Like beards? And babies? Well then, meet Courtney & DJ… this is their story of international adoption and how they are creatively raising funds through their beard-a-thon, A Beard for A Baby.
Courtney & DJ’s Story | After two back to back miscarriages in 2012, the Lord has led my husband, DJ, and I to pursue international adoption. As Christians, our faith is founded upon our own adoption into the family of God through faith in Jesus and we firmly believe that earthly adoption is a picture of the spiritual adoption we have in Christ. Not only that, but because we worship a God who saves people from every tribe, tongue and nation on earth, we have specifically chosen international adoption in that we want our family to reflect the family of God. When people see our future child and ask about how they came into our family, we want to be able to point to the goodness of God and the salvation that He offers to all people. We are adopting through Holt International Children’s Services and Lord willing, will soon bring home a little boy or girl from South Korea!
It goes without saying that international adoption is very expensive. As young adults working in ministry, we simply cannot pay for it on our own. Therefore, we began saving as much as we could, started researching and applying for adoption grants, and needed to begin implementing some fundraisers. A few weeks ago, I began praying for creative fundraising ideas. There are a ton of common fundraising themes out there, all of which are awesome and can be very successful, but I was specifically asking the Lord for something different; something that would stand out and grab the attention and investment from others. Enter in A Beard For A Baby. While getting ready for work one day, the Lord put the idea in my head to host a Beard-A-Thon. After several conversations with friends, we began fleshing out the idea. One thing led to another, and now the fundraiser is going in full force!
Here’s how it works: We have recruited 30 men to grow their beards for 6 months (fromJune 1-December 1). Each Beard Grower is responsible to find a minimum of 10 people to sponsor their Beard Growth at $10 per month, for a total of $60 each by the end of the fundraiser. All funds raised will go directly towards our adoption fees. There are a number of ways that people can be involved in our fundraiser and we would love the help of anyone interested! Here are a few ways you can participate:
- Follow our blog! You can sign up to follow us by email on our main page.
- Help us spread the word! You can follow us on twitter at @abeardforababy. Retweet us to your friends and family!
- Consider sponsoring one of our Beard Growers. You can meet them here and donate through monthly sponsorships or one time donations here.
- Lastly, for those who are believers in Christ, we would covet your prayers! We are half way to meeting our financial goal of $41,000 and are praying for and trusting in the Lord to provide the rest.
Our hope in this fundraiser is to not only raise funds, but to also raise adoption awareness. There are millions of children in the world in need of a family and a home and this fundraiser is helping the life of just one sweet orphan. We hope and pray that through our story, others hearts would be stirred to consider involvement in this plight, either through adopting themselves or by helping others to adopt.
A very special thanks to Courtney & DJ for sharing their story and to all of the supporters who have made these Love Capture Give ® sessions possible by purchasing sessions through Tressavent Photography.
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tressavent photography | dallas, tx lifestyle & philanthropic photographer | tressa thomas| love capture give®