Showers of Blessings

When we started the adoption process, we knew the cost of our adoption was going to be large.  We are extremely blessed in that we happen to have the funds for our adoption.,  There is an adoption tax credit that will give us some back (not quite half), which is wonderful.  You still have to pay everything up front before you can claim the tax credit though, and you receive the tax credit over a period of two years.  So, we knew out bank account was going to be hit hard.  This has sent me into panic mode more than once, and in fact, has been the main reason for my (not David’s) second thoughts about adoption.

That being said, David and I have had some serious talks about fundraising.  Our church’s adoption ministry has a program that can help with fundraising, and of course there are several other ways to help raise the money needed for adoption.  I was seriously considering applying to our adoption ministries program, but David felt differently.  After that talk, I came to the conclusion that if someone wanted to donate, then we would gladly accept it as every penny helps.   I was not going to mention any sort of donations, etc to anyone unless they approached me about it first.

At the end of 2012 our small group leaders approached us and said they wanted to have a garage sale so they could clean out some stuff, and that they felt led to give us all the profit from the garage sale.  That was very humbling.  We did accept their offer, as we had stuff we needed to get rid of as well. 

We set the date back in January, so I put a post on my facebook wall, as well as our neighborhood facebook page (coincidentally there are several couples in our neighborhood who are a part of our adoption group at church who are going through/have been through adoption, or are foster parents) asking if anyone has anything they would be willing to donate to our garage sale.  We had a few neighbors who donated stuff (including one I have never met).  Our small group leader also asked her neighbors for donations as well.  We had no clue what was about to happen.

Stuff trickled in the weeks before the garage sale.   David did a lot of work sorting through the stuff, and placing some of it on craig’s list (as he felt some items would sell better on CL).  By Wednesday of this week, though, it seems like stuff really started coming in.  Our small group members donated items, friends donated things, neighbors—it was coming from all over.  I had no clue what was about to happen on Friday, though.

I spoke with Jaime (our small group leader) on Friday, and she informed me she had pulled down all her girl’s baby clothes and toys from their loft and there was quite the abundance of stuff.  A friend that used to be in our small group was going to consign some baby items, but felt led to donate them to our sale as well.  Some of Jaime’s neighbors came over and donated items—people I have never met before (in fact a couple of them came back during the sale on Sat with more donated items).  Her neighbors across the street (who used to be in our group) donated a couch, patio table with 4 chairs, other patio chairs, and a patio umbrella.  We were blown away by what people donated, and humbled (to say the least).  Luckily my Mom was able to come over earlier than planned Friday afternoon (I have an awesome Mom!), and I headed that way to start pricing things and getting them ready for the sale.  We worked for 6 hours Friday (okay, minus the 20 or so minutes we stopped to eat dinner) at pricing and getting things ready to go for Saturday.  David got up super early Friday morning and put up some signs, and then finished putting up the remainder Friday afternoon (and then came over to price stuff as well).

We got up early Saturday morning and headed over there to get set up.  The sale started at 7am, and people trickled in until about 9:30.  Then it seemed the floodgates opened (I guess it had warmed up enough by then for people).  I wish I had a clue as to how many people came to the sale—it was a lot!  We had such great success that we decided to do it again Sunday (it was actually Wes and Jaime’s idea)!  Everything was already set up on the tables, so all we had to do was move them in and out of the garage.  We also decided to have a ½ off sale in order to move as much stuff as possible to make clean up easier.

We started at 10am on Sunday, but had an influx of people about 9:45.  It was definitely a lot quieter on Sunday, but we did have our busier spells.  Everything quieted down about 2pm, so we cleaned up.  It was definitely worth our efforts on Sunday!

Anyway, we are so grateful and thankful to everyone who donated items (including those who donated baked items as we did a mini bake sale as well).  We were very humbled by the willingness of people to donate items, as well as those who made monetary donations.   The words of encouragement and prayers offered by people that came to the sale blew me away (so many people’s faces lit up when they found out the sale was to help fund out adoption).  I know several people want to know the total (especially those who graciously donated).  The total over the 2 days was $1298.95 (so, David says $1300).  God has proven to us, yet again, that he definitely wants us to adopt.  He obviously has a plan for our little one, and definitely wants that child to be a part of the Whichard family.