Showers of Blessings

by Steve

God's has blessed us so much during this garage sale! We are still tallying up the total money that was raised, but I do want to praise God for all the grace He has poured out on us...

First we were amazed by all the donations people gave us! They started piling up as soon as we let everyone know about the garage sale. By the day of the sale, our garage was bursting with quality merchandise. Almost 20 families donated items for the sale before we had to stop taking donations and start organizing the store. Thank you all for your things. God blessed us greatly through them.

God blessed us with lots of help to bring this to pass. Some people loaned us vehicles, others helped price items. From setup to clean up, people helped with getting small bills to make change and baking cookies to sell. This was our first time doing a garage sale, and all of your help made it much easier.

Speaking of people, we want to publicly praise God for the Bala family! God's grace to them is evident and we where blessed by His grace flowing through them. They didn't simply allow us to use their home for the sale, they trained us in the art of doing a garage-sale! I cannot list all the ways they helped us. More than all of it, we deeply appreciated the genuine fellowship around Christ and His grace.  Praise God! and thank you, Colin and Dana, from the bottom of our hearts.

We were blown away by all the sales! On Friday the weather was drizzly, chilly, and damp, but God brought people who wanted our stuff! We sold quite a bit that first day.
Saturday, opening time (8:00) found us at the breakfast table relaxing around our coffee. A punctual customer rang the doorbell and asked when we were going to start! The people came steadily the rest of the morning.
We did not sell every single item, but all the big things did sell so that we did not have too much to clean up at the end of the day. God showed his blessings again, bringing the right people at the right time to sell the right item for the right price. He is at peace who serves a sovereign God who is his Father.

It was a blessing to see the familiar faces that came to visit. We thank God for the support of our church family, and we thank each of you that came to show your support.

We were also blessed to meet several new families that were very supportive of our adoption. There were some 8 strangers who shared their personal adoption story. Finally, at the end of today, a friend of the Bala's stopped by who have just finished adopting. Eager to help us, we exchanged contact information and will be building a relationship with some new friends. I was not expecting this level of support from the community, and God blessed us by bringing the greater Body of Christ around us at this time.

So, the money we raised, while it was our main purpose, it was only the beginning of all the blessings God showered on us.  We are exhausted from the work, but we have been built up and greatly encouraged! God used many different means to funnel His grace into our lives, and our hearts are full of praise and gratitude.