A GREAT BIG…”IT’S ABOUT TIME!”…

When we first met Denise Sowders, she was the mother of pubescent twins from Nicaragua who had two goals in her personal life. 1) To add another child through domestic adoption. 2) Finish her college education to receive a degree in the human science field.

Well, it’s been 9 years and…she’s done it! YEA Denise. Actually, she more than met her first goal because she added two, not one, child to her family. Oh, and a daughter-in-law and one and a half grandchildren. The increase in her family additions may have contributed to her lengthy educational quest but she wouldn’t change a thing!

IT’S TIME TO PLAN FOR THE ANNUAL FAMILY BBQ…

If you are an AIM/BTA family….you won’t want to miss this! We will have face painting, clowns, petting zoo, balloon art, and much more to entertain the little ones.

Some of the best BBQ in Texas will be served up buffet style….turkey, brisket, and ribs with beans and potato salad. And, of course, dessert, bread, tea and soft drinks. All you can eat.

As always, the whole thing is free to our families…sponsored by families who feel that the function is important. If you would like to be one of those special sponsors, send us a check made out to Alternatives In Motion – FIM Account (which stands for Families In Motion) and note that it is to offset the cost of the picnic.

BIG CHANGES IN TEXAS ADOPTION LAW…
(Copied from Adoption Connection March Issue, Katherine Otte)
On June 16, 2007 Governor Rick Perry signed legislation (HB3997) which requires any man who may have impregnated a woman to register with the Texas Paternity registry in order to be notified if a resulting child is being relinquished for adoption. It permits the state to terminate parental rights, without notice, of a father who has not registered with the Paternity Registry. Under the old regulations, the state had to attempt to locate and notify birthfathers before parental rights could be terminated. Now, the birth father’s rights can be terminated 31 days after the birth of the child if his name is not on the registry. The law went into effect September 1, 2007 and applies to requests for the termination of parental rights rendered on or after January 1, 2008.

David Cole, an adoption attorney in Dallas, believes that “this new legislation pertaining to termination of a biological father’s parental rights is the most fundamental change in this area of law in the past 25 years. Although the new law largely eliminates the need to notify birth fathers of a genetic child’s placement for adoption, unintended legislative consequences may include the elimination of birth father health and genetic information flowing to adoptive parents, the filing of separate paternity actions in other courts by birth fathers unaware of an adoption, and the unfortunate likelihood that birth mothers may be more inclined to withhold information regarding a birth father from an agency or adoptive couple. Only time will reveal the complete ramifications of this new legislation.”

PLEASE CONTINUE TO HELP US AS YOU SHOP THROUGHOUT THE YEAR….
We need continued help throughout the year and we have ways you can help that is painless and it really adds up for us.

Kroger offers one opportunity. Just flash their Share Card whenever you shop and the cashier will scan your card and the computer will document a portion of your purchase to be sent to us quarterly. Easy! If you don’t have one of our cards, just cut out the one we have printed for you. You can paste to cardstock or laminate it. Keep it right next to your Kroger card so you don’t forget to flash it when you pick up your groceries for the week….or that loaf of bread on the way home.

And…..if you shop at Randall’s…you can designate AIM as your charity of choice on your Remarkable Randall’s Card. It works the same way that Kroger Share Card works. Our Good Neighbor number is 4018.

Don’t forget Safeway! We are vendor No.: 224018 CC/PC: 95147173.

Another great way to help (if you are an online shopper) is to register with iGive.com designating Alternatives In Motion as your charity of choice. We get a portion of your purchase!

Another possibility is that, through prayer, you may be led to tithe monthly. Through the Lord, BTA and AIM have provided almost 2000 loving stable Christian families for over 2400 children. If the Lord led each family to provide a monthly tithe to our ministry….the amount of services we could provide would be outstanding!

Bottom line is….we need help all year long. We are not gifted fundraisers….we aren’t even mediocre fundraisers…but we try. What we really need is a professional fundraiser who will raise funds for us and retain a portion for their salary…but we don’t even have the time to research and recruit a responsible person. Although we are able to pay our current advertising bills, we have a huge past due yellow page invoice that we have been steadily working on…but we need to retire it. We have been blessed with a generous gift from The Furst Foundation that has made a nice dent in the amount owed.

