As I have reflected on the last couple of months, I can't help but feel that a number of blessings, even miracles have occured in our lives, and I wanted to jot them down. It all began when we recieved the news about our birth mother's pending new delivery. We were ready emotionally to add another to our family, but being without a job, we simply were not in the financial position we needed to be in to pay for the adoption expenses. We pondered and prayed about our delima and felt that we still needed to go through with the adoption and leave everything in the hands of God.
We announced our decision, and predicament, to friends and family and we immediately began to see the hand of God at work. We recieved financial donations in person and in the mail. We then began preparations for a garage sale to raise money. Local church members, friends, and family (even strangers) donated numerous items to our cause. We were picking up trailor loads of clothes, toys, furniture, bikes, books, and more for almost the entire week leading up to the garage sale.
As we gathered all the stuff together we wondered how we were ever going to get rid of everthing. We started setting up on Thursday afternoon for the following morning, and people began stopping in. Friday morning at 7:00 am, we were still trying to set things up and we were busy selling stuff. We were busy all day until 7:00 pm that night with hardly a bread at all. The same story was true Saturday morning. We hoped to make $500 the entire weekend. We had far surpassed that amount by Saturday at 2:00 pm, so we put a "free" sign up by 3:00 and almost all of the remaining items were gone by 5:00. We had one trailer full of stuff left over, which we took to DI the next morning.
Our church friends in Iowa also decided to hold a garage sale the weekend after we did. They also recieved a large amount of stuff and recieved almost an identical amount of money. I have never heard of such huge success at gargage sales--neither had anyone else I talked to. It was like the miracle of the few loaves and fishes that produced much more than what was provided.
I was touched, not only by the huge success the garage sales were, but also by the blessing that we were able to be to those who were also less fortunate. When we put the "free" sign up, there were two groups of people in particular that I feel we were a great blessing to. One lady was obviously glad of the news, and judging by her dress, was in need of additional items. The other group was a couple of Polyesian ladies that came back 3 times gathing stuff. They made the comment that their kids were going to be so glad to have new clothes, and that it would be like Christmas to them. I really don't know how desperately they needed those items, but to me, it seemed that by offering some of the remaining items for free we were had the chance to be a blessing to those who were also struggling at that time.
The left-overs that we donated to DI would also be a way to bless others. We learned shorlty after that the excess materials in Iowa were also donated to Goodwill and other charitable donations.
This particular season of our journey to adopt made me full of gratitude for all our loving church friends and family for their generosity. I was also reminded that the Lord knew of our circumstances and was willing to take care of us. As my mom has stated several times, "It is a miracle". The financial donations that came our way was beyond what we would have imagined.
Just a few days after completing our garage sale, we were on our way to Kansas (part 2).
