If you have a special project, fundraiser, or blog post you want to share with my crazy readers today, please leave a comment with all your information and permalink (ex: http://agoodkindofcrazy.blogspot.com/2011/03/american-girl-doll-giveaway.html) to take readers directly to your site.

Crazy Links:

1. American Girl Doll Giveaway- The adoption giveaway will be open from February 28 until March 6. The will be announced via Facebook and here on our blog by our daughter, Zoe at 6pm(PST) on the 6th.  Enter Here.
2. You can purchase Simply Love Congo tees to support this incredible Cardin Family adoption! website and blog:
   www.AdoptingNoelle.org, http://thecardinscongoadoption.blogspot.com/

There are no two ways about it—adoption is expensive. Every adoptive parent has to face this reality. Some will make a substantial withdrawal from their savings or take out a sizable loan. For others, like my husband Joel and me, it means they will depend almost entirely on fundraising—yuck.

Asking other people for money is about as appealing as volunteering for an experimental medical procedure. If we approach it at all, we do it reluctantly. If you’re like me, thinking about fundraising brings up feelings of fear, dread, and even embarrassment. That being said, I am starting to think there is another side to the story worth considering.

Joel and I began fundraising for our Ugandan adoption about a month ago. Before we started, I had a fantasy that someone in our family or our church would escort us to a quiet corner and whisper that they wanted to write us a check for the entire amount. We would take a deep breath, express our gratitude, and get back to the real work of becoming adoptive parents. Like most people in our situation, we never experienced this scenario. I am so thankful.

What did happen is that we raised a whole bunch of money one donation at a time. We’ve had big donations and small donations—each one vitally important to helping us bring our baby home. More than one hundred family members, friends and complete strangers have responded to letters, blog posts, tweets and Facebook updates in remarkable ways. We have now raised about $14,000 toward our $20,000 goal, and it happened much more quickly than we expected.

After reflecting on our experience, I’ve come to believe that fundraising is worth doing regardless of the financial return. It has done so much more for our adoption and our community than simply bringing in dollars. Here are just a few examples:

1. Fundraising allows us to inspire other families

If my fundraising dream had come true—the one where a single big check took care of all of our needs—it would have been dramatic, but it would have done little to help ordinary families believe adoption was financially possible for them.

Our need makes our story relatable. My passion and my prayer is that God would use our story to inspire many other families to believe—maybe for the first time—that, if people like us can do it, then so can they. Adoption is not reserved for the wealthy, and it can be done without debt. That is the message of our fundraising story.

2. Fundraising grows our faith

Joel and I could never have brought in $14,000 in our own strength. It would have been simply impossible. Every dollar that comes in humbles and amazes us as watch God provide through his Body. This experience has taught me that we serve a powerful and generous Father, growing my faith in exponential ways. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t trade that for anything, not even for a $20,000 check.

3. Fundraising gives us a change to invites others into a bigger story

Most importantly, fundraising invites our community of family, friends and those we don’t even know, into a bigger story. Our story becomes theirs as they become invested in, and changed by, our journey.

Some will decide to adopt because they hear your story. Some will give. By God’s grace, many will understand more deeply the heart of Jesus and the Gospel itself as they witness the miracle and the metaphor of adoption through your story.

While the details of your story won’t be the same as mine, I pray that each of you, facing the daunting cost of adoption, will have the courage to believe that God will provide and the willingness to step into the adventure.

Simply Love Challenge

If you are fundraising … I want to dare you to take the Simply Love Challenge- you pick the shirt design, ink color, shirt color and any article of clothing or products you want to print customizing Simply Love for your projects!!!  The big challenge- come up with the most creative products to print Simply Love on to spread the word about adoption and orphan care.  My amazing printing company is ready for the challenge, too!!  Pick Your Country Kit has helped families raise thousands of dollars to make adoption dreams come true.

I have prayed for the past year for a way to help families FUNdraise for their own adoptions, as well as mission trips and special projects that are geared to love orphans.  Simply Love is growing strong and showing up all around the world.  You already know I’m a big fan of tee shirts, so I came up with the idea to share my 4 designs and created 18 new countries. Email me if you have any questions.

“Pick Your Country” Kit is designed exclusively to help families adopting domestic to international or anyone advocating for orphans. Download “Pick Your Country” Adoption Kit Introduction. Everything is set up and ready to go.  You can start fundraising with Simply Love today!

Ginger took the crazy Simply Love Challenge today and picked sweatshirts, sweatpants, and baseball hats to print the Simply Love logo.  She is fundraising for three family members to travel to Uganda with Visiting Orphans in June!!!  She picked out-of-the-box products and I’m so excited to cheer her on as she raises funds for missions!!

