A Little Update...

This is one of those posts where I honestly do not know where to start. It's been a whirlwind of a week. Our RR fund just keeps on growing and somehow we made it through another long weekend of garage sales. As I mentioned before, we made a total of $5,000 in  last year's 5 weekend, marathon of garage sales. We were hoping to make $1,000 last weekend. Makes mathmatical sense, right? Well, we did make the $1,000... on the FIRST day. The total for the entire weekend? A little over $2,000!!! UNBELIEVABLE.

Only God.

Matt started getting calls last week from people to come pick up their donations, so he and Alex borrowed a friends trailer and worked their hiney's off from sun up to sun down... Monday-Thursday. Thank goodness this is Matt's slow business season. That was just another God thing.

When the items started rolling in, I wondered how some of it would sell. We got a few items that I almost felt embarassed asking money for. We always put boxes of free items out by the curb, so I had it in my head the things that I was going to put down there. Would you believe that every single one of those items sold?! The first was a lovely futon that had seen better days. As soon as Matt pulled it off the trailer I told him to put it by the curb. 10 minutes later we had a group of early shoppers walk up and ask how much we wanted for the futon. We sold the crazy thing for $20! This happened all weekend long. Each and every item that I thought would never sell sold. I felt like God was reminding me all weekend long that He is in control and I just need to back off.

On Friday I had a guy stop in and he started telling me about he and his wife's journey to have children. Unable to conceive, they have decided to adopt a baby, domestically. They have just finished the home study process and are starting to put their portfolio together. He mentioned that they were going to be having a garage sale to raise funds as well. So I told him that  whatever was left from ours, he could take for theirs.

Saturday afternoon came and this is the best part... Around 4:30 we just start letting people take whatever they can fit in their car for free. It's so fun!!!

A friend from church stopped by to hang out during that time and before he left he handed Matt a check and asked if he could call an employee of his to come by and take some stuff too. We said, "of course!" And so Jose and his family came that evening from about an hour away to load up their truck with bikes and clothes and furniture... it was like Christmas around here. He had to make several trips.

Sunday morning I was home with a sick child and I heard a knock on the door. It was the man working on the septic tank across the street. He had noticed the box of free stuff at the street and asked if he could take a few things. Shortly thereafter, I headed out for the store and while I was gone Matt came home from church. He opened up the garage and told David (the septic tank man) and his wife (Sylvia, who had come along for the ride) to have whatever they wanted. They took as many things as they could fit in their little car and then went home to get their son, daughter-in-law and grandkids to come back and get more. Sylvia was so excited. She kept thanking me and telling me what a blessing we were to their family. She said they had no way of providing Christmas for their family and they were so depressed that they didn't even want to go to work that morning. Imagine if they hadn't. God had a plan for them too. He takes care of all of our needs. We stood in the driveway while the men loaded up their new sofa and we talked about the goodness of the Lord and how so many times we think He's not hearing us, or He's taking too long to come to our rescue and just when we think He's not there, he shows up and knocks our sox off!

After Sylvia and David left, Wes and his wife came with his family to take the rest of the things home with them. Their garage sale will be in a few weeks. Praying that it is a huge success for them!

I can't tell you how many people have supported us this week because we don't exactly know unless you've told us. If you have donated through RR, please leave us a comment here on my blog because they don't tell us. All we see is what you see in the sidebar. We just want to know who is donating so that we can say thank you.

We had our "travel update" phone call meeting with our agency last night. Our TA is enroute from the CCCWA to Birmingham as I type this! We won't know anything till the first of next week because of the holiday though. Sometime by the end of next week we should have our consolate date and sometime around the 2nd or 3rd weekend of December we should be on a plane to China!!!

There is so much more to share, but it's just too much and I'm guessing you just want to skip to the bottom and see the pictures!:)

update on Ashlyn:)

Abby is sitting in her car, reading the newspaper. Check out the little guy on the floor! :)



Matt with our awesome "Tribe"! We love you guys!!!

Abby and her teacher, who I hear is a sweetheart!

 

Alex and Matt, looking kinda tired:)

This was our garage at the beginning of last week. Full to capacity and unorganized.

The lovely futon:) We had so much stuff, it didn't all fit in the  garage.

Ta-da! Nice and neat, thanks to my great in-laws who worked with us all weekend long!

This is an entire wardrobe of donations that I kept for Abby! Yay God! Thanks Ralph family!!!

One more neat thing happened a couple weeks ago that I have to share though...

I got an email from a gal from the Shenzhen (Abby's orphanage) yahoo group I belong to and she told me to check out her wall on FB because she thought Abby was in one of her videos. They were just there a few months ago to get their little girl. Only problem is I wasn't on FB, so I had to join. You know how I've felt about FB. I had decided I wasn't ever joining for various reasons. Well, this was all it took for me to drink the koolaid. Turns out it wasn't Abby in the video, but she also introduced me to an American lady that now lives over there and volunteers in Abby's orphanage. So she friended me and sent me a couple of new pictures and a little update on our Abby girl:)

The blessings just keep flowing y'all. God is so good.

To those of you who have given to us in any way, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We are overwhelmed by what God is doing through you all. It's been the most thrilling ride of our lives.

There is still more to share...

I'll update again soon.

Keep the prayers coming. We want a Tuesday consolate date! Please pray for this!!!

Blessings,
Rebecca