Raising Funds and Raising Hope

Yesterday was our final garage sale of the summer.  And yes, I know it's not summer. But you get it.  Until we can no longer see our breath while setting up, we are going to take a garage sale hiatus.  Anywho, we are so blessed with friends who have given generously by way of donations.  It was to the point where I was unable to park in my side of the garage.  We knew the temps were decreasing and we decided this weekend would be the best time to try and do a final clean out and allow me back in my parking space.  And, of course, there was an away game this weekend. Plus, we are ready to submit our dossier and are down to just a little more money before we can submit. So, we went for it. We knew the weather could make it a gamble but it was a risk we were willing to take.

I don't know if I have shared much about the fact that there are a couple other families adopting from ET in our church who are ahead of us in the process.  They are great friends and full of knowledge.  Being the fundraising gurus they are, I asked their opinion and both ladies (we'll call them the Adoption Fairies) really thought I should do a two-day sale.  I went to ask for the day off and realized I was already booked for appointments most of the morning.  So, I went back to the ladies with the bad news that the only option was for a Saturday-only sale. A bit of a bummer, I know, but it was my only option.  That's when the Adoption Fairies, as we will call them, told me they had already agreed to run the sale on their own on Friday--with or without me.  Friends, what a blessing. I couldn't believe it.

So we prepped and laid things out and I started the sale. On Friday, the AF showed up and I ran to work. These AF are pros! They brought extra signage, extra bags, and they even have sale-increasing strategies.  I was sad to head to work but knew I was leaving the sale in good hands.  We cheered in my kitchen when I got home from work and celebrated our one day total.  The AF said they would come back for Saturday and we'd push for an even better Saturday.

Friday night we planned to make cupcakes but there was this thing called the World Series that took all my attention.  Yeah, the Cards won. And while I don't really care, it's still kind of fun. Plus, my mom and grandma would probably disown me if I didn't at least show some excitement.  Specifically, my grandma may have disowned me.  She did, after all, call me at 11:30 that night to see if I'd watched.So, I ended up waking up early on Saturday to finish making our cupcakes.  Back to the action...

Saturday the AF came and we enjoyed each others' company. It was, potentially, the coldest garage sale I have ever seen.  We had Snuggies.

And hot chocolate.

And a few people come to visit.  OK more than a few, but much fewer than the last sale we had.  I wasn't deterred--I knew any funds were more than we had the day before.  There was an estate sale going on two blocks down so we kept our sale open late to benefit from the traffic. At two we finally closed down and after some extreme rearranging, we were able to put the car in the garage.

I love to do the money counting, so as Hubs was still finishing the cleaning up process, I busted open the money bag and started to count.  Friends, this is where the story gets intense. Because as I started to count, I realized we had some sort of fishes and loaves story going on.  I kept sorting and counting and sorting and counting and my jaw hit the table. The more I counted, the more confused/ astounded I got. In fact, I think I started giggling. Hubs came over and together, we realized there had to be more to this story. Yes, the AF had earned their name.  Someone had snuck money into our bag without us knowing. And at the end of the day, we raised more than $800.  Friends, WHAT A BLESSING.  We have known the money would show up so we could submit our dossier soon but we just didn't know how.  I am here to tell you God answers prayers. We don't have a grand total of how much money we have in our possession but it's got to be close.  I called my AF friends and cried tears of joy and of complete humility.  How beautiful.

And do you know what? This is not the first time we've had a sale where money magically ended up in our possession that we didn't earn (you know who you are).  Yes, our friends are true blessing in this process.

I left the day feeling completely overwhelmed by God's faithfulness and by how blessed we have been with friends who love us.  Hubs and I shared lunch and gave sincere prayers for the blessings of the day.  As I told the AF, we knew we would be getting a child through this process.  We had no idea we would also be getting friends.

We can't wait to have our son here. We also can't wait to pay it forward and help families like ours on their journey. We've got a long way to go but we are one big step closer yesterday.  I am hoping that celebratory blog post when we submit that dossier soon. And neither of us have been delusional enough for even a second do believe we've done any of this on our own.

He is faithful. And he works through people who listen to his call.  We see it all the time.

We are blessed.

Here's a fun one to end on. I will hopefully post tomorrow about our seasonal fun. But if you don't hear from me, have a Happy and safe Halloween!