My crazy adoption is launching new hats for men and women this week, as well as a variety of products from bags to outdoor gear that celebrate Simply Love.  You pick and take the challenge.  Click on the Simply Love “Pick Your Country” Kit button on the right side of the blog to start your FUNdraising adventure.  The rest is up to you!!

Bloggy friends, I’d love to hear your ideas on new products for Simply Love.  Please share in the comments.

STAY TUNED FOR A BIG CRAZY SURPRISE NEXT WEEK!!!

Yes Yes Yes!!

Yes, you can afford missions!!  The number one excuse reason I hear from people considering NOT going on a missions trip is the cost.  Mission trips cost money.  If you travel overseas, a trip can cost up to $3,400.  I understand that the amount makes most of us gulp and cringe, but I promise you God will provide the means for you to afford missions.  I want to share 3 crazy stories from people that desired to go on a missions trip and trusted God 100% to provide the money.

Cassie is a college student in my town and I recently had the opportunity to talk to her class about visiting orphans.  I received an email from her the next day and was thrilled to watch the incredible journey God started in her heart.

Cassie’s story:

Hey there,
I was so inspired by your talk today in minority groups.  Missions has been on my heart for a while now, but every time I want to go the money stands in my way. I am so excited for this Uganda trip, I have wanted to go there since I found out about “Invisible Children” a couple years ago, but I have never had the chance. This trip would be an amazing trip to go on and I feel like God has really put you in my life for a reason and today you spoke to a lot of my passions. I love children and I feel like every child deserves to feel loved and to go and  visit an orphanage would be amazing. I really hope you meant it when you said you would help me with fund-raising because I already filled out the application to the Uganda trip. I still have to send in my deposit and my references, but I truly feel like this a God thing and God directed you in my life for this trip. Thanks so much for coming and talking to our class, it was truly inspiring to hear your stories. I hope this all made sense because i am so excited I just wanted to put it all out there, so sorry if some of it is jumbled, ha. I am so pumped about this opportunity, you have no idea! Love, Cassie

Look what God did 2 weeks later in Cassie’s life:

My birthday was coming up and I knew that I would get some money from that. The money I received from my birthday I was going to use for the application process. I figured that I would receive about $100, but to my surprise God provided for the whole fee. When I opened one of my cards, I found the exact amount I needed for the application fee. This to me was a true sign of God’s sovereignity!  Cassie is going with me to Uganda 2011!!!!!!!!!

Joe and Carrie contacted me about traveling in July 2010 on the 14 day missions trip to Ethiopia and Uganda with Visiting Orphans.  During that time, Joe lost his job and they both felt financially it was not wise or responsible to raise $6,800 for both of them to travel.  Instead of giving up, they started praying and their story will inspire you… YES, YOU CAN AFFORD MISSIONS!!

I met Carrie on my blog.  She had nooo idea she was emailing me Part 1 of her adventure (get ready to be crazy inspired:)

Carrie’s Story- February 25, 2010
Where to start? First, let me say my husband and I would like to be a part of the trip to Africa in July. I have felt the Spirit move me toward serving God’s children in Africa get stronger and stronger and the fire within me grow stronger, and I am thrilled that my husband has agreed to share in the journey with me.  It will be a true faith trip for us, though- as God is leading us into uncharted territory even before we ever cross into a new land. As of last week, both my husband and I are without employment. He was let go from a contracting position with the company he worked for for 2 years, and I walked away from my job to put an end to a situation that was getting progressively worse. We have paid 2 months rent on the house and have a pantry and freezer full of food- and not much else in the way of provisions. We have essentially freaked his family ( non- believers) out because we are not panicking about our circumstances. WE KNOW God is in control. We KNOW He will not forsake us. I cannot even imagine how they will react when they hear that we are going to try to raise nearly $8000 to leave our 3 children behind and serve people who have far less than even us.
I share this with you not to receive kudos, but because I covet your prayers. Prayers for strength and courage to withstand the upcoming fury of doubters and naysayers and courage to be brave and be strong in my saving knowledge that I ONLY need Christ- even when things don’t go how I think they are supposed to. This is so far removed from anything either of us has EVER considered actually doing, but nothing has ever seemed so right either.
I read your post today about fundraising- literally right after talking to my hubby about going on a trip. I knew this is the one we are supposed to go on. I guess I just don’t know how to take that first step out of the boat. Honestly, I can’t even send in the applications since we will have to raise the $400 for that first. I hesitate to ask you to “hold us 2 spots”- if it is in His plan- we will be there. God bless you for what you are doing and sharing- it has blessed me, and also my family.
Sincerely, Carrie

Joe & Carrie joined Visiting Orphans in Uganda & Ethiopia 2010 Mission Trip

Check it out… Big Nanny goes on Visiting Orphans Mission trip- she’s officially part of the crazies!

