It's Been Awhile

The garage sale was a huge success! Our goal was $1000 for the weekend and by 11:00 Saturday morning we had already made that much. The grand total was $1,949.61. We both are in total awe and overwhelmed by how much money we made.

So thank you to everyone who donated! We appreciate it more than you will ever know. I don't think we will be having a garage sale again anytime soon though, it was pretty exhausting. But the weekend was amazing and it is an experience I will never forget.

We put up signs at the sale saying THANK YOU All Proceeds Go To Our Adoption Fund. That of course had people asking questions and we got to tell a little about our story. Throughout the day on Saturday, people were telling us their stories about adoption or their belief in God and it was so amazing to get to share that with complete strangers. We had a few people who didn't buy anything but they still wanted to contribute to our fund!

Sunday we decided to wrap up the sale at noon as it was much slower than Saturday. My parents left around 11:00 and Russell and I just hung out and talked to the few people who would straggle on in. For some reason we didn't close down at noon and about 15 minutes after the last person left a woman and her daughter pulled up. It was obvious they didn't have a lot of money so whatever they bought I discounted. We had the local christian music station playing and she asked if we were Christians. I said yes and she asked if we were moving (we had taken down the thank you signs already). When I told her what the sale was for, her eyes teared up and she started to tell me her story.

When she was 17 she found out she was pregnant. Her parents, not wanting the "stain" of a daughter who was pregnant and unwed, sent her to a girls detention center in LA for the duration of her pregnancy. This woman was a new Christian and she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Her mother had placed her older sister for adoption at birth and she knew she didn't want to take the same road. So she prayed for 24 hours straight until she felt she had gotten an answer from God. She kept her baby, and on the day she was at our house that little baby was giving a speech at a church conference on the East coast.

As the woman finished her story, tears were pouring down her face. She said that she would be praying for us and that what we were doing took a true act of faith in God. She and her daughter left after purchasing their items and I started to clean up. Five minutes later they pull back into the driveway and the daughter gets out and runs up to me. She shoved a wad of cash into my hands apologizing for the amount, but that it was all they had and they wanted us to have it. Twenty-one dollars. All the money they had left for the week and they wanted us to have it. I ran after the car and through my tears hugged the woman and her daughter and couldn't find my voice to say thank you. But I'm sure she knew how I felt.

It wasn't the amount that struck me, I would have been just as emotional had it been $1.00. This woman, moved by our plight and her past(and perhaps the hand of God), wanted to help us create a family. Still, four days later, I cannot write nor think about this without tears. To know that people who have no vested interest in whether or not we have a child gave what they had so we could be parents.

I have always been able to see God working in my life, after the fact. This is the first time in my 28 years of existence that I have actually been able to watch God work while he's in the midst of it. Had we closed up when we had planned, we would have never been blessed by meeting that woman and her daughter, hearing her story. Daily I am reminded how blessed we are, that this is truly the work of God. We have done so little on this journey, so little in fact I feel foolish. I've heard so many stories where couples have poured their heart and soul and every ounce of being into an adoption and have it go horribly wrong. And while there is still a long road ahead of us and it has been an emotional journey, I can't help but feel light and relaxed, knowing that God is in control. All we have to do is let go.