid Bed

T-shirts Are Shipping!

T-shirts are shipping out tomorrow morning! To those who have been waiting a long time to receive your order, we apologize. The new ladies burn out shirt has been back ordered. Evidently it is a popular shirt, but we hope that this will not be a problem in the future.

We have been screen printing all evening, and the shirts look great! It is so exciting to mail these out to people because I know that

everyone is going to be pleased with them. :)

I realize that the small script on the new Go. Seek. Love. shirt design is hard to read in the photograph that I posted, so I wanted to share here what all the words are because they are so meaningful.

LOVE

God

each other

those who hurt you

the fatherless

the outcast

the unloveable

those who are different

the weak

without condition

because God love you

SEEK

the Kingdom of God

and you will find

peace

justice

righteousness

mercy

diversity

the lost

the good of others

without stopping

with all your heart

GO

to all the world

without looking back

where it's not safe

boldly

with intent

now

By the way, if you are an adoptive family interested in having T-shirts printed for a fundraiserthe prices listed on www.bluebirdscreenprinting.com are NOT the prices that you will have to pay. Adoptive families will pay significantly less than the amounts on the website. Please email us to let us give you a quote. We are not trying to make money. We just want to bless others!

We Are In The Screen Printing Business!

About a month ago I alluded to a surprise that we would be sharing soon….Something that we have been praying about and scheming toward for months…..Something that is going to allow us to bless more adoptive families using the skills and knowledge that God has given us.

Well, here it is!

Surprise! We are now the owners of a six-color, professional-grade screen printing press, as well as all of the other equipment that goes with it. We are officially professional screen printers!

You see, Daniel did screen printing for several years in high school. He loves the process, and he has always wanted to do more of it. We have spent the last month working with the press and getting our ducks in a row to open our new little business. Now we are ready to go.

So here is our goal: We want to print shirts (or tote bags or whatever) for adoptive families and/or ministries who want to hold T-shirt fundraisers. We will offer the best deal that we possibly can, making little or no profit ourselves, so that they can SAVE and make more money on the sale of the shirts!

We plan to continue to sell Go. Seek. Love. shirts just as we have been, giving 100% of the profits to an adoptive family and assigning each family one month to sell the shirts on their blog, etc. We have been able to give almost $4,500 in profits to other adoptive families since we started doing this. That is in addition to the $2,000 we earned for our own adoption selling the shirts. We really enjoy doing it – Daniel and I have had lots of great conversations while printing T-shirts, by hand, late at night. However, now we are able to print them using our screen printing press, and a batch of shirts can be processed in one evening instead of it taking an entire weekend to get them ready to ship.

It has been extremely rewarding to bless other adoptive families, asking nothing from them in return, the same way that we were blessed by so many when we were raising funds for our adoption. It makes us want to do more, and that is why we are so excited about this screen printing press. We hope to be able to help tens, possibly a hundred, adoptive families and non-profits to raise money with this gift that we have been given.

We had dreamed of being able to do this for a long time, but screen printing equipment is expensive! Plus we had nowhere to put it in our house – no garage or basement or bonus room. The equipment is big! It didn’t seem like something that was going to happen anytime soon. Then along came the Great Flood of 2010. The water never touched our house (read my post about how God’s hand was on us), but our large-ish shed in our backyard was flooded. Since then we have been forced to empty the space, find new homes for the things that used to be stored there, and replace the rotting floor. And that is how we found the space to open up our new screen printing studio!

Daniel watched Craig’s List for months to find the right deal. We prayed that if this is what God wanted us to do, then he would show us how to do it cheaply. Finally he found a bargain in Asheville, NC, and off we went on a fun weekend trip to pick up our new equipment.

So now we are ready to go! All we are waiting on is your orders. If you have been considering holding a T-shirt fundraiser, please contact us. We want to help you! We can’t wait! We will give you a quote, help you pick out your T-shirts, and help you figure out how many you need to order. (We’ve been selling shirts long enough to have an idea of what sells, what sizes you need, etc.)