We are mentioning this need to you first because you have benefited from the efforts of our yellow page ad…your child is proof of that. So, we are asking you to help us in any way that the Lord leads you.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR BTA FAMILIES…
Charlotte asked that we request all Blessed Trinity Adoption or Prince of Peace adoptive families indicate their origin on the outside of every correspondence that they send to our office. Since she will not be around to receive the mail after her retirement, she wants to be sure that Denise is able to know right away who you are. BTA, POP, and AIM files are stored in separate locations within the office. It is very helpful to know where to look when you don’t recognize a name right away.

HELP US CELEBRATE CHARLOTTE’S CAREER…
As Jan mentioned earlier in the newsletter, Charlotte is retiring effective May 1, 2008. After 21 years in the adoption field, she has tons of projects that she hopes to finish before she and Pat move to Plantersville in a couple of years. Yes, she is going to be a country girl. Complete with cows and a garden. I wonder if one of the projects will be learning to ride a horse, or milk a cow, or gather eggs……..hmmmmmmm.

In 1987, Charlotte began her adoption career working with Winnell Byrd of Blessed Trinity Adoptions. When we lost Winnell in July of 2000, BTA was not prepared to continue without her. AIM was asked to assume the unconsummated adoptions and all of the consummated files. Charlotte, because of her love for Winnell and her commitment to BTA, agreed to transfer to AIM and take charge of BTA files and handle all of the correspondence for BTA and AIM. It wasn’t long before Charlotte was handling more and more. She is leaving a huge hole to fill.

We have decided to celebrate with Charlotte by declaring Wednesday, April 30th as agency-wide Celebrate Charlotte’s Career Day and we invite you to celebrate with us. We will have snacks and conversations and pictures to share throughout the day between 8am and 4pm. If you would like to help Charlotte celebrate, please feel welcome to stop by anytime during the day. If you can’t do that, you may choose to send a card to the office (be sure to mark “Charlotte” on the back so we can keep it for her to open on her day), or flowers, or cookie/candy gram can be delivered to 2509B FM1960 East, Houston 77073, or send an email to aim_news@aimadoptions.org (we will print and save for her day).

STAFF NEWS…
We love hearing from you and keeping up with what’s going on in your lives…and we feel like turnabout is fair play. So, this is the latest about us:

Jan and Alan are busting their buttons over Westin’s college success. Since Westin was born waaaaaaaaaay premature (weighing a little over 2 pounds), he has had some difficult struggles in school. However, Mr. Personality/Determination endeavored to astound us throughout his public school days with awards and nominations for particular programs. Now he is in college and working while keeping a 3.0 GPA. In addition, he is a frequent speaker as an adoption advocate. Westin is interested in pursuing politics and/or teaching as two of his career choices.

We’ve all reserved seats at the Lone Star College production of The Chocolate Factory. Charlotte’s youngest daughter is playing the roll of Charlie’s mother. Kathleen is loving college and takes every opportunity to participate in LSC’s theatre productions.

Sun-lover, Dee just got back from a visit with two of her daughters and four of her grandchildren in Florida. She showed up to the office on Monday morning all tanned and healthy looking….we were jealous. Well, until she told us that it rained the whole time she was in Florida and that she got her tan at home, at her own pool, the day before. Okay, so the weather wasn’t all that great…but she did get to visit with the grandkids. The grandkids who developed a stomach flu when she arrived to visit.

Denise has had so much fun being a grandma to Tristan that she thought she might try it again. Matthew and Melissa are expecting daughter #2 in May. Everyone is thrilled…but let’s see what Tristan thinks about 3 days after “the arrival” comes home. It’s a hard fall from that pedestal she’s been riding around on these past 2 ½ years.

Oh, and one more thing! If you are a racecar enthusiast and show up at any of the local tracks, or the ones in San Antonio or parts of Louisiana…you might see Malinda in the pits! Yep, she’s an official enthusiast. Of course, it might be that she is most enthusiastic about a certain driver that’s been a part of her life for the better part of the last year.