BIG CRAZY NEWS- We have 2 more slots open to fill! If you are feeling a passion about this trip, please continue to pray and fill out the application when the time is right!!! Spots are filling up fast!!!!  Africa in July Blog.

My personal journey to missions-

Family and friends embraced my project and I raised $2,200 for Haiti!  I was able to purchase donations with the overflow and hand deliver the items personally.  It was a lot of work organizing the fundraiser, but once things got rolling, it was so much fun!  Please don’t make the same excuses I made for so many years…. pray, move forward and allow God to do the rest.  If the door is slammed shut in your face, well that’s OK.  Stand in line again, and move forward in a different direction.  I challenge you to call or email Visiting Orphans today and request an application. If your heart is stirring, don’t wait – start the ball rolling, especially if you feel excitement and joy and yearning when you read our itinerary.

If you are on the fence, trying to make every mommy detail perfect before you make the decision to go, I challenge you to jump down and pray forward.  Most of my readers are crazy moms, life will never be perfect for us to go on a mission trip, but I promise you that this trip will change your life.  Your family will benefit from you doing something so radical… you’ll be a crazier mom!

VIDEO TO INSPIRE-

Adoption peeps.. I wanted to do a special post for ALL your adoption FUNdraisers!  A big crazy shout out in bloggy land!  I have received many emails the past several weeks and have peeked at your amazing projects… if I have not personally emailed you back forgive me I’m home with my kiddos on Spring Break, so computer time has been limited.  Here’s what I want you to do this week-  leave a comment right here so it’s all in one spot (easy) and share about your adoption or orphan projects (mission trips, etc)  Please add your link in the comment so readers can click and peek, too!  Share as many details as you want to shout out about your projects.  I also want to say- I pray you have crazy FUNdraiser success … you are in my prayers!  We’re all in this together!

This post will stay on the main page for 12 days, so please fill it up with YOUR fundraisers.  Get busy and shout out!

(special note: Becky, Anna, Iena… thanks for your emails & helping me come up with the idea of a Shout Out post!)

Orphans Summit VI

We need 100 votes on top mommy blogs to make it back up to the top of the list… help make adoption #1!  Just click this adorable button everyday 2 Vote for My Crazy Adoption- that’s it!

Fundraising Ideas to Love on Orphans:

You need to raise $3,400 for our Visiting Orphans mission trip.  Is this holding you up from joining our crazy team?  If it is, we want to share some fundraising ideas that really work!  If you have the heart to join us, raising funds will be the easy part!  Take a peek at my past 3 posts on our Uganda/Ethiopia Mission trip for more information.  Sign up today- only 2 spots left.  We need some more men, hubbys & dads to MAN UP… come protect & love the fatherless.  Please pass on info to someone you think should be a part of my crazy mission trip!!

My co-leader Ashlie suggests:

1. Donation Letters- Make it personal!!!! Put your heart into it. Stay in touch with people, talk about the trip whenever you can.

2. Start a Blog- Just do it!!!! www.blogspot.com  My crazy blog sister, Nikki Cochrane will design your new blog header (the top design art) and column sides and help you get your blog going.  She has hundreds of kits available for you to customize your new blog or give it a face lift.  SPECIAL OFFER: if you contact her and tell her My Crazy Adoption sent you, she will give you a $5 discount ($25 to customize your blog) EMAIL NIKKI – Blogs For A Cause.  Just tell her My Crazy Adoption sent you.

• Blogs For A Cause: is the perfect way to get a great looking blog, as well as supporting charities around the world! Designs are $30; $25 of which goes to supporting my humanitarian work, and $5 goes to a Charity of the Month. Send me an email and we will get started; discussing photos for the header, text for the header, and the digital scrapbook kit I will use for your blog (see Go Shopping to the right). I will come up with a design and put it on a Test Blog. You can look it over, and get one set of changes for free.

• Paypal has a very simple “donate here” button that can be added. If you compile all of your friends/family email addresses you can “email blast” everyone to let them know when you have a new post. This is a great way to make people a part of your journey.