Please email us at dubois@goseeklove.com

And by the way, to help us to pay for the equipment we are also wanting to do some commercial work as well. We would love to pick up some small to medium size printing jobs. If your church group, sports team, or office needs T-shirts, please, please give us a shout. Do us a favor and pass the word along to your youth group leaders and little league coaches. We have a website set up for the commercial side of the business with detailed info about pricing. Check it out! www.bluebirdscreenprinting.com

Welcome Home Elijah!

About a year ago we met the Stavnes family through our adoption fellowship group. Amy has become my good friend since then, and it brought us such joy to see them bring their son, Elijah, home from Ethiopia. We got to be at the airport on the day that they arrived back from their trip and watch as their growing family of six was united for the first time. Such fun!

Amy has created a touching video of their journey to Elijah. Take a few moments and watch what God has done in their family over the last year and a half.

Our Journey to Elijah Mihretu - Ethiopia Adoption from Amy @ Filled With Praise on Vimeo.

Sheep Print

In June of last year I posted this:

Black Baby, White Mama

Last week while we were at the Shaker Village, we saw this:

It made me cry.

Sometimes I have doubts about adopting transracially. I wonder if we are doing the right thing. Some say that it is not "natural" for a white family to raise a black child. They argue that there are just too many differences between the races. Having never been there, it is hard not to wonder if they are right.

Then God comforted me with the gift of this image. Even in nature, he reminded me, he gives black babies to white mamas. They are both sheep. They are exactly the same on the inside. It just so happens that the wool of one is a different color than the wool of the other. There is nothing weird or unnatural about it. They are a family, just the way that God intended.

Lord, make us a family with the child that you have called us to love. Help us to see no difference but the color of our "wool."

I had been planning for a while to frame the photograph above to put on the wall in B's bedroom. Instead my creative hubby offered to do something better for me. He made me this beautiful image:

He used hand carved stamps and made it using the "block printing" technique. This image still makes me cry.

Underneath, I put one of my favorite verses these days, one that I cling to often:

"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."

- Isaiah 40:11

Meet the Hunts AND a Cool New Shirt!

I am very excited to introduce you to the Hunt family! For the month of September, all proceeds from the sale of Go. Seek. Love. shirts and note cards go to this dear family, adopting from Ethiopia. Check out their blog at hunts4adoption.blogspot.com.

Here is their story:

We are Brian and Angela Hunt. We have a 4 year old daughter named Isabel and we are so excited and ready to get on the waitlist to adopt a sweet little girl from Ethiopia. We live in Advance, North Carolina (15 minutes from Winston-Salem). Brian works for a building supply company and is in seminary at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary pursuing his Master of Divinity.

Angela teaches ESL to elementary school students. We knew that God was leading us to adopt in 2008 but many different circumstances stood in the way, so we waited. By Christmas of 2009, the call to adopt started to stir in our hearts again and this time we couldn't stop thinking about Africa, specifically Ethiopia. God has provided for every step in our adoption process so far and we know that He is faithful to continue to provide. We are so excited to move closer and closer to the day when we will hold our new daughter in our arms and bring her home to join our family.

AND I am EXTREMELY excited to introduce our BRAND NEW T-SHIRT DESIGN!!! These awesome shirts are the creation of my talented husband, and they are available at www.goseeklove.com.

Here is the men's design:

These are printed on super-soft, dark gray Canvas brand T-shirts.

And here is the ladies. I LOVE THIS SHIRT!!!

It is printed on a steel blue "burn out" style shirt. It is so soft and comfy, long in length, and fits really well. They do run small (about 1 and a half sizes small, actually).

The Here is a close up of the design so that you can read all of the words. (You can double click on it to see it larger.) This shirt is jam-packed with meaning. Oh, and the cross in the background is a traditional Ethiopian-style cross.

Head over to the website and buy one today. 100% of the profits benefit the Hunt family's adoption!