The Final Garage Sale

This weekend was the final, final, final garage sale.  By the last day of each garage sale Mat would declare that this was the LAST garage sale.  This was our 4th garage sale.  Adoption is expensive, folks.  We really had no intention of having another garage sale, but our friends and family were so generous.

Since we've been in McAlester we have made some incredible friends.  I remember Mat telling me that it looked like we would be moving here.  I was not happy!  We were part of an incredible Church.  We had wonderful friends (you know who you are)!!  I still miss them like crazy! But God!  I believe that God moved us to McAlester to intersect our lives with theirs.  Not only is adoption expensive, it is hard!  We have 3 other couples in our Sunday School department that are adopting children.  Our stories are all different yet I'm certain that God brought us together to support and encourage each other through this journey.  We have countless other friends that aren't adopting, but have come along side us and carried some of our load.  I can't count the hours they have prayed for us, helped unload pumpkins, set up for garage sales, and just listened when I needed to rant.  Words truly can't express how grateful I am for each of them!

One of these friends has become like extended family.  They suffered a great loss recently with the death of her grandfather. In their grief they thought of us.  They donated more than a trailer load of things from his house so that we could continue to raise money to bring Isaac home.  The word spread that we were having one more garage sale.  We came home more than once to find boxes of donations.  I still don't know where everything came from.

My favorite thing to do during a garage sale is to count the money.  I'm a little obsessed about it.  After we set up Thursday, Mat told me that he felt like we shouldn't count until the garage sale was completely over. WHAT?? He knows that this is what I do!!  Still, he felt like we were supposed to have faith and not count. So, we didn't count.

Since beginnings the process, some things have changed.  Instead of making 1 trip, we will go twice. Of course this adds extra expenses.   Mat was hoping to raise enough for our plane tickets, but I really didn't think we would.  Since we don't know exactly when we will travel we don't know how much our tickets will be.  We are hoping to get them for $3,500.  Well fast forward through two really hot days and it was finally time to count.  Between sales and 2 very generous donations we raised $3,485!!  Once again we were humbled by the generosity of old friends, new friends, family, and complete strangers.  We were reminded again to not limit God!  He has brought us this far and He will not leave us now.

We are much closer, but we aren't completely funded.  We have a couple fundraisers coming up.  We will be featured on Give1Save1 Asia starting this evening.  I'll post more about that tonight.

Thank you for your prayers and support!!