Waiting with good cheer

Great news. We have a new computer and it's up and running. The men in the family are so relieved, they missed a week of the baseball season! I am relieved as we head into the final weeks of our orphanage donation fundraiser. Very dear friends of ours are hosting a fundraiser for us to raise money for Elsie's orphanage. 100% of the proceeds will be donated directly to the Lanzhou Orphanage in China. We will donate $6000, and this fundraiser will help meet that goal. Orphanage donations directly impact an orphanage's ability to prepare orphans' files for adoption, in addition to their medical and physical needs. It is because of previous adoptive families' donations that allowed Elsie's file to be prepared. To these families we are forever grateful, and we will do what we can for the hundreds of children left behind. See below some of the work being one to prepare for the fundraiser! So much hard work is being done by so many lovely people! My dear friend has also generously put together 2 darling quilts to donate! They are absolutely charming. We will have flowers for the garden, handmade note card sets, homemade beeswax candles, wonderful baked goodies, and so much more! Neil and his friends are also running a Kaiserschmarrn-fest. This is his grandmother's (whom Elsie is named after!) famous Austrian recipe for a scrambled pancake delicacy. Neil makes this for Zinnia every Saturday morning. We are putting the *fun* in fundraiser, har har. I will post pictures for all of you out-of-towners. And if you happen to BE an out-of-towner, please don't think you cannot be a part of our donation! 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the orphanage. We are all called to care for the widow and orphan, and this is an easy way to do that. If you wish to donate you can mail your donation to the address listed at the bottom of this post. And for those of you who wish to donate with a tax deduction, please contact us as we do have a tax deductible option. Asking for money is not easy, but asking on behalf of orphans is an honor! In other news, we are still in our wait for our *golden ticket* Letter Of Acceptance from China. I don't think there are too many remaining ahead of us in line for LOA, but China doesn't always work in a logical way. There seems very little rhyme or reason to the way they hand out LOA's,some people get them in as little as 17 days, and some wait more than 70! So we truly do not know when we could get it. We are on day 36 right now. The best we can go by is the average right now is running 45 days, so we are hopeful to get it in the next few weeks. After that our paperwork chase is back on as we rush to our travel call which we are hopeful will be in July. So travel would be late July at best. Prayers concerning this are welcomed!! Prayer request: For our paperwork to move swiftly and smoothly. That our preparations for our fundraiser are fruitful. And continued prayers for Elsie, that she is well and that her heart is being prepared for a family. Blessings to you all!

Opitz Family
2522 N 66th Ave
Omaha NE 68104