A Huge Success

Well it is all over now, the sale went amazingly well! I am still blown away by everyone's generosity. I feel like I am still processing this weekend and all that happened. I catch myself thinking about it and realizing all the support that we have received. Honestly, I feel overcome by the blessings we received.

I want to thank everyone who was a part of the weekend, it was only possible because of all you gave. My garage was so full on thursday night from donations that we had to just throw a tarp over the remaining boxes and leave them on the driveway for friday morning. Thanks to everyone who donated to our sale. We continued to receive donations on friday and on saturday. I had a friend who kept dropping things off, one load didn't even make it to the driveway before it was sold!!!

Also I want to thank again all my friends and family who came to just help during the weekend. Even early on saturday morning the first person there was my friend who is pregnant and suffering from morning sickness! She drove in to town and was the first person to help set-up. I am blown away by people's kindness. I also had two friends from Bible College fly in for the weekend just to support us. I honestly don't deserve such a great community. I can't be grateful enough for all of you that God has sent to walk beside us.

You are probably wondering by now how much we made.... the grand total is somewhere around $3200!!!!!!!!!! I did not expect this at all... I am so amazed at God's faithfulness to provide and to go over and beyond what I dreamed of. Of that $3200, $600 was from raffle ticket sales for the quilt, which by the way is $100 over what I was hoping for as to cover the costs of making the quilt. About $500 was also made from the crafts that my sister had helped me with back in March. So that leaves about $2100 from the garage sale itself! The grand total keeps growing though. We kept some of the bigger items from the sale and put them on kijiji to sell. I have some people coming this week to hopefully take those items off our hands, this money will be added to the sale money as well. When all the items are sold, I will come up with a complete grand total!

Garage Sale

This weekend I am having a huge and awesome garage sale!!! The money we raise will go to buy gifts for the orphanage. My garage is just about full thanks to all the wonderful people who have given donations! We are so blessed by our community.

I was nervous to have this garage sale because we don't have a referral yet but it seemed everything was just falling into place. Two of my friends I met in Bible college are flying out to be here for the weekend! I honestly can't wait to have them here.

At the sale I will have a Compassion booth. I have 2 child packs and 2 mom and baby packs that I am hoping to see get sponsored throughout this weekend. I love adoption but I also love adoption prevention. I'm huge on child sponsorship so these children don't have to end up as orphans. Please also pray that these children can find their sponsor homes!

I will also be selling raffle tickets for this:

I started making this quilt earlier this year. The fabric and pattern are Joel Dewberry. I had he quilt professionally long arm quilted and I hand-sewed the binding on! It is reversible also, the back has a panel in the middle with squares of fabric from the front. I will be selling tickets at the sale, 1 for $5 or 5 for $20. If you would like tickets and can't make it to the sale, you can send me a message on face book or email, I will gladly ship to anywhere in Canada!

A while back you may remember a post from when my sister and niece came in March to help me with a fundraiser! Well the beautiful aprons, along with some other crafts, will also be for sale!

I have been preparing for this sale for a while now. When people find out we are adopting, a lot of questions come out: "You can't have your own?" "When do you get your baby?" "Why did you choose Ethiopia?" "Why not adopt form here?" ... I find most of the questions innocent until this one. I was asked a very frank question on face book, so I will just copy and paste my answer. I was warned by Denise that people who come to the sale will ask all kinds of questions, so be prepared. I think after the question that I was recently asked, I should be good and prepared for the weekend! Please pray that I can answer people in a way that brings awareness to adoption, in a way that educated people, and in a way that brings glory to God.

Question: It is illegal to buy children, so what are you fundraising for?

My response: When Arnie and I first started this adoption process, we had to consider the "cost" of this child. We had to pray and ask Jesus where He wanted us to go and from what country he wanted us to adopt from. We chose Ethiopia. In choosing Ethiopia we also agreed to the costs that it would take to bring our child home. We have to pay social workers, homestudy fees, lawyer fees, fingerprint fees, police checks fees, agency fees for working on our file for 4 years, government fees to process the mounds of paperwork it takes to process an adoption, and fees that are paid to teh orphanage for caring for our child for the length of their stay there. None of the fees are for a child but all the fees are for the cost of adopting them. I don't expect people to do their jobs for free. Something that I have often thought of in this whole process is the cost that Jesus paid to ransom our lives. He gave his life to save us. I often mirror adoption to the gospel, that a steep price would be paid to save a life. The children who are in the orphanage have no parents or are not wanted by anyone else. They have social workers who search for relatives and fight on behalf of these children (part of the fees) so that they know this is their only chance at having a family. Honestly, I would give whatever it takes to bring my child home. Suzie is right when she says that the money we raise is going toward the orphanage as a gift for caring for our child for the first years of their live. I wish I could give them everything I have. They took care of MY child. They fed them, clothed them, sang to them, loved them.... when I couldn't be there for them yet and I don't think I could be more grateful to someone for doing that for a child. I want to give them a gift from all the people who have fought for our child to come home. I thought of this fundraiser as a way to include everyone in on the fight for our child. WE have paid for the adoption in full. We owe nothing. In fact we have our own money to give gifts to the orphanage too, but we want the community "in" on it with us. I don't plan on raising this child alone. I plan on having people in it's life that lovehim/her too. If ever you can understand the true fight that adoption is, you will know that having people stand beside you is priceless. IT matters, it is the difference of Arnie and I throwing in the towel or continuing to fight in this process. Sorry for the novel response, I am actually glad you asked the question because there tends to be a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to adoption and I love any chance I get to talk about adoption and to advocate for those sweet little children waiting to find their forever families!! Thanks for your thoughts and donations!

Adoption Photoshoot!!

I havent written in over a month now. I don't have a good reason why, just that I am tired. I don't have too  much to say just the same old waiting and praying and hoping. I have been particularly exhausted with this whole adoption lately.
We did our three year update and then realized we needed an addendum done for our homestudy. I don't know why I was never told that we needed this, but we found out through the government asking if we were still proceeding with our adoption. I was so upset by this, more papers, more time, more money. I know it is a privilege to fight for my child but some days it is just hard. I thank my husband for his strength the past few weeks, he has really supported me through this.
So our social worker came and went. We had no changes except I had a new job. It was a quick visit, but yet a costly visit for what it was... but we are closer to our child, we have fought harder for our child, our love for our child has continued to grow.
On thursday, Arnie and I were privileged enough to get our pictures taken by our friend, Denise Bolen. SHe is an amazing photographer, we had been in conversation for a few weeks about doing an adoption photoshoot. I had been sad lately of all the photoshoots my friends have done of their pregnant bellies and all their beautiful family photos, so when Denise did this photoshoot for us I was so grateful. I get to have pictures too!!!! And they are so unique and one of a kind... and they mean so much to us. I am so proud of these pictures, proud that we get to adopt and proud of this journey we have chosen to take. Here is a sample of the shoot!!!