.A brief Update and a {Giveaway}.

Many of you have reached out to me and asked how progress is going with our non-profit Mercy Branch and our impending move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is always so encouraging when people show that they really care and are invested with us. Things are going well. We SOLD our house in December, and that was a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders. My sister and her husband are in the process of selling about 90% of our belongings.

We are continuing to raise support - we need monthly supporters - people who commit to a certain amount of money designated to Mercy Branch every month. We also need a one-time lump sum that will cover our initial expenses to get to Ethiopia and settle in. It is a lot, but it is NOT too much for God. And we are seeing that! It is exciting to watch Him work and bring in the exact people He has hand-picked to join us in this adventure. If you are interested in learning more, please peruse our website. If God lays it on your heart, we would absolutely love to have you partner with us as a monthly sponsor or one-time donor All donations are tax-deductible. We feel so blessed to be building the Kingdom with people like you! And as always, we need, need, need your prayer support!

And now I would like to share with you a giveaway!! We are selling super cool Mercy Branch Inc shirts designed and set up for us by two of our very talented board members. And we are also giving one of the shirts away! There is a variety of styles, colors, and sizes to choose from, and I would love, love, love for one of my faithful blog readers to be the winner! Head over here to read the details and enter the giveaway!

I {think} this might be one of my favorite shirts that we are selling! Check out all of the great styles and colors (we even have some youth sizes!).

.Noonday Collection Give-Away.

Would you like to win a $50 gift card from the AMAZING Noonday collection?! You will be helping my husband and I out in the process by raising awareness for Mercy Branch Inc in order for us to be able to get to Ethiopia and serve street children in order to advance the Kingdom.

All you have to do is go to our Mercy Branch Inc facebook page here, and "like" it. That's it! If you do that then your name is entered into a drawing to win the $50 gift card.

The only catch is that in order to give one gift card away, we have to reach 1000 likes by THIS Saturday, September 14th and noon est. We are currently a bit short of 500 likes, so we need you to like our page and then would you share about us (and the give-away) on your social media sites, please? Pretty please? it would be so sad to not be able to give this gift card away.  Thank you so much! I hope one of my bloggy readers WINS! You guys rock!

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.Thank You.

Thank you for standing behind us and entering Habi's story with us. We are so excited about what God is about to do, and we are thanking Him in advance.

Here is one more chance to get involved!

I am leaving on a jet-plane - headed for the airport in 2.5 hours! My next post should be from Ethiopia!

.Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique {Give Away}.

Give-Away is NOW closed.



This is huge! The biggest and best give-away that I have ever had at A Moment Cherished! I was introduced to Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique and Amy last fall. I was looking around online for Christmas presents for my children. I wanted to buy items where at least part of the money supported social injustices, and I landed on Amy's website. I immediately fell in love with her boutique clothing. It is exactly how I would dress my Cadi everyday if I could. Everything is handmade/ hand sewn with the most perfect, girly details. I emailed Amy, and we quickly became online friends. I learned of her love for orphans and orphan care, of her precious Bella who became her daughter because of the beautiful blessing of adoption, and I also learned that our sons shared the name Jameson (just different spelling). We instantly clicked, and I purchased a beautiful dress with ruffle pants and matching ties for my children. I thought that I had loved the clothing in Amy's photographs, but when they came packaged in the mail I was blown away. They were flawless and gorgeous.



I asked Amy a few questions about herself to give you a better idea of the creative, kind-hearted, sewing genius behind the boutique.

 

Amy and her beautiful family.

When did you start sewing?

My first experience with sewing was in my Junior High School Home Economics class, and I was a huge failure! I didn't try again until our sweet Isabella came home. I loved all of the boutique style clothing for little girls, and thought I would try to make some for my daughter. To my surprise I seemed to have a knack for it, and REALLY loved the creative outlet. People started to ask me to make things for their kids after seeing outfits I made for Isabella, so I thought I would give selling them a try. That was 3 years ago.


