How do I begin to tell everyone about the amazing yard sale that we had yesterday? The experience of planning this fundraiser was exciting from the very beginning - and it wouldn't have been such a HUGE success without the help and support of so many of you! Most importantly, we recognize that none of this would not have happened without the blessing of God and HIS control of our adoption journey. Now for the details...
Over the past month we have gathered donations from co-workers, friends, family members and strangers. We gathered clothes, household items, furniture, baby items, sporting equipment, and much, much more. We had friends and family members donate their home baked goods for our bake sale! Everyone worked together to help us bring home our daughter.
Saturday morning started for our family at 4:20 when our alarm clocks went off! I woke up excited and ready to see what God had planned for us. By 5:00 AM, the kids were up, too! Megan was making frosting to ice her home made cupcakes for the bake sale. At 4:45 we began pulling all the tables out of the garage and laying out all the wonderful donations from all of you! The first customer arrived at 5:30 - yeah, seriously! We couldn't believe it when a car pulled up at that time of the morning!
I can honestly say that this yard sale was so different - God brought so many wonderful people for us to meet. We met families that have been foster parents, families that have adopted domestically, families that have adopted internationally from Columbia, China, India, Korea and many other countries, families who plan to adopt. We met a woman and her children who were home on vacation - they live in China! It was so interesting to talk to her about the travel, the culture - she gave us some very practical advice! She looked at my fair skin and told me to make sure I take sunscreen with me - I am so grateful for this advice (I certainly don't want to suffer from sun burn when we are meeting our daughter!).
I also can't tell you who many times people found out what our yard sale was for and told us to "keep the change" - I have witnessed the generosity and compassion of so many people this weekend, and I will forever be changed!
Jason and I have been very honest with all of you about the financial concerns surrounding our adoption. I will also be completely honest with you about our fundraising efforts. I want everyone that feels led to support us to understand that we are not raising funds for ourselves, every dollar is going directly towards the adoption of our daughter. I also want you all to know that we are also funding the process through our own finances. We have discussed many options about how to raise these funds - we have discussed taking out loans and trying to do this on our own, but this is not how God continues to lead us on this journey. I have said it before and I will say it again - God is writing this story and we are so grateful that many have decided to be part of this with us. The two fundraisers that we have already held are evidence to us that God will provide every dollar we need to bring Makenna home.
Megan and Matthew ran the "food tent" selling baked goods, bottled water, soft pretzels and hot dogs. Megan is a natural salesperson and wonderful communicator - every person she spoke with knew that she had a sister in China waiting to come home to our family! Thanks to all the bakers out there - the food tent raised $179!!
I am humbled and honored to let all of you that yesterday was a HUGE financial success for Makenna. Around 3:30 yesterday we decided it was time to see how we did, so I sat in the middle of the driveway with my parents, and my mom started pulling the money out. It was like eating a bowl of angel hair pasta - it felt like the money kept growing as we took it out of the bag! She started counting... when she got to $1000 in twenty dollar bills, I couldn't keep the tears back any longer. We called Jason at work on speaker phone and told him that we raised $1550 - like all of us, he was shocked! But... the story actually gets better! This morning, Jason pulled the money out to organize it to take to the bank. We counted wrong... we actually raised $1700! Can you believe that? I could start crying again just typing that number! My mom and I set a goal of $1000 on Friday night with a "stretch" of $1500... God blew both those numbers out of the ballpark. We have been waiting to send in the check for our home study - praying that we would have enough after the yard sale to write that check for $1850. We now have enough to pay for the the home study, our training course, passports and the rest of our clearances! This is everything we need in order to get our home study and dossier completed.
Thank you seems so simple... but with all of our hearts, our whole family is so grateful to all of you that have helped us.
With grateful loving hearts,
Jessica and family
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