What a day!!

On Saturday morning, we hosted our second fundraiser yard sale. If we thought our earlier yard sale was big, we were WRONG! This time we had received donations from no less than 12 households. Our driveway was FULL! So we got up early (really early), set up and opened for business just before 7:00 am. Thankfully, we had good help. My parents came in Friday night from Georgia with my 94 year old grandmother. Our precious friends who live just a few houses up were there at 5:30 am. Another dear friend came to help at about 6:30. The very responsible daughter of a couple from our church was dropped off around 7:30 to help with the sale, and she stayed ALL DAY! My cousins who live relatively close by came to visit with my grandmother and shop and help. And the shoppers came... and came... and came... until 2:00. For seven consecutive hours there was always someone shopping.

A friend, who stopped by about two weeks ago to drop off some donations, told me she was praying for a $1,000 sale. As ambitious as that sounded, I have learned not to question such things because I have been wrong for too often. And as I looked at the sheer abundance of things to sell $1,000 didn't seem unreasonable. We also had a donation jar on our payment table which we figured wold boost our bottom line. All of our advertising billed it at a fundraiser sale, so people were fully aware of what we were doing. As many people made their selections and paid for their purchases we were encouraged to "Keep the change." I also received an overly generous "paper handshake" from a friend late in the day.

I thought I was prepared for a big day and to handle a large amount of money. And as things were going along throughout the day I didn't give too much thought to the total. That being said, once we finished and packed up the leftovers, I sat down to get a rough count. That first count was over $1100. Then some more friends dropped by and left a generous donation. Then we sold another item or two yesterday. I am still working on the final, official total, but it's going to be close to $1300 if not a little more. Just when I think I have been utterly and completely humbled by what God has done through people on our behalf, God outdoes Himself, AGAIN.

In other news, our photo shoot fundraiser, which took place just over a week ago, was another huge success! We received $500 from that effort and the few preview images we've seen are more precious than we could have ever imagined. When our photographer posts about it on her blog we'll be sure to post a link.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers as we walk through this process.