Where do you get new inspiration for your designs?

There are some really great pattern designers out there now; they make patterns so fun to create. I love seeing a new pattern come out...all of the ideas and possibilities of what materials I would use and where I would use them. Seeing in my head what I could do to tweak the pattern to add the BBEG feel to it.

What have you liked the most about owning a boutique?

By far the best part about starting and owning Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique has been the wonderful people I have met. My customers really are some of the greatest people, and I feel blessed by each and every one of them. I have made some of the best "online" friends through the store!

How did you name your business?

I named the boutique after my very own beautiful brown eyed girl, Isabella Soliz, because she was my inspiration for starting the store.

Why are you passionate about orphan care?

I have always been passionate about orphan care and adoption. I knew that I wanted to adopt from a very young age. I remember telling my Mom that my Cabbage Patch Dolls were all from China...even though they all had blond hair and blue eyes, ha! We brought our precious Isabella home from Guatemala in 2007. I think for a lot of us our eyes aren't really opened to the orphan crisis around the world until we have a personal experience with it. Starting our own adoption process opened my eyes wider than they had been before. I am so grateful that others buy BBEG Boutique clothing so that I may help with another person's adoption process or mission trip. Being able to send profits to those who need food or an education to help stop the cycle of poverty is something I couldn't do without being blessed by my customers.

Amy's heart is bigger than life. She gives back a portion of her profits to help orphans and adopting families. Amy agreed to do an amazing give-away on my blog for you, my sweet readers. I SO wish I could enter this myself! Amy has very generously offered to give one reader a $40 credit towards any custom boutique product or ready-to-ship item! I will randomly draw one entry to win this amazing prize, next Tuesday afternoon, January 31st.
 

 

Here is how you can enter the give-away. Please read the rules carefully and follow the directions so that your entries can be counted. Please also leave your email or blog address, so I have a way of contacting the winner. 

 

•  Simply go to Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique and scroll through the products and fabrics that Amy has listed. Come back here and leave one comment telling me what your favorite item is.

 To get additional entries do one or more of the following (Please leave a separate comment for each entry, or it will only be counted as one!):
 

• Follow Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique on the blog here.
• Like Beautiful Brown Eyed Girl Boutique on facebook here.
• Tweet this give away linking back to this post.
• Let your friends know about this give-away on your facebook linking back to this post.
• Write a blog post about this give-away linking back to this post.

You have a chance for a total of six separate entries! Remember to comment separately for each entry telling me what you did. Have fun browsing through Amy's boutique and be sure to check out all of her fabrics! The color choices and options are just stunning!

.A Little of This, A Little of That.

Don't forget to go here and enter my Melissa and Doug give-away! The contest ends tomorrow, Sunday, January 10th at 10 PM!

Also, thanks for all of the fun questions on my homeschooling post I have started working on the post, and I will have it finished for next week. There is still time for you to ask a question if you haven't had a chance.

I have been getting so much email from readers - which is fun and I love it - that I opened a new account, so as not to bog down our family email. You can now contact me at amomentcherished(at)gmail(dot)com.

We are having a rather lazy Saturday here, which is so nice. Jim returned home from the camp retreat just a bit ago. I was going to take down the Christmas decor today (HA!), but am thinking I might just enjoy some time with my hubby this afternoon. I think we could use it.

Thank you to all of my sweet readers for the words of encouragement via comments and email lately. They have been such a blessing. And I cannot get over how many people are praying for us. I feel truly blessed. This whole blogging thing, is such a strange, wonderful phenomena. I feel like I know some of you so well, and yet we have never met. I think God intended the body of Christ to work like this. Thank you.

And lastly, my sister just started a blog. Will you go encourage her? I am a huge supporter of journaling and blogging and I pester the ones I love to do one or the other or both. I think it is important for us to write and to pass down our writings to the next generation. You never know how God will use our pencil strokes.

Have a wonderful Saturday, sweet bloggy friends!