The World's Biggest Garage Sale!

To say our garage sale was a success is an understatement! We are completely overwhelmed and humbled by the amount of items donated, the man hours our friends and family put into pulling this off, Mandie's hospitality, opening her home to all of this chaos for over a month, and for the shoppers who came and supported our cause!

We spent over a month collecting donated items, organizing and pricing them and preparing for this gigantic beast of a sale.

As the sale was getting closer, and donations were pouring in, we came up with the idea to do a presale for the friends and family who have supported us, prayed for us, and donated. We wanted them to have first dibs on the goods, and also wanted to be able to spend a little time with them. This turned out to be such a fun night! Despite the torrential downpour, we had a fabulous turnout and so many people were able to come that were not going to be able to come Saturday. I am so not a morning person, so a night time garage sale was right up my alley! We "opened" for about 3 hours, and during that time, we raised just about $1,000! We were blown away!!! Most everyone who shopped paid over and above what the stickers said, and graciously donated their "change" that they should have gotten back. Boy did it add up quick! 

The next morning we got started at 5:30 (UGH! Did I mention that I'm not a morning person?). We hit the ground running! We had 50 foot of tent set up in the driveway full of stuff, the entire garage packed, and the back porch was our "clothing department". We had well over 1,000 items of clothing, at least 500 books, a couple hundred DVD's, more toys than we could count, and housewares coming out of our ears! By about 10 min to 7, people started showing up . From then on out, it was a constant flow of people! Our friends Brittany, Ashely and Reggie came and set up a tent with hot dogs, baked good, snow cones and popcorn. How cool is that?! That seemed to be a favorite among our shoppers!

We decided to pack up around 1ish. We started the final tally on cash and it was $2,784 (presale and day of)!! We were completely blown away!! This went way beyond our expectations.

A couple of months ago, my adoption buddy Karen (http://smithfamilyimport.com/) and I sat down to brainstorm fundraising ideas. The garage sale was the big joint one we decided focus on first. Sitting at The Blue Door coffee shop, with our sweet little nieces (Sophie kept calling it a "tea party" with her "friends"...her "friends being Karen's nieces, who she was too shy to speak to), we took notes and on my piece of paper, I wrote down $2,000. I was claiming that we would make $2,000 to split at our garage sale. I was being very ambitious with that number, but figured it wouldn't hurt to put it out there. Well, God had a lot to teach me with that number...

My goal was $2,000 ($1,000 each). When someone asked me what number they could specifically pray for, that's the number I gave them. The sales from the garage sale added up to more than that, roughly $2,800. We split it down the middle equaling $1,400 each (WOW!). After things settled down, I opened a few cards that people had come by and dropped off for Richard and I. Little did I know, those cards contained checks and cash in them. I counted those up, and the total of that was $675. WOAH. So, we had our $1,400 from our half of the sale, and an additional $675 in personal donations....bringing us up to right over $2,000!!! I feel like God was showing us a few different things here. He was showing me that if I pray with an expectant heart, He will deliver. He was showing us that His provision is beyond perfect, and goes exceedingly above what we can ask or imagine. Most importantly, He was just reaffirming that HE'S GOT THIS. Anytime worry creeps in, I need to cling to this. 

But wait, it gets even better...Richard and I talked about it and decided we wanted to tithe 10% of our profit. $200. Part of me felt a little sting, to be honest. But we both felt it was the right thing to do. Roughly 30 minutes later, someone very generously pledged a $200 gift (which I received in the mail a few days later!! THANK YOU!!!). Brings us right back to $2,000. Obviously this is not all about math equations and numbers, but about God showing His hand here, teaching us and reminding us that this is His plan. It's always been His plan. He has the finances worked out, He has our baby picked out...He knows all of the details. This isn't about us. Of course, we are reaping the benefits by expanding our family, but it's about so much more. It's for His glory. It's about reaching people for Christ. It's about the body of Christ, His church, coming together. That has been one of my favorite things so far. Seeing how people have rallied around us, donated, prayed for us, and supported us. People that have been a big part of our lives for years, new friends, people we are really close to, and the ones who take you by surprise with their encouragement and donations. This precious baby, a stranger to us right now, is already well loved and prayed for before he/she is even here. We want to be a blessing to this child, and we are already being blessed beyond measure by the process, and can't wait to see what is in store next!!