Our Yard Sale and Unexpected Blessings!

Our big yard sale is finally finished! Well, sort of...if you don't count all the tables and piles all over our carport of stuff we have no idea what to do with now since it didn't sell!  Its been a very long two weeks of preparing...sending out requests for donations, picking up donations, making signs and sorting through bags and bags of items.   Many many hours of sorting in the heat.   I started setting up on Wednesday and I had a stream of people coming throughout the week to look and shop even though the sale wasn't till Saturday...so it definitely feels like we just finished up with an exhausting 4 day yard sale!

  Overall, we made about $320 dollars from the yard sale.  Its not a huge amount of money, but its something.  Dan and I are glad that we did it...we really felt like we worked as hard as we possibly could have.  The biggest blessings of the yard sale wasn't even the money we made but the people who offered to help by giving us items, bringing tables and the few people who came out to support us at the yard sale.  A good friend of Dan's blessed us by coming out the night before to help carry all the heavy filled tables out around the yard, which was something this pregnant mama just could not have handled doing after all the days of working to get ready...I didn't have much left at that point.  And then on yard sale day, a couple wonderful friends came out in that oppressive heat and brought all their children to "shop" at our yard sale!  They bought lots of stuff and gave so generously from their hearts...Dan and I were so very blessed by their being there. 

So...an adoption yard sale.  We've been there...we've done that...and we're tired!  Dan and I had a lot of conversations after the sale...what should we do instead?  This was so incredibly hard and time consuming and it probably didn't bring in enough to be worth doing again...so what else?  We've already tried T-Shirt sales, our puzzle fundraiser and now this. 

We have so much to raise.  Its been kind of weighing on me.  Its funny how you can get caught up on little specifics.  An example:  It will cost us about $25,000 to bring Joseph home.  The country we are adopting him from is a hague country and our home study agency is not hague accredited so we need to have our international adoption agency "review" our home study for us.  This used to cost $250 to have that done.  The price has now gone up to $500.  $500 just to look over our homestudy!  I've been having a really hard time with this for some reason.   $250 seemed ok but for some reason adding an additional $250 to the cost just overwhelmed me.   We have so many other important expenses and it just seems so expensive for such a little thing. 

God knows where we are and He definitely wanted to show us that He has it covered...and He used my little obsession with the extra $250 fee to show me He will call others and it will all work out.  Here I am freaking about an extra $250 and an amazing friend, out of nowhere, handed me exactly $250.  Absolutely amazing.  It was like the reassurance and pick-me-up that we needed after all that yard sale work.  The exact amount extra for reviewing our home study.  Ok, God...I'll stop worrying about it ;)

 Then we get home and check the mail...My mother-in-law has been collecting her $5 bills...every time she has a $5 bill, she puts it aside for Joseph.  Doesn't sound like a big deal, right?  Its only $5.  But she gathered up all the $5 bills she had put aside so far and put it into a check for us.  That check was $220 !!  What an amazing and thoughtful gift.  That was $470 in one day.

And I haven't even gotten to tell you about the wonderful meeting we had with our parish priest about our adoption the day after our yard sale...I just don't think I can fit this many blessings into one post!  I'll have to write a little post about that later.

So...we've been crawling along and wondering how we are ever going to be able to climb this mountain and God is right there.  He is calling people to help us over each hurdle.  I am beyond blessed today.  It is so scary to know we have so much money to raise but it is so amazing to see God call people to help us do this.  Thank you so much to all those that have heard God call them to help and have made the decision to do so!

God is good...and so are the people He has placed around us. 
Thank you for all the help...we pray each night for all of the people that have helped in some way to bring Joseph home.

Blessings,
Kimberly

working and praying...

Today I'm working hard preparing for the yard sale tomorrow...sorting, pricing, unpacking and trying to make some baked goods to sell as well.  But that's not all I'm doing.  I'm also praying.  Praying for Amelia and her Mom Jenny.  Jenny is overseas trying to bring Amelia home...no longer an orphan but a beautiful new member of their family.  But Amelia is not doing well.  She is twelve years old and weighs only 12 pounds.  She is very fragile and her mom really needs her to be stable enough to travel home.

Please, please, please pray with us that Amelia can be stable enough to get safely home and get the medical care she needs. 

May God Bless you for taking the time to pray for little Amelia!

Yard sale prepping...

Plans for today...spend A LOT of time in the carport sorting through heaps and mounds of donated yard sale items for our Fundraising yard sale.  Seriously people...I'm drowning in stuff!  I had to have Dan put together some make-shift tables out of saw horses and spare wood because I just didn't know how to get things sorted out enough to make people interested in buying things.  Now that I have some more tables to display stuff on, I've got a lot of work to do!

Please pray for a successful yard sale on Saturday. 
If your local, please come by and support us by browsing the yard sale or maybe buying some baked goods or lemonade!  Saturday 8-11am!  Hope to see you there!

Please also pray that we will get some details worked out about being able to do some fundraisers through our church in the near future.  With the addition of this pregnancy during our adoption, we will no longer fit in our mini-van when both the baby and Joseph are added.  Plus the additionally unexpected costs of maternity care and labor...well, I'm trying not to worry...I know God knew about all of this beforehand and He has a plan.  I'm just having a hard time not being concerned as a lot of money goes out and not much comes in.

 I know many people probably thought we should have stopped our adoption of Joseph when we found out we were pregnant.  We had a few people assume that we were no longer adopting.  But we gave God our "Yes!" and we're trying to keep our word.  Joseph needing a home doesn't change just because we get pregnant. When you make that leap and commit to a child, its like there is a permanent space there in your family and in your heart that is waiting for that family member.  We can't wait to bring him home!  Yes, it will be harder and more expensive but we're doing our best to trust that God has a marvelous way of helping us through this.  I fail daily as far as worrying...but I'm trying :)

Back to work for me!

P.S.  I forgot to mention that we mailed out our I800A!!  Another step in the right direction to getting Joseph home :) 

He has a Family!

Wow...I don't even know what to say!  It was the nicest little gift to wake up this morning to see on Julia's blog that "Igor" listed on Reece's Rainbow has made it to the "My Family Found Me" page on their site!!  If you don't follow Reece's Rainbow, it might be a little hard to explain the sheer delight it is to see the kids you've watched for so long, ones you've prayed for and thought of every day finally have a family choose them as their own and take that leap to commit to them.

Igor has definitely been one of those kids that I have loved and thought of for quite awhile.  You can't look through the children listed on Reece's Rainbow without feeling a connection to many of them.  Wow, I love that "My Family Found Me" Page!!  Igor, your family is coming to get you!

If you've never gone and looked at the beautiful kids listed on Reece's Rainbow....please do.  They are there waiting for someone to notice them...for someone to realize how special they are and bring them home.  Even if you can't adopt, go there and see their faces.  They will steal your heart.  Go and put a face with your idea of "orphan" so that you will know who to pray for.

Our family is a prayer warrior for a boy named Russell through Reece's Rainbow.  We have committed to praying for him as a family.  It occurred to us that everyone has pictures of their kids around their home...and Russell would most likely never have his picture on display anywhere.  So he does now.  His picture is up on our frig with the rest of our kids.  And we pray for him daily.

Go and see who touches your heart and calls you to pray for them...


http://reecesrainbow.org/new-family/thechildren

Random overdue summer pics...

 our baby bluebirds

Beans from the garden

Faith Camp at church...all four of my amazing kids went for the first time this year.  So strange to actually have "the littles" old enough to go to their own class!

Chicken clinic for the boys.  They had to learn what would be expected of them for their first Country Fair Chicken Showing in September.

Some surprising blooms in the yard...the previous owners jammed so many different flowering plants into this one area that we're constantly waiting to see what will come up next :)

And last but not least...our chickens :)  They are getting really big!  We had a dear Friend and Godmother of my little girl come and "chicken sit" for us while we were away...thank you, Sofia!  It was nice to know the girls were being taken care of!  They should start laying in the next 4-5 weeks so I've been stocking up on cartons.  We even had a sweet man that lives in town offer to give us 7 of his chickens because he has too many.  They are white ones with feathers on their feet...I looked them up and I found one woman who called her chickens of that type her "Frodo Chickens!"  Needless to say, our Lord Of The Rings reader is totally sold on taking them :)  We'll see...

I'll be posting trip pictures soon!

Blessings,
Kimberly

 

 

Tons of pictures to post

Ok...I'm actually having some "feeling better moments" on occasion so I figured I better download our trip photos and get them posted.  Oh my!  I didn't realize how many things we've had going on in the past month or two that I haven't posted a single picture of because I'd been feeling too bad to get them download and posted! 

I'll be posting quite a few photos today...you've been warned ;)

:) Kimberly

We're back from our trip...

We've had a family get together planned for months that we just got back from on Sunday night.

It was a long week, but the kids had a great time.  Hopefully I will post some pictures today or tomorrow.  Everyone is brown and happy from a week out in the sun and seeing family that hadn't seen in a long time.  And now we are happy to be back home as a family :)

Working on a fundraising yard sale in two weeks!  Praying we can raise some money to bring our boy home!

Pictures coming...

Blessings,

Kimberly

He knows what He's doing...

Trying to post something recently has been hard.  I haven't had morning sickness like this since my first pregnancy 11 yrs. ago.  My last three pregnancies I felt pretty good.  I actually love being pregnant...usually.  This one has been hard.  And I have definitely had moments of wondering what the heck we are doing trying to internationally adopt and be pregnant at the same time.  Maybe we were giving ourselves too much credit?  Were we being reasonable?  Can we REALLY DO THIS?  I mean, we have so much fundraising to do for this adoption and right now I can barely move off the couch.  I'm in survival mode.  I want so badly to be working hard and raising the funds to bring Joseph home...and right now, I just can't do much other than hunker down with my family and trust that God is going to work all this for His glory.

  Thankfully, God has been very good to me the past week.  He has whispered to my heart and reassured me that I just need to love well and have faith.  He is with me.  He has planned all this and He knows what He is doing.  This is a difficult time, but it will pass.  The evil one loves to confuse and discourage...but we know the truth and we are holding tight to God's promises.  God loves children.  God opened our hearts to adoption and sent us Joseph and we will do what we have to do to go get him.  Children are a blessing.  God chose to bless us with a pregnancy now and not during the years that we would have thought we would have gotten pregnant.  His timing.  

So...there you have it.  God is good, He knows what He's doing and I'm trying my best to sit back and let Him run this.  On most days, I'm certainly not doing it very graciously...but I'm trying :)

Blessings,

Kimberly