After our successful garage sale, we packed up and headed to Kansas. It was my job to "run the farm" while my father-in-law was fishing in Alaska. I learned some basics in diesel truck maintenance, and how to operate a backhoe and loader. I was in charge of feeding and caring for 500 cattle. One miracle--none died. : )
I enjoyed the work and the boys loved being outside.
Because the baby could have been born any day due to her previous early deliveries, we decided that we would stay in Kansas until we received the phone call from Detroit notifying us that the baby was born. We ended up staying there exactly 4 weeks. Granted, we were getting a little anxious about the delivery towards the end, especially since we were told that the birth mother had disappeared (again) and they had no contact with her. In spite of this, I generally felt pretty confident that things would work out, because of the huge success in raising money so far, and I felt that that wouldn't have happened if we weren't going to be blessed with the baby.
Anyway, we were blessed to make, and save a little money during those 4 weeks in Kansas, and we were able to spend some quality time with Lisa's family. We had a good time spending most of our days together on the farm.
I mentioned in Part 1 that our friends in Iowa had a successful garage sale as well. That garage sale didn't actually happen until we were out in Kansas, but regardless of that fact, another blessing came to the life of the one spear-heading it. She was such a blessing to us and our little family, but she mentioned to me several times that is was her privilege--and actually something that she needed at that time. This friend of ours had just been diagnosed with skin cancer shortly before. In spite of this fact she was undergoing surgery over the very weekend of the garage sale. She sacrificed her time and energy at this time for us. However, she insists that doing so was a blessing to her. It kept her mind off of the things she was going through. Her surgery was a success by the way.
As a side note, while we were in Kansas, we continued to receive financial donations by friends and family. By the time we left Kansas and headed to Detroit, we had enough money to pay for the adoption, and as far as we could tell, for the travel expenses too. Everything had fallen into place perfectly. Financial assistance or donations for garage sales had literally come from all across the country. Friends and family from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans had felt a need to assist us in our quest.
When the call finally came, Lisa packed our bags in 2-3 hours while I finished fixing another water line break (not my fault this time), and we were on our way.