1. Applebees- Dining to Donate 10% of sales for 5 hours!!!! All it took was a phone call to the store Manager and I had 3 different dates! Applebees even provides the flyer. All we have to do is print it and pass it out. We are going to stand at the back of the church and personally hand the flyer to each and everyone of our church members. In addition, you can stand outside of Applebees and ask the customers coming in the door to give a flyer to their waiter. We are hoping to raise $1,000 each night. (Warning= no take-outs and customers have to give their flyer to the waiter)

2. Kohls- A-Team Volunteers- All you need to do is request 5 or more volunteers from Kohls for a 2 hour event, such as an Easter Festival, Parents Night Out, Church Landscaping, etc. The volunetters will come and work AND you will get $500.00 for your organzation!!!!! Check out http://www.kohlscorporation.com/communityrelations/Community04.htm

3. African Mission Spaghetti Dinner- We are pre-selling $10.00 tickets for a Spaghetti Dinner at our church. Dinner includes Spaghetti, Garlic Bread, Salad, and Dessert. We are also going to have a silent auction. We are designing themed baskets, such as Family Game Night, Day of Beauty, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dinner and Dancing, etc. We are hoping to get most of the items donated.

4. Parents Night Out- We are offering babysitting on a Saturday Night, from 6-10 at our church. We are request donations from parents. This is simple and requires no upfront cost, just marketing.

Here are more ideas from bloggy friend, Big Nanny who just went on a 14 day mission trip with Visiting Orphans.  Here’s what she had to say about fundraising for missions:

Yes, we did lots of fundraising for our trip. We were in a unique position because 3 of us were on staff at our church so we had lots of contacts and were able to do some special fundraisers. Here is what we did & the results:

• We sent out letters. The 3 of us who are on staff sent out a joint letter to all of our contacts explaining when, where, why, etc. The letter was eye catching & not your typical boring m. trip letter:) I can send you a copy if you want.
• We had a t-shirt designed with Africa & had them printed. This wasn’t a huge money maker because we sell a lot of t-shirts at our church for various events. We also put them on FB on & blogs. We probably made about $200 profit. We had our t-shirts made for less than $5 bucks and sold them for $10. We had a t-shirt connection in our church & they gave us a good deal.
• Our church has a fall festival on Halloween each year. They let us do concessions and we made over $1000.
• We had a paypal button on our blogs and we made a few hundred dollars.
• We work in preschool ministry & our wing of the church does not have a coke machine so we started selling Cokes out of the fridge for $1.
• Yard Sale-we had a yard sale on a cold November day and made over $1500. We had some people in our church donate items to us for the sale.

We go to a very missions supportive church so they let us do a lot of things that most churches do not. And because we are on staff, we got to do a few things that most people wouldn’t have the opportunity to do.
Other people that we know have done some of these:

• Pancake breakfast at Applebees. Our local one supplies the pancakes, sausage, and drink. You sell the tickets for $5 and make all the profit.
• Sell items around your house on Craigslist. Some of the high ticket items that were donated to our yard sale (a Barbie jeep, john deere kid jeep, furniture, etc) I posted them on Craigslist the week of the sale and had them sold before Saturday.

Again, the 3 of us fundraised as a team from the beginning and had almost $12,000 to raise if you include our vaccinations. We raised all of it. The only money that we spent was our VO $200 application fees. It was truly a God thing. We even had an extra $1000 to give away when we got there. We were called to this trip and it was all God putting everything together to make it happen.

If you have any other questions for Angela/Big Nanny. You can email her at
I’m glad to know that I’m not the only crazy one:)

My Crazy Idea:

Mr. IPod Touch Ozark Adventure was my big crazy Haiti mission trip fundraiser.  If you’re new here, and want to see the two weeks of craziness, check this out- My Mission Trip Fundraiser!!

• Buy or get an IPod donated. (talk to local business or friends that can help)
• Create a “Donate” button on Paypal.
• Don’t use the words- raffle or tickets (PP will tag you as a gambler:)  You can say- donate to enter a Giveaway.  Set donation amounts per entries they earn. Explain this on your blog, but do not put any “gambler words” on paypal button set up.
• Create a Mr. IPod or Miss Lulu IPod.  The crazier, the more fun you will have with your readers.
• Make sure you let blog readers know 100% of proceeds goes directly to mission trip or orphans.

Britt Nicole JUST returned from a Visiting Orphans mission trip- 14 days to Uganda & Ethiopia.  Take a peek at her blog and photos and testimony.  Click here- Britt Nicole Music blog

VISITING ORPHANS WEBSITE- MISSON TRIP INFO

Click button everyday 2 Vote- that’s it!  Help make adoption #1 mommy